Frustration with high school ball

Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch

Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.

Jun 14, 2016
270
0
My dd transferred to a new high school. It was looking to be a very good year with her being one of the top 2 pitchers and getting a lot of time in the circle. We are 3 games Into the season and it is not looking too good for her. 1st game she pitched the jv game and then a tournament yesterday with 2 games. the coach put her in to pitch the 7th inning of the 1st game and the other pitcher pitched the rest of the day. I’m not upset about the lack of pitching time for her because I understand she needs to earn her playing time being the new kid. What upset me is that the coach belittled and humiliated her while she was pitching. Went to the circle with just her and the catcher where nobody else could hear and told her she was just a little girl and she needed to grow up and learn to pitch a varsity game. Told her she wasn’t throwing enough strikes and he only put her in to give his starting pitcher a break and she would not be pitching the next game. This was after she had gotten 2 quick outs and then 5 defensive errors scored runs. According to GameChanger 5 runs scored and were all unearned. Am I right that tearing down a players confidence especially while she is pitching is wrong. Should she go talk to the coach, does anybody have any advice. She works her behind off and has pitched at a high level so her ability is not in question. I’m proud that she held it together and got out of the inning but I had to deal with tears later when we were alone. She has never had a coach use bullying before so this is new to her.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

JAD

Feb 20, 2012
8,231
38
Georgia
High school ball usually only plays one game per day, so a lot of coaches will ride one pitcher for the majority of the season. Being the #2 pitcher on a HS team can be tough. It is not like TB where a team can play 5 games in a day and needs at least 3 pitchers and uses all 3.
 
Jun 14, 2016
270
0
High school ball usually only plays one game per day, so a lot of coaches will ride one pitcher for the majority of the season. Being the #2 pitcher on a HS team can be tough. It is not like TB where a team can play 5 games in a day and needs at least 3 pitchers and uses all 3.

It’s not the playing time, I understand she has to earn her playing time. It is the bullying and degrading behavior from the coach that I’m not sure how to handle.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Oct 1, 2014
2,219
113
USA
It always pisses me off when I hear or see these types of things happening. I feel your pain and wish I had an answer. There are good coaches and bad coaches and times when the good get it wrong and the bad get it right. There are times when we can't for the life of us figure out what the underlying motive or rationale for a certain behavior or strategy might be. Gritting your teeth and enduring stuff like that while calling it a "character building experience" gets real old real quick. Good luck, keep your DD's chin up and her self talk positive!
 
Dec 5, 2012
4,143
63
Mid West
In High school ball its usually the 80/20 rule.
20% of the players do 80% of the work.
Unfortunately this is stemmed by the coach picking their favorites and everyone else is left begging for ends meat.
Controlling what is controllable is all your DD and you can do. Attitude and effort will be your 1st priority.
Remember to act as if every word the coach says is an amazing/ inspiring statement. Nod and smile while pretending to agree wholeheartedly.
Stay positive and be a light in the dark
Always give 120% regardless of the situation
Ask for advice how the coach wants the curve to be thrown (even though you know his perception of how to throw is is garbage) nod and say you'll work on that.
It's politics. Play the game with in the game. These simple rules of engagement will get her in the starting line up in no time.
 
Last edited:
Jun 14, 2016
270
0
Thanks for the advice and I have decided that going to talk to him is probably not a good idea. She is way too intimidated by him. I told her to just do her best and that is all she can do but I will not tolerate her being bullied. I don’t like having to step in but in this situation I may have too. I hate to remove her from the team but I may end up not having a choice.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

sluggers

Super Moderator
Staff member
May 26, 2008
7,132
113
Dallas, Texas
First, the coach had no business belittling your DD. That was wrong.

This was after she had gotten 2 quick outs and then 5 defensive errors scored runs. According to GameChanger 5 runs scored and were all unearned.

Your DD is supposed to get people out. The other pitcher apparently was not having any problem getting batters out. Your DD, on the other hand, did. So, the other pitcher did better than your DD.

Parents continually want to evaluate their child's pitching based on the score book. You can't. The scorekeepers are not very good. The actual method of charging earned runs and unearned runs favors the pitcher. Additionally, the score book rarely tells the whole story.

You have to evaluate your kid based on other criteria that are not based on your personal bias or the scorekeepers personal bias.

How many kids did she walk? How many times did she fall behind in the count? How many times did the other team hit the ball hard? How many strikes did she throw? How many balls did she throw?

There is a reality to pitching you have to come to terms with:

The pitcher is supposed to get batters out. It doesn't matter if the team is making errors behind her. It doesn't matter if the umpire is bad. It doesn't matter if it's raining or it's too hot or it's too cold or if her SS is doing an impression of an open door. She has to get the batters out.

The stuff she does on JV and on her TB team isn't going to work against good varsity hitters.

She needs to through that inning and find out how she could have pitched better. The most common mistakes:

1) She got behind too many batters and grooved too many pitches.
2) She walked a batter that ended up costing her.
3) She made a fielding error.
 
Last edited:
Jun 14, 2016
270
0
First, the coach had no business belittling your DD. That was wrong.



Your DD is supposed to get people out. The other pitcher apparently was not having any problem getting batters out. Your DD, on the other hand, did. So, the other pitcher did better than your DD.

Parents continually want to evaluate their child's pitching based on the score book. You can't. The scorekeepers are not very good. The actual method of charging earned runs and unearned runs favors the pitcher. Additionally, the score book rarely tells the whole story.

You have to evaluate your kid based on other criteria that are not based on your personal bias or the scorekeepers personal bias.

How many kids did she walk? How many times did she fall behind in the count? How many times did the other team hit the ball hard? How many strikes did she throw? How many balls did she throw?

There is a reality to pitching you have to come to terms with:

The pitcher is supposed to get batters out. It doesn't matter if the team is making errors behind her. It doesn't matter if the umpire is bad. It doesn't matter if it's raining or it's too hot or it's too cold or if her SS is doing an impression of an open door. She has to get the batters out.

The stuff she does on JV and on her TB team isn't going to work against good varsity hitters.

She needs to through that inning and find out how she could have pitched better. The most common mistakes:

1) She got behind too many batters and grooved too many pitches.
2) She walked a batter that ended up costing her.
3) She made a fielding error.

1st of all my post was mainly about the way the coach treated her while she was pitching. She acknowledges she could have done better. Yes, her job is to get batters out but there are also 8 other people on the field that have to do their job. This is a team sport and she should not have been singled out and humiliated on the field. There is a better way to coach and tearing a player down accomplished nothing. It is a fact that there were 5 errors and she had no walks. The only reason I brought that up was to show that he singled out my daughter and handled the situation poorly.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Jun 21, 2015
201
0
Wow. I don’t think beating down a kid in the middle of an inning is going to help anyone. Coach could’ve handled that much better.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Jun 6, 2016
2,714
113
Chicago
It sounds to me like he was trying to motivate her, but just approached it in an awful way for your DD.

I see a scenario where she struggled to get out of the inning (even if it wasn't all her fault), and he thought he needed to go with a tough love approach. He was trying to fire her up with the "grow up" line. I can see how that could work. There are players out there who need that. Your DD is not that type of player (I never was, either, so I get it). It's on the coach to figure out the best way to handle her when she's not playing well.

Hopefully he realized his approach was wrong for her and he'll try something new next time. Of course, it's possible this is the only approach he knows, and in that case, it could be a long season. I'd still encourage you to have her stick it out. Being told to grow up doesn't meet my standard of abuse or belittling.

I should also add that the conversation was the coach, the pitcher, and the catcher. He didn't berate her in front of the team. You say he humiliated her on the field, but how did he do that if he had what amounted to a private conversation that nobody else could hear? In fact, it sounds like he went out of his way to not do that while still delivering the message. So again, that tough love approach isn't the right one for your daughter, but based on this story alone, I'm not sure I'd lump this coach in with the real jerks out there.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
42,830
Messages
679,477
Members
21,445
Latest member
Bmac81802
Top