- May 21, 2018
- 568
- 93
This blows my mind. Are you saying their inflated ego is based on their DD's performance? I find that really funny, but I have
a weird sense of humor.
Luckily I haven't had to deal with it yet.
The Travel Softball “Game”
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This blows my mind. Are you saying their inflated ego is based on their DD's performance? I find that really funny, but I have
a weird sense of humor.
Luckily I haven't had to deal with it yet.
Oh yes - most definitely! They all felt like being a part of that team made them the best (definitely living vicariously thru their 13-14-15 year old daughters). Strutting around looking down on the rest of us poor peons who "couldn't make" (or rather had enough sense to choose to avoid) that team.
Be incredibly grateful you haven't experienced it! It is just plain ugly.
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- Jun 16, 2010
- 259
- 28
Never saw anything like that.
On my DDs team, not a parent or kid wasnt appreciative of our coaches, organization, or opportunity to play for them and be taught by best. Coaches in ASA hall of fame .
If anything we had empathy for girls not afforded that opportunity. Particularly ones that received poor coaching. Locally, those were the girls friends, schoolmates, HS teammates, etc.
Just a great bunch of girls , coaches, and parents at 14 and 16U.
18g coach was a bit of an a-hole and put together a locally recruited team. Did very well, top 10 ASA 18G. But he went against the organization's philosophy and ended up being booted out.......and went got sponsorship from a big-name equipment manufacturer and still runs a pure recruited showcase type team.
But nobody ever looked down on anyone else regardless.
On my DDs team, not a parent or kid wasnt appreciative of our coaches, organization, or opportunity to play for them and be taught by best. Coaches in ASA hall of fame .
If anything we had empathy for girls not afforded that opportunity. Particularly ones that received poor coaching. Locally, those were the girls friends, schoolmates, HS teammates, etc.
Just a great bunch of girls , coaches, and parents at 14 and 16U.
18g coach was a bit of an a-hole and put together a locally recruited team. Did very well, top 10 ASA 18G. But he went against the organization's philosophy and ended up being booted out.......and went got sponsorship from a big-name equipment manufacturer and still runs a pure recruited showcase type team.
But nobody ever looked down on anyone else regardless.
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I’m an umpire, so I spend a lot of my time here in the Rules Forum. But before that, I spent 20 years coaching both HS Varsity (as the asst.) and travel as the head coach. I experienced what you’re talking about almost every year. Other than starting a 16U team once and staying together for 2 years, I would always start a new 11U pure team so that we could all play together for two years at 12U. And every single time, I would lose enough key players after our final year of 14U (once after our last year of 16U) that I’d have to disband the team. Each time it was other coaches who would cherry pick the best of my players, using promises of collegiate glory that in every case failed to come true. It doesn’t take losing more than 3 or 4 of your best players to lose it all.
But to be honest, a lot of that comes with parents’ unrealistic expectations of their DD’s future collegiate career. I NEVER promised anyone anything close to helping them get into college to play ball. I turned away more than a few parents who, during tryouts, asked which high level tournaments we were attending. This was 11U!!! I told them this was not the team for them. All I ever told any parent was that my goal was to get every kid to make their HS varsity team, with the specific goal of making it their freshman year. We had a good record of getting that done.
And as angry as I was at the time of those team break ups, I don’t regret any of my 20 years teaching them the game I love, the life lessons they learned, or the friends they made. In the end, you can only control what you have control over, and rear-wipe coaches who live off the work other coaches have put in are not part of the things you have control over.
But to be honest, a lot of that comes with parents’ unrealistic expectations of their DD’s future collegiate career. I NEVER promised anyone anything close to helping them get into college to play ball. I turned away more than a few parents who, during tryouts, asked which high level tournaments we were attending. This was 11U!!! I told them this was not the team for them. All I ever told any parent was that my goal was to get every kid to make their HS varsity team, with the specific goal of making it their freshman year. We had a good record of getting that done.
And as angry as I was at the time of those team break ups, I don’t regret any of my 20 years teaching them the game I love, the life lessons they learned, or the friends they made. In the end, you can only control what you have control over, and rear-wipe coaches who live off the work other coaches have put in are not part of the things you have control over.
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radness
Possibilities & Opportunities!
- Dec 13, 2019
- 7,270
- 113
LOL inflated ego's that became parents...
The first year that DD went out for travel ball was in 6th grade/12U. She did two tryouts within a few days of each other and got offers for both. We let Coach #1 know that we'd also gotten an offer from Coach #2. He proceeded to give me an earful about how Coach #2 has an anger problem and all sorts of other gossipy stuff. I was so turned off that we immediately accepted the offer from Coach #2. Never saw any evidence of the alleged anger problem; he's probably the calmest coach she's ever had. Coach #1 called me again in about late October/early November just to "check in" and see if we were happy and whether we were interested in making a move. I politely said "no, thanks" and got the heck off the phone.
