Every time I see one of these threads about bad HS coaches, I wince. But then I smile because these are the people I'm going to be coaching against.
That said, I sort of understand coaches not immediately jumping to agree with advice from parents. A few months ago at one of our open field sessions, a few junior high girls who had never played before were tossing the ball around. None of them knew how to throw. I saw this, and I had already mentally made plans to start them on the Wasserman High Level Throwing program in the future.
A guy comes up to me out of the blue, asks what level they are, etc. I explain how it's open field for Junior High/High School. He mentions their throwing, and I say that I'm aware and we just haven't done any instruction on that with them. He then tells me that he coaches a travel team (I think he said 10U, may have said 12U), and if he were me, he'd start doing some wrist flick drills. I gave the ol' nod and smile, then told an AC "That's exactly what we're not going to do" once he left.
Thankfully this guy wasn't a parent of one of the girls there, but just a guy at the park trying to be helpful (and he's a TB coach, so let's not pretend like all TB coaches are good; my experience watching my sisters as they grew up suggests plenty of them are just as clueless as HS coaches).
I've also had two players who would stare at their grip on the bat for a good long while before each swing. I asked them why (I knew, but still asked). They were lining up their knuckles the way their parent/guardian told them to. Both were lining up door-knocking knuckles, even though it was uncomfortable and awkward and made them a worse hitter. I told them both to grip the bat the way that felt comfortable, without looking, and both naturally went with a box grip and their hitting immediately improved. I don't look forward to their dads (one may have been an uncle) finding out I made this change.
The point is that, yes, HS coaches need to be more open to the possibility that there's a better way to teach (or that they've been teaching something incorrectly). But coaches do not know what parents actually know (most are not nearly as knowledgeable as the folks who post here), and they likely have random dolts giving them unsolicited coaching advice all the time. I'm not saying you shouldn't reach out to them, but I think you're a lot more likely to get through to some coaches if you understand that they're used to tuning out the noise from parents because usually it is noise.
That said, I sort of understand coaches not immediately jumping to agree with advice from parents. A few months ago at one of our open field sessions, a few junior high girls who had never played before were tossing the ball around. None of them knew how to throw. I saw this, and I had already mentally made plans to start them on the Wasserman High Level Throwing program in the future.
A guy comes up to me out of the blue, asks what level they are, etc. I explain how it's open field for Junior High/High School. He mentions their throwing, and I say that I'm aware and we just haven't done any instruction on that with them. He then tells me that he coaches a travel team (I think he said 10U, may have said 12U), and if he were me, he'd start doing some wrist flick drills. I gave the ol' nod and smile, then told an AC "That's exactly what we're not going to do" once he left.
Thankfully this guy wasn't a parent of one of the girls there, but just a guy at the park trying to be helpful (and he's a TB coach, so let's not pretend like all TB coaches are good; my experience watching my sisters as they grew up suggests plenty of them are just as clueless as HS coaches).
I've also had two players who would stare at their grip on the bat for a good long while before each swing. I asked them why (I knew, but still asked). They were lining up their knuckles the way their parent/guardian told them to. Both were lining up door-knocking knuckles, even though it was uncomfortable and awkward and made them a worse hitter. I told them both to grip the bat the way that felt comfortable, without looking, and both naturally went with a box grip and their hitting immediately improved. I don't look forward to their dads (one may have been an uncle) finding out I made this change.
The point is that, yes, HS coaches need to be more open to the possibility that there's a better way to teach (or that they've been teaching something incorrectly). But coaches do not know what parents actually know (most are not nearly as knowledgeable as the folks who post here), and they likely have random dolts giving them unsolicited coaching advice all the time. I'm not saying you shouldn't reach out to them, but I think you're a lot more likely to get through to some coaches if you understand that they're used to tuning out the noise from parents because usually it is noise.