Where are all the dads?

[PJR202]

Our local LL program is struggling to find a few coaches. I'm sure they'll come up with someone, but once again I'm asking myself why player dads aren't more involved with softball?

If it was their son playing baseball we would see lots of them out there, getting involved and working with their kid at home, etc, but I (a dad) hardly see my players' dads watching practices, offering to help with concessions, scoreboard operating, and the like.

And finding any parent to coach LL is difficult, but the dads even more so. Is it a masculinity thing? So many of these guys know enough about baseball to coach their kid's 8U age team. I did it, and I am FAR from a great coach. I just wanted to see my girls get to play, and no one was stepping up.

 

[_MIA_]

I would be willing to bet that more 3/4 of TB coaches for 14U and below are Dads (or at least males..) and for 16U and above the majority of coaches are still males. I would guess the majority of rec coaches are males as well. Not sure what the issue is in your town but it isn't one which is generally a problem elsewhere.

 

[Vertigo]

Throughout my DD’s LL career I was the only female coach, umpire, and executive board member. The rest were dads.

 

[Strike2]

Seems like an increasingly common problem. I see area rec leagues asking for coaching help for older rec teams, and experienced non-parents often step up. I don't think it's a "masculinity thing", it's an apathetic "I don't want to deal with it thing". That, and coaching rec well is a lot of work. From a player standpoint, you're often starting from scratch. The coaches are usually learning along the way and the support many rec leagues offer is marginal, at best. I hired a pitching coach at 10U just to get some promising kids to the point where they might throw a strike. Not every parent has the coin to do that and buy gear and rent fields and batting cages.

When I wandered about the local field on a game night last year, I did see a couple of coaches I recognized as "retreads"...had coached a 16/18U team, but were now working with a younger sibling or even a grand-daughter. Their teams always stand out.

 

[HunterMO]

I would be willing to bet that more 3/4 of TB coaches for 14U and below are Dads (or at least males..) and for 16U and above the majority of coaches are still males. I would guess the majority of rec coaches are males as well. Not sure what the issue is in your town but it isn't one which is generally a problem elsewhere.

That’s how it is around here. I helped coach DD from rec until she finished 12u. Her 14u coach is still a “Dad” but a long history in softball and TB.

I’d say 90% of softball coaches here are male. Maybe 95% even.

 

[_MIA_]

Seems like an increasingly common problem. I see area rec leagues asking for coaching help for older rec teams, and experienced non-parents often step up. I don't think it's a "masculinity thing", it's an apathetic "I don't want to deal with it thing". That, and coaching rec well is a lot of work. From a player standpoint, you're often starting from scratch. The coaches are usually learning along the way and the support many rec leagues offer is marginal, at best. I hired a pitching coach at 10U just to get some promising kids to the point where they might throw a strike. Not every parent has the coin to do that and buy gear and rent fields and batting cages.

When I wandered about the local field on a game night last year, I did see a couple of coaches I recognized as "retreads"...had coached a 16/18U team, but were now working with a younger sibling or even a grand-daughter. Their teams always stand out.

I will agree that finding coaches (male or female) for rec is an issue. I coached my son's 6U baseball team because nobody else would. Same with the two years I coached DD's rec basketball team.

I don't like coaching my own kids tbh, and it has nothing to do apathy. They hear enough of my instruction at home, team practice/games is a way for them to get away from me When all the kids have left the house, eg probably 20+ years from now, I would be happy to take my walker out to the fields and coach a team.

 

[Bullseye]

Our local LL program is struggling to find a few coaches.

When people sign up for city league programs they are often disillusioned to think the city provides coaches. As if they are paid.
General population does not recognize how much volunteer work goes into things. Greater portion of society views most things as service industries, servicing their needs.
Less work ethic.

 

[cnardone]

You can fill Yankee Stadium with the number of people at our Req soccer fields on a Sunday. My dd played for 4 years before Fall softball started and she gave up soccer. Two of the 3 years they did not have enough coaches. I volunteered because the teams would have been huge. I never played Soccer. The 4th year her coaches were high school students. At those ages, the weekly commitment was 1 one hour practice (same time each week) and one 1 hour game on Sunday morning.

Unfortunately, I don't think it is uncommon that find coaches is difficult.

 

[PJR202]

I think I did a poor job of raising the question. Most of our coaches are men as well. My MS team's head coach is a dad, I'm a dad, and our other assistant is a player's aunt. Most of the opposing coaches are men, although we see some women sprinkled in there as well. I'm not talking travel ball, though. Hardly anyone around here plays outside of school.

My thing more that we just don't SEE a lot of dads coming out. Even at games there aren't as many. It's perplexing to me because if my girls are involved in something, it's getting my full support. I offer help, donate my time and money, and I enjoy watching practices. And I just like spending time around my kids.

Even for the kids when at home, very few of them even have dad passing with them. One of the moms told me her kid's dad and step-dad both are of no help.

The moms do ALL the communicating with us coaches. It all just seems odd to me.

 

[Traps71]

It’s not the same thing, but I just went to the spring sports presentation given by the athletic director at our HS earlier this week. Partly as a plea to parents not to run off good coaches at the school (who devote massive amounts of time to their teams for, at best, a pittance), he told us that it is very common in our County to get perhaps only two applications for vacant coaching positions and often only one. Which, of course, doesn’t make that candidate a good coach.

Our current HS coach (a male who started by coaching his daughters many years ago in LL) has been with the program for 16 years and built the program up from mostly nothing. When he started, the Varsity field didn’t even have a home run fence. The guy is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I greatly respect his commitment and what he’s done for the softball program. He’s an older guy now and really can only be doing it because he loves it.