Dealing with a delusional parent who thinks he is a coach

benny & trojan,

There have been a lot of mistakes made along the way with this pitcher.

The first is with the pitching coach. There is no way you show a pitcher that young 7 pitches without her mastering the first one you taught them. There is a progression each pitcher must go through in the learning process. You can't skip steps. Who knows? The The dad may be pressuring the PC to "teach" the girl the pitches. Only the PC knows the answer to that question. As you've said he's a respected PC. I know I've had a few parents I've had to set straight. I usually don't see them after that because it's not what they want to hear. The PC may be doing what the client wants to keep from losing the revenue.

The second is the dad who has no clue what's going on so he's emulating what he thinks the pitching coach wants done. He's trying to learn with his DD. That is a recipe for disaster in most cases.

The third is your not understanding the learning to pitch process. You knew the father's sports background and still let him in the dugout to begin with. You've been coaching the team for multiple seasons with success against travel teams. Did you doubt your abilities when it came to pitching? I would guess you'd do a better job at calling pitches than the dad.

When it comes to learning new pitches and incorporating them into a game the process is rather straight forward. When the girl is throwing a certain pitch well regularly in practice you bring it into the games in situations where making a mistake with it will not hurt the team. The 3-2 changeup can be thrown if there are two outs and no runners on. If the batter walks it's not good, but it's not bad either and the pitcher gets some experience trying to throw it with pressure on.

The softball world is a lot smaller than people think. If this dad keeps on the same track he will run his DD through several travel teams for various reasons. Sooner or later his reputation will precede his DD and none of the travel coaches will want anything to do with her. I've seen it happen before where a good player is passed over due to a parent. And the parent usually has no clue.

Sparky Guy said:

benny & trojan,
There have been a lot of mistakes made along the way with this pitcher.

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There is no denying the mistakes we made here as coaches. Listening to the advice on this board is our attempt at cleaning up the mess we helped make.

Trojans29 said:

There is no denying the mistakes we made here as coaches. Listening to the advice on this board is our attempt at cleaning up the mess we helped make.

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Has the girl been back after the dad was booted from the dugout?

but the pitcher is getting to the age where the name on the back of the uniform is more important the name on the front of the uniform.

I'm curious as to what line is drawn to determine this?

Trojans29 said:

I see what you are saying, and I'm sure Knight meant something similar, but we all know that girls specialize as they get older. There are different arm angles and throwing motions used in the infield vs outfield. It sounds like you are implying you could pop a good 2B in the outfield and have no drop off in effectiveness over the normal OF. We all know that isn't true. And teaching a drop step and chasing a ball is different from properly judging and being able to catch a deep fly on the run. There are definitely more overlapping skills at the positions other than P and C, so if that is what you are saying, I agree. Also, a good ball player that had put as much time into pitching or catching as they did into fielding and throwing would be competent at those positions as well. I'm not arguing the unique skills, but as a coach of all girls on the team, I can't let myself be convinced that one position is more important than another. Pitcher is important, but so is the RF if a team pounds balls that way all day.

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Sorry...your flat out wrong. I have had stud middle IFers and they easily interchange with my OFers. Who do you think catches those short balls over their shoulder when you have your Ofers playing at the fence. Once the drop step and ball tracking skill is learned and maintained, it's not very different from IF to OF other than the ball trajectories which are easily learned through repetition. Different throwing motions? Absolutely, but those are also easily learned. I've also gone the other way easily enough. As a matter of fact, I've taken my former CF and taught her the SS position in about 4 weeks of once a week two hour practices this year. Talk about a stud! We have 19 double plays in 15 games due to her, which, as you know, is nothing short of phenomenal; especially in SB.

And no, the same time spent on fielding and throwing would be nowhere close to giving you a competent pitcher or catcher. You need to understand that the average, and I mean average (skill level wise) Pitcher or Catcher works 2-3 hours a week plus lessons on their skilled positions exclusively, plus working on hitting, plus hitting lessons, plus working at their fielding when not playing their primary skilled position. The really good ones spend 3-4 hours plus lessons and the destined to be great ones usually spend 5+ hours on their skills and they go year round. I can guarantee you that the two hours a week, twice a week practices that combine hitting for a half hour, fielding, baserunning and IF/OF specific drills for 30 minutes each would not produce even a competent pitcher or catcher. Believe me, as a former Pitchers parent and Catching instructor I know what kind of work it takes. I have my share of 16U/18U catchers taking lessons and coming to my clinics who only practiced a minimal amount and now can't even play their primary positions at a mid TB level because they lack the skills. I have catchers who can't/won't drop and block because it takes many hundreds of hours of practice to a) learn the proper mechanics, b) learn the pitch recognition and c) maintain the skill once learned because, like pitches learned and mastered, it takes hours and hours of practice to maintain them. That's just one catching skill mind you out of say 30 (arbitrary number).

Then of course, there's the actual learning the mental mastery of their craft and game situational awareness from their positions as well as building a successful bond and understanding as a battery. Both understand that THEY are the Alpha and the Omega of a high level softball game. If you had an absolute stud D1 pitcher and a great catcher that excels in receiving and dropping and blocking, you'd need only two players on the field against average competition assuming no small ball. You put an average pitcher and catcher against average competition and now you need all 9. What's that tell you?

What it comes down to is, with any of the other 7 positions on the field, any athlete can be taught a new position in a couple of weeks and with say as an example, 50 hours be an outstanding asset at that position. I do this every year on my 18U showcase team to fill holes and I've found KnightSB is absolutely correct. This same athlete putting the same amount of time into pitching probably wouldn't even have the basic mechanics in place to get a delivered ball in the same zip code of HP. As a catcher, after 50 hours they'd end up being able to receive 2 out of 10 pitches without dropping them from the mitt or completely missing them altogether because of the movement of the pitches. The two would probably be the two fastballs that were called down the middle.

YOCOACH said:

Sorry...

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We are talking apples and oranges here. You are saying you can take any of your 18U showcase girls and pop them in any position with little drop off. If I had a team of all of the best girls from the whole surrounding area that were all already in high school, that may me true for me as well. Instead, what I have is a group of talented girls, all from the same tiny school district, in the same grade, 9 of which could still play 12U. They happen to be good enough to play at a mid local travel ball level in an area that isn't exactly a hotbed for sending girls to college with scholarships. The way you make it sound, I would have been better off taking all the girls when I had them in 8U and developed them all into high end pitchers and catchers. If I had, by this time I could throw a bunch of fence posts (metaphorically) out in the other positions and still be fine. As a coach of a team, and not just pitchers and catchers, I can't get on board with this idea.

Maybe I could have stated it better, as I didn't mean to try and diminish the work pitchers and catchers put in to perfect their craft. Maybe the way I should have said it is that I can't treat pitchers, or catchers for that, matter differently than the rest of the team. They (or their parents) chose to be pitchers, and should know that may mean they have regular practice, along with pitching lessons etc. We have been unable to work on bunt coverages, signs, first and third situations, etc. because she is missing normal practice for pitching lessons. This is what I meant by pitchers aren't special. If I let her miss practice, even if she is working on pitching, it sends a bad message.

Instead, what I have is a group of talented girls, all from the same tiny school district, in the same grade, 9 of which could still play 12U. They happen to be good enough to play at a mid local travel ball level in an area that isn't exactly a hotbed for sending girls to college with scholarships.

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I think this does a lot to explain the delusional dad. He doesn't know how much he doesn't know. You know where your girls are at and how to handle the team correctly.

Did he remove his DD from your team?

Sparky Guy said:

Did he remove his DD from your team?

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She is currently still with the team. We have a tournament coming up in 2 weeks, and our first practice since talking to him is tonight. Her mom did text to say she will be at practice, but it will be interesting to see how he is during the tournament.

Trojans29 said:

I see what you are saying, and I'm sure Knight meant something similar, but we all know that girls specialize as they get older. There are different arm angles and throwing motions used in the infield vs outfield. It sounds like you are implying you could pop a good 2B in the outfield and have no drop off in effectiveness over the normal OF. We all know that isn't true. And teaching a drop step and chasing a ball is different from properly judging and being able to catch a deep fly on the run. There are definitely more overlapping skills at the positions other than P and C, so if that is what you are saying, I agree. Also, a good ball player that had put as much time into pitching or catching as they did into fielding and throwing would be competent at those positions as well. I'm not arguing the unique skills, but as a coach of all girls on the team, I can't let myself be convinced that one position is more important than another. Pitcher is important, but so is the RF if a team pounds balls that way all day.

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I didn't say there wouldn't be a drop-off in effectiveness, I said "reasonable competency". Players who have lots of experience at one position start learning the tiny details that help them play the position more effectively. That said, it's also possible that the 2B might be a better CF than the CF, but serves the team best at 2B.

As for importance of players, I look at which positions are getting the most opportunities, the specialized skills required to play the position at a high level, and the damage possibilities if they error. For the most part, an IF error costs a base. An OF error can easily cost multiple bases. If the team you're playing is pounding the ball to the OF consistently, OFs become significantly more important in a hurry.

Trojans29 said:

We are talking apples and oranges here. You are saying you can take any of your 18U showcase girls and pop them in any position with little drop off. If I had a team of all of the best girls from the whole surrounding area that were all already in high school, that may me true for me as well. Instead, what I have is a group of talented girls, all from the same tiny school district, in the same grade, 9 of which could still play 12U. They happen to be good enough to play at a mid local travel ball level in an area that isn't exactly a hotbed for sending girls to college with scholarships. The way you make it sound, I would have been better off taking all the girls when I had them in 8U and developed them all into high end pitchers and catchers. If I had, by this time I could throw a bunch of fence posts (metaphorically) out in the other positions and still be fine. As a coach of a team, and not just pitchers and catchers, I can't get on board with this idea.

Maybe I could have stated it better, as I didn't mean to try and diminish the work pitchers and catchers put in to perfect their craft. Maybe the way I should have said it is that I can't treat pitchers, or catchers for that, matter differently than the rest of the team. They (or their parents) chose to be pitchers, and should know that may mean they have regular practice, along with pitching lessons etc. We have been unable to work on bunt coverages, signs, first and third situations, etc. because she is missing normal practice for pitching lessons. This is what I meant by pitchers aren't special. If I let her miss practice, even if she is working on pitching, it sends a bad message.

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Okay...maybe you mis-stated what your intent was. I absolutely agree that you cannot treat them differently as far as team requirements go. However, be aware that I also coach a 10U TB team that is very successful as well as an 8U baseball rec team that is similarly very successful. I've still found that other than the pitcher and catcher, the players are interchangeable. A true athlete can learn any position any time. Granted, not every player your dealt at the rec level is an athlete. However, do you think college coaches are recruiting by position? Heck no! They are recruiting top notch athletes. It doesn't matter what position they grew up playing. What matters is that they can hit against the better pitchers across the country and that they are true athletes able to adapt to new conditions, positions and circumstances. They believe, as I and knightsb do, as well as many others on this board, that true athletes at any of the other 7 positions are interchangeable. AGAIN, Let me say this....true athletes are interchangeable. At the rec level, you may have been dealt a lower hand. There's not much you can do about that other than do your job, coach them up and suck it up. If your rec team is as good as you say it is, then maybe it's time for your parents to, " Put up or shut up." The only way your team will get better is to play better competition. Getting your A$$ kicked time and time again against better TB teams is a great motivator. If the parents don't want to travel, say goodbye and find new players that do. No matter what you and your teams' situation is as far as community size goes, you have built a limited reputation as a successful coach at the rec level. You might be surprised who you can pull in. That's how I started as well as many others on here and I have players on my team that drive 3+ hours just for practice. Many on here have players that fly in or drive in for their tournaments and never practice with their team at all.