Frustration with high school ball

As of 2018, USA Softball (ASA) has Instituted a mandatory 2 hour or so class (SafeSport) on , bullying, sexual abuse, sexual misconduct, sexual harassment and a couple of others such as mandatory reporting rules. This is NOT considered "okay" by any stretch of the imagination according to the course I just took as far as picking on individual players in front of a group of their peers. This is considered bullying. Also, I never would have done this and quite honestly, had I seen it in person or any of the other examples posted, I would report it to the school board and if I got no satisfaction there, the authorities and newspapers.

CoachJD said:

I get it. And like I said, I totally understand being the type of player who does not react well to this type of coach. I'm not wired to react to that style of coaching in a positive way, and it appears your DD isn't either. That's OK. It's the coach's job to figure out the best way to reach her.

It's not good if he intimidates her. What's unclear if he's trying to do that or if it's a byproduct of the conflict of styles. If it's the former, I'd say get away from the coach. If it's the latter, then this is an opportunity to figure out how to work with conflicting styles.

As for the pitch calling, that seems like a perfect chance for your daughter to talk to him. If she asks the coach to work the change in a little more, you'll get an idea of how easy he'll be to work with.

Click to expand...

What is weird that in previous games he used the change a lot and it was her biggest strike out pitch. Not sure why he was not calling it in this game especially with the hitters hitting her fastball. I agree it should be something she talks to him about.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

. I’m afraid that her fear of messing up will affect her pitching for now on, I hope not. She is usually cool as a cucumber out there.

Click to expand...

I feel your pain. DD#2 is very competitive, very passionate but she thrives on encouragement. "Tough love" doesn't work on her. Her varsity coach really does like her, but that doesn't prevent him from hanging her out to dry. He also is an assistant football coach. Means well, but really doesn't understand what he's working with when it comes to coaching or motivating female players. Hard on her, because she's a good player, but gives a free pass to his favorites. DD was getting very messed up and the only thing that kept her sanity was her decision not to come back again.

obbay said:

I feel your pain. DD#2 is very competitive, very passionate but she thrives on encouragement. "Tough love" doesn't work on her. Her varsity coach really does like her, but that doesn't prevent him from hanging her out to dry. He also is an assistant football coach. Means well, but really doesn't understand what he's working with when it comes to coaching or motivating female players. Hard on her, because she's a good player, but gives a free pass to his favorites. DD was getting very messed up and the only thing that kept her sanity was her decision not to come back again.

Click to expand...

Wow! I hope that is not the route my dd has to take. She also thrives on positive reinforcement. She is so happy when she gets compliments and it makes her work even harder. Some of the best coaches she has had were the ones that didn’t scream and yell but used encouragement instead. She had a travel coach last fall that put her in a game and stuck with her even when she had some struggles. She came through with the win and it meant the world to her.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Pitch calling is another thing. DD has been getting top level pitching instruction year round. what qualifies a coach to call pitches when the pitcher may be fine on her own? In some cases its the fact that they are Men so of course the know better than a teenage girl. That being said, DD likes theway some coaches call pitches, others not so much. DD's first varsity scrimmage as a freshman, its cold and sleeting and she is taking pitch calls from a coach that is resulting in bomb after bomb. after repeated nagging from both the pitcher and catcher, he gives up and lets them call their own game. they proceed to get 7 straight outs and get pulled. (not a bad thing, it was a scrimmage and her hand was bright red from the cold). The senior pitcher and her parents HATED the way he called pitches.

our coach will not allow a pitcher to shake off a call. his first season with this team, he loved the catcher and let her call all the games. she had an attitude and didn't like the #1 pitcher, so she would deliberately call pitches to make the pitcher look bad, regardless of the outcome of the game. Pitcher gave up the team and wound up not playing in college. she was a good pitcher and I think HS would have been a great time for her had the circumstances been different.

I hate to say it but some people have terrible communication skills and should never work with young people.
Case point:
D's Freshman year, she was the starting pitcher. The other pitcher was the assistant coach's student. In the assistants coach view, her pupil should of been the starting pitcher.
Sometimes in the season, a friend of mine that owned a batting center was looking for a pitching instructor. I knew the assistant coach pitched in college and gave lessons. The batting center was the only one near the high school. I introduced them to one another. A clinic was given by AC at the center. Next thing I knew, she never returned to the center. Come to find out, the AC was bad mouthing my daughter to the owner of the batting cage. The owner being a friend and enjoys being around D refused to do any more clinics or to allow AC to give lessons in her center afterwards.
Varsity pitcher was injured, the head coach asked if D could come help Varsity, AC told VC, D and me that she didn't think D was ready and was going to send the other pitcher to play varsity. Varsity pitcher ended up playing. AC goes on to tell me that D is disrespectful because she doesn't make eye contact with her when being spoken to. A person with Aspergers feels uncomfortable with eye contact. We have worked on how to appear to make eye contact without doing so.

And my question (to follow up on Crystal's post) is how are these types of coaches/people allowed to get and keep these positions of trust and influence? Are we really that hard up for coaches in the softball world? Is it a matter of not wanting to speak up or a lack of confidence in our own knowledge that prevents parents or other coaches from saying something or taking corrective action? Is there no person in charge who is accessible and open to input on these matters? How did we get to this place in our society (yes, I realize it's not just a problem in our little world of softball and there are valuable life lessons to be learned from dealing with all types of people)? Our kids are only kids for a short time, should they have to get crushed repeatedly by some dysfunctional jackass who shouldn't even be around people let alone be coaching kids? We paid our fees, keep your head down, don't question authority, do what your told because that's just the way it is and finish the season.

Sorry for the rant, just a rhetorical question I guess. We've had good and bad coaching and team experiences across multiple sports at various levels of competition over several generations.

YOCOACH said:

As of 2018, USA Softball (ASA) has Instituted a mandatory 2 hour or so class (SafeSport) on , bullying, sexual abuse, sexual misconduct, sexual harassment and a couple of others such as mandatory reporting rules. This is NOT considered "okay" by any stretch of the imagination according to the course I just took as far as picking on individual players in front of a group of their peers. This is considered bullying. Also, I never would have done this and quite honestly, had I seen it in person or any of the other examples posted, I would report it to the school board and if I got no satisfaction there, the authorities and newspapers.

Click to expand...

He talked to her in the circle with the catcher and nobody else heard it. It doesn’t sound like he said anything that wasn’t true. There’s nothing about shouting or other antics. We’re hearing his words after going through the DD and then the Mom. Pretty safe bet something was missed in the translation. The biggest complaints seem to be that coach treated kids differently, pitcher felt singled out and she was pulled after the team made errors. I’ll bet you’ve done the same thing hundreds of times. Unless there’s lots more we haven’t heard, I just can’t see a case of bullying here.

MNDad said:

He talked to her in the circle with the catcher and nobody else heard it. It doesn’t sound like he said anything that wasn’t true. There’s nothing about shouting or other antics. We’re hearing his words after going through the DD and then the Mom. Pretty safe bet something was missed in the translation. The biggest complaints seem to be that coach treated kids differently, pitcher felt singled out and she was pulled after the team made errors. I’ll bet you’ve done the same thing hundreds of times. Unless there’s lots more we haven’t heard, I just can’t see a case of bullying here.

Click to expand...

She wasn’t pulled, she proceeded to get out of the inning. I think she handled the situation well, and didn’t break down until later with me. In my opinion the coach was frustrated over the situation and took it out on my dd which is not ok.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Tatonka said:

And my question (to follow up on Crystal's post) is how are these types of coaches/people allowed to get and keep these positions of trust and influence? Are we really that hard up for coaches in the softball world? Is it a matter of not wanting to speak up or a lack of confidence in our own knowledge that prevents parents or other coaches from saying something or taking corrective action? Is there no person in charge who is accessible and open to input on these matters? How did we get to this place in our society (yes, I realize it's not just a problem in our little world of softball and there are valuable life lessons to be learned from dealing with all types of people)? Our kids are only kids for a short time, should they have to get crushed repeatedly by some dysfunctional jackass who shouldn't even be around people let alone be coaching kids? We paid our fees, keep your head down, don't question authority, do what your told because that's just the way it is and finish the season.

Sorry for the rant, just a rhetorical question I guess. We've had good and bad coaching and team experiences across multiple sports at various levels of competition over several generations.

Click to expand...

Look around you and you will see plenty of "dysfunctional jackass"....just as adults, we have more experience dealing with this type of person vs a young adult/child. I don't know how many times a person left me scratching my head and wonder how in the world they survived this long.