I won't sit here and tell you my daughter is the best or anything, but she's more than competent at pitching and IS sitting the bench with 0 innings on the season. For her travel team last summer she threw 99 innings and had a 2.78 ERA and an opponent BA of .227. 115 K's, 12 walks.
Looking for some advice on HS ball because this dad is driving the struggle bus (Sorry another HS topic)
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- Oct 14, 2019
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I believe you
I completely understand how you feel and I personally don’t agree with what the coach is doing BUT if your DD has dreams of playing in college you need to take a step back and let her be the one talking to the coach and making decisions.
Waiting your turn when there is an older player or players in front of you is a real thing when you hit college and the rosters are generally bigger. And many college pitchers don’t play a secondary position and many don’t hit.
Does it suck, yes. Is it a life lesson for her, yes.
Waiting your turn when there is an older player or players in front of you is a real thing when you hit college and the rosters are generally bigger. And many college pitchers don’t play a secondary position and many don’t hit.
Does it suck, yes. Is it a life lesson for her, yes.
- Oct 14, 2019
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The other pitcher is a junior and is the AC’s daughter. OP’s DD is a sophomore. Isn’t junior year of high school the big recruiting year? Would you advocate continuing to play if no pitching time sophomore or junior year?
High school softball isn’t usually what gets you recruited. Travel ball is what the coaches watch do from a recruiting stand point it’s not a huge deal if she quits. But I’ve seen so many good players get to college and have no idea how to deal with adversity and having to fight for a position.
- Oct 14, 2019
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You have 2 pitchers and 1 pitcher gets 100% of the innings. This is acceptable?
Never did I say that I agreed with the coach. But coaches make decisions all the time that players & parents disagree with. Bosses make decisions that employees don’t agree with all the time.
There’s 2 choices, quit or stick it out and work hard and hope it gets better
- Jan 22, 2011
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I don't think it's smart of the head coach not to warm-up both pitchers and give the OP's DD some innings. It is not uncommon in HS with just two games a week for one pitcher to pitch almost 100pct of the innings.
Need some more details about how good the team is and how much they are winning by. OP mentions they were up big in the 6th and 7th inning. Is there "run rules" in their games? How many players on the team?
Sounds like the AC has too much influence on the team and his DD's pitching time.... and I think he's dumb wanting his DD pitching all the innings.
I am sensitive to coaches sucking the joy out of the game. My DD quit softball after first year 12u because of a coach sucking the joy out of the game. Luckily two months later a coach who respected her as a player encouraged her to guest play on his team that fall and she had an excellent experience 2nd year 12u. In 7th grade she had a coach suck the joy out of basketball and she hasn't played since.
I would encourage her to contribute the team the best she can, but I would encourage her to ask the HC to warmup the other pitcher so she can get some at bats against live pitching. She should ask the coach if she can DP in a couple games to show her hitting abilities.
Sounds like it is a tough situation, but OP DD's should try to stick it out for a couple more weeks. As others have mentioned many coaches have the philosophy that freshman and sophomores have to be significantly better than juniors and seniors to get playing time. If she wants to play in college, she is going to have to compete for playing time, likely on a roster of 18-24 players.
Try to tell her that the coach isn't being smart, but she should do what she can to help the team get better.
If she wants to be successful in her working career, she will need to learn to work for and with people she doesn't necessarily agree with, but that is part of life.
And the AD's only appropriate response is to tell the parent to get lost in the nicest way possible.
I've only had to deal with one of these types of parent complaints. After two basketball games, I wasted an hour of my day on a meeting with the mother of the only Freshman on the boys basketball team. She had a list of complaints about our coach (who is a woman, and despite this meeting being with a mother, it was clear she had no respect for a female coach of the boys team). Most of the complaints boiled down to "My DS doesn't play enough." After two games. I very nicely told her to just let it play out, and while I wouldn't discuss my coach evaluation with her, I of course evaluate the coaches. I also told her I was not going to get involved in any way with her son's playing time because that's the coach's job.
Her son ended up having a small role on the team this year. He played in almost every game, but only a few minutes. Also, our team had the best season in our school's short history. Our coach is fine, and she's not going anywhere unless she chooses to. And the parent was wrong to even come to me, and I would've been wrong to get involved with my coach's job. I did discuss the meeting with her to keep her informed, but at no point did I make any suggestions about what she ought to do with her roster. It's unfathomable how you don't see what an overstep that would be.
Playing time/roster decisions are not something parents should go to the AD about unless you have proof these decisions are made with some kind of ulterior motive. If a coach is intentionally trying to hurt a kid, that's one thing. A coach saying a Freshman has to wait her turn might be bad coaching, but I have zero reason to listen to a parent over the coach. None.
Parents who think they're subject-matter experts when they're dumber than a box of rocks is a massive problem with education, so your comparison doesn't actually help your argument here.
Completely agree.
Not to hijack the thread, but I'm curious: Do you ever have casual conversations with your coaches about lineups, playing time, etc. (not related to parents complaining)? I have talked to my basketball/volleyball coaches about it, but never from a position of authority. If a bench player doesn't seem to be playing enough, I might just talk about how good they've looked recently, something like that.
I do want to know their rationale for certain decisions (after all, if the coach is a complete moron, I want to know that!), but I don't want it to come across as grilling them or questioning their judgment. And again, neeeever am I doing it as the agent of a parent.
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