Who is the most responsible for player growth/performance?

Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch

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

radness

Possibilities & Opportunities!
Dec 13, 2019
7,270
113
Who is the most responsible for player growth/performance?
Coach
Parent
Player

It is reasonable to say coaches responsibility is creating a schedule.
Games and facilitating practices.
However, to what extent are they responsible for player growth?

Parents have a role in the kids/players schedule.
Signing them up, showing up.
However parents tend to take on different approaches in hands on interaction or not.
Some get involved playing catch and stuff. And/or provide paid lessons, fielding clinics.

Now the participants role,
The player!

*In your observations, hands on experiences, hopeful goals to be...
*Who do you see as having the most responsibility to a players growth?

imo~the player has the most responsibilty! They have to put in the work.
 
Last edited:

NBECoach

Learning everyday
Aug 9, 2018
408
63
Ultimately it has to be the player.

You may have the best instruction and parental cooperation, but unless the player is committed to improving technique, chances are the improvement will be limited to physical growth and coordination.

Now, the player must understand the path to improvement could be long, boring, and filled with failure before there is success. The instructor must be honest with the player and parents. They should clearly demonstrate proper technique, have patience, and in all cases be supportive of the player.

The parents can be the most difficult part of this. Time spent finding the right instructor. There is a cost associated with lessons. Time spent finding the right team. And yes, the reality of what DD’s talent ceiling is.

There are variables in all of the above, but how far you go in life and softball is your responsibility.
 

Strike2

Allergic to BS
Nov 14, 2014
2,044
113
I don't know too many good players where at least one parent wasn't heavily involved. Many either run a team or assist. At the very least, somebody must be around to help the kid work on their own and push them a bit when necessary. I know a few players who could have been much better had they had better support at home.
 
Feb 20, 2020
377
63
I'd say player, coach, parent. Developing has to be on the kid, but the coach has to know what to tell them to do, have drills and insight into helping them do that. Also give them real feedback to help motivate them. Parents, for the most part, can help push them along, but unless they are a coach themselves or have done a lot of studying, they really don't know what to tell a kid to work on, or the best ways to improve.
 

BigSkyHi

All I know is I don't know
Jan 13, 2020
1,385
113
Parents. If their work ethic doesn't exist on the improvement side of things, what is the child learning?
 
Dec 2, 2013
3,410
113
Texas
Parents are #1 until they get to HS age. Parents are providing the resources so the kids can play and practice. The kids aren't signing themselves up for Rec ball. The kids aren't doing the research on which TB team to go tryout for. The kids aren't driving themselves to practices and games. The kids are figuring out which hitting/pitching/catching coach to go to. The parents do much of the heavy lifting in the formative years to help develop the love of the game and to provide opportunities to get better. Yes, it's up to the kids to physically get better...if they want to.

We all know the kids that were naturally awesome, but didn't put the work in to get better. I know some parents didn't want to sacrifice THEIR summer weekends at their beach house. Guess what happen to the kid? She got pushed further down the bench, since she couldn't put in the work. Mom and Dad didn't provide the opportunities because it was not a priority. In all honesty, I didn't give my kid a chance to say no, since I never asked what does she want to do. I know if I asked, I wouldn't like the answer. I made sure she cycled through all the seasonally sports growing, but softball is the one that stuck and I was usually the coach. It was my job to give her the opportunities. Unlike my brother whose 5 kids never once signed up and played for an athletic team. It's because he doesn't like sports. Shame on him.
 
May 27, 2013
2,353
113
I’d say player and parent equally. The player must want it but the parent(s) needs to help with them achieving their goals. Being involved and supportive is extremely important.

I wish my parents had pushed me and supported me like my husband and I push and support our kids (both academically and athletically). They were taught to never settle for mediocrity, and they are finally seeing it paying off!
 
Dec 2, 2013
3,410
113
Texas
I wish my parents had pushed me and supported me like my husband and I push and support our kids (both academically and athletically). They were taught to never settle for mediocrity, and they are finally seeing it paying off!

Same for me! Parents have to be the #1 advocate for their DD's! Parents are the bus drivers, and it's up to the kid to determine where their last stop on the softball route is going to be.

My grandfather graduated from Cornell, my dad went to University of the South and I barely got into Mid Major with my only knowledge of that school was a baseball camp I attended in 8th grade. My parents divorced when I was 5, and never had any pushing academically from either one. That was not going to be the case for my kids. With a retired school teacher grandma living across the street there was no way my kids could not do well. I also recognized early that getting into the best academic college with one of the highest ranking schools (#3)in Texas, and being able to play softball was the real achievable goal. Let's face it, she is not gonna play at UT or A&M.

A mom once told me, that you are better off spending your money on ACT/SAT prep than you are a hitting lesson. That got me thinking. Do I want my kid to play at a mid major D1 in the middle of nowhere, get an okay degree while getting some athletic monies? If this is your goal, go for it!!! Or go to an Academically challenging school with no athletic money, but get a well regarded degree from a D3 that I will have to pay for most of? Our family just had different goals, and we were trying to be as realistic as possible based on total overall fit for our family. I knew my DD would not thrive at the D1 level, and she didn't like the prospect of devoting all of her time to softball. Don't get me wrong, she spends A LOT of her time with softball in college, but it's not her entire life.

That mom that I just spoke of has twins. One pitched (JWOS recently featured her)and graduated from an Ivy and recently transferred to a Major D1 school on the East coast to get her 5th year of softball, and her twin sister played with my DD on her college team who also graduated, and will be going to Vet school in Kansas. 4 years to set up the next 40 y'all!
 
Oct 11, 2010
8,337
113
Chicago, IL
I am still a little bit sad about 1 player that learned to pitch on YouTube. She has her ball which was awful being thrown against the wall.

Offered her an unopened three packs of balls and a free C. Shs declined.

Pride is a sticky subject.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
42,830
Messages
679,478
Members
21,445
Latest member
Bmac81802
Top