Question for the high school parents

[El Oso]

Your taking a 14 year old girl and asking her to play against 18 year old women. Yes mental toughness is necessary. Not every freshman is mature enough to deal with the social pressure.

Overstating the situation. Regardless, you don’t “test” their mental toughness by being a sarcastic jerk to them. There are other methods that you can use if you feel the need. Fact is it will play itself out on the field so no need to “test” them. Anyone with an IQ above room temp will be able to tell if a player isn’t mentally prepared to play at a particular level without having to make some stupid remarks to her to test her reaction.

 

[slowcelica]

I’m not saying all dad coaches are bad but in my experience most we’ve had do not know the game or they don’t know how to teach it. In our experience the former college players we’ve had, are better at relating to the girls, know the game, and know how to teach it.

 

[El Oso]

I’m not saying all dad coaches are bad but in my experience most we’ve had do not know the game or they don’t know how to teach it. In our experience the former college players we’ve had, are better at relating to the girls, know the game, and know how to teach it.

My experience has been dad coaches are 5 times better than ex college players. Everyone’s mileage may vary with this. Can’t paint this picture with such a broad brush.

 

[_MIA_]

I’m not saying all dad coaches are bad but in my experience most we’ve had do not know the game or they don’t know how to teach it. In our experience the former college players we’ve had, are better at relating to the girls, know the game, and know how to teach it.

Why do we need to build a "model" for coaches to do prediction when we can run real-life "physical experiments" to deduce our results?

 

[CoachJD]

amanda scarborough was my reference.

I know. She's 5'5".

 

[Eric F]

Your taking a 14 year old girl and asking her to play against 18 year old women. Yes mental toughness is necessary. Not every freshman is mature enough to deal with the social pressure.

What do you mean by "social pressure"?

As for mental toughness, I've certainly seen some scared freshmen step into the box against soon-to-be-D1 pitchers, but they get through it (with varying levels of success) and get great support from their teammates, regardless of their result. This is the culture of my DD's mediocre-level HS team. This team also hasn't had a situation where a talented younger player is threatening to take the starting spot of a senior player. In our 4 years with the team, incoming freshman have filled holes...and we still have some holes. I can see that things could be significantly different on highly-competitive teams that are deep with talent.

 

[Eric F]

This is different from what I’ve seen, and experienced the best coaches we’ve had did not have a kid on the team, some were former college players. The dads that coached from our experience 90% only care about where their DD played and trophies.

Experiences will vary. My DD's worst softball experience was with non-parent coaches (a mix of former dad-coaches and former college players). My DD's best softball experiences have been with parent coaches (both former college softball/baseball players), and both were realistic about their DD's abilities.

 

[Shiloh]

Mentally tough enough for High school ball? I mean HS softball is not the Army. It's high school softball. It means nothing. It's not life or death. These girls aren't marching off into a war zone. Why the need for mental toughness in high school softball? Is a girl's ability to take sarcastic criticism a necessary trait of a good softball player? I think not. There are much better ways to go about doing what you described than the sarcastic methods of this coach. IMO

One. Hundred. Percent.

This should be a sticky.

The right way to coach (inspire) vs the wrong way (fear).

 

[slowcelica]

Experiences will vary. My DD's worst softball experience was with non-parent coaches (a mix of former dad-coaches and former college players). My DD's best softball experiences have been with parent coaches (both former college softball/baseball players), and both were realistic about their DD's abilities.

Exactly I’m not saying all former players are good coaches or all dads are bad coaches. I have seen bad of both, but mostly dad coaches on t the bad side.

For example I’ve seen this multiple times, and was not a part of the team for both occasions. Player misses a ball, coach calls timeout and goes onto the field and screams at the girl inches from her face for 5 minutes. Another example, sitting by another teams dugout where the head coach and assistant bad mouthed girls on their team the whole game, with other girls in the dugout. Another, dad puts his dd in to pitch down 3-2 in the 3rd, dd walks in 10 runs before he pulls her. Dd had tried to tell him she had to go to the bathroom, nearly wets her pants in the mound, this girl was 9.

 

[Eric F]

Exactly I’m not saying all former players are good coaches or all dads are bad coaches. I have seen bad of both, but mostly dad coaches on t the bad side.

For example I’ve seen this multiple times, and was not a part of the team for both occasions. Player misses a ball, coach calls timeout and goes onto the field and screams at the girl inches from her face for 5 minutes. Another example, sitting by another teams dugout where the head coach and assistant bad mouthed girls on their team the whole game, with other girls in the dugout. Another, dad puts his dd in to pitch down 3-2 in the 3rd, dd walks in 10 runs before he pulls her. Dd had tried to tell him she had to go to the bathroom, nearly wets her pants in the mound, this girl was 9.

Those are examples of people who are @$$holes who are also dad-coaches. They are not @$$holes BECAUSE they are dad-coaches.

Meanwhile, our experience has been pretty much the opposite where most of the screaming, belittling coaches we've seen have been non-parents (an alarming number from one particular organization). However, I'm not going to pre-judge any coach based on their parental status or their playing history. I'm going to judge them based on their actual behavior and skills on the field as a teacher and leader.