Why do parents put up with bad coaching?

[RetiredCoach]

I really do not get yelling at softball players. I've personally played/managed at high levels in slow pitch and have
helped coach a girls fastpitch into the top tier state finals. All of this was accomplished without yelling at players,
being hard on them or any such thing. I think that "being hard on players" is more of a function of the coach taking
his/her frustrations out on the team than anything else.

 

[indianafp]

I hear ya. I just hope I can figure out what they are wanting me to do...

 

[James Smith]

DD has had coaches that are yellers and quite coaches both are fine as far as she is concerned. She tunes the yellers out so yell all you want; you are the one who is going to get frustrated. You need to stick to your personality.

Maybe playing time, positions, batting order is what they want you to work on.

I am with you that yelling at the SS for dropping a ball does no one any good, like she doesn’t know she made a mistake.

 

[SoAZDad]

There's a lot of good points made here. IMO girls, at least young girls up to 14U, do indeed need to feel good to play good. I further have never witnessed any benefit from demeaning girls. I can't help but think of Candrea, the winningest college coach, who is very positive yet assertive.

 

[Greenmonsters]

I hear ya. I just hope I can figure out what they are wanting me to do...

Raise you expections, not your voice, and make them hold themselves accountable. Often they are capable of so much more than we give them credit for.

 

[RetiredCoach]

Certainly, you will find examples of coaches who win and yell at their players, as well as the ones who don't yell and win, anyways. However, I think that the ultimate question is: Who would you rather have your daughter play for?

 

[indianafp]

Raise you expections, not your voice, and make them hold themselves accountable. Often they are capable of so much more than we give them credit for.

I am going to take this and run with it. Great advice Greenmonsters....

 

[cmustangsfp]

Also address the problem, not the person (unless the person's attitude IS the problem). A SS who makes errors needs more reps at fielding. I have had entire (private) practice sessions with a position player where we will work on fielding 200 balls to get improvement. Pointing out where the mistakes are in her mechanics.

If you are "nice coach" and do not win, most people will assume it is because you are too nice with them. However in my experience, the coaches who do not win usually do not teach fundamentals well enough. I have seen both nice coaches and yellers fall in to this category. I have also seen the opposite, yellers and nice coaches who do teach the fundamentals and win.

In my mind I view it as the "what purpose does it serve?" category. If you are going to teach them the fundamentals anyway, why yell to get your point across?

 

[ncgolf]

Raise you expections, not your voice, and make them hold themselves accountable. Often they are capable of so much more than we give them credit for.

I totally agree. The shift of responsibility to the girls is key in raising the level of play. Yelling in the long run accomplishes really nothing, someone said the girls tune the yelling out .. and they do. In fact they tune them out when they are not yelling so now they really don't listen at all.

My philosophy in working with the girls on hitting, fielding etc is to put yourself in the best possible position to be successful. This does not guarantee always being successful but you will be successful more often so each girl can improve on their own performance.

It is similar to playing poker. The goal is to put yourself in the best possible position. If you are reckless and a lesser skilled player you will win at lesser frequency. Doesn't mean you will not succeed but you will win at a lower rate than a more skilled player.

 

[Elk Grove Hurricane]

This is 2013. Bullying is being called out among male athletes in football. So let's just take some coaching courses, forget what we see on TV and movies and forget how we were coached when kids, and not use gender as a reason or excuse for anything. These young ladies have to grow up and enter a workplace that will not care if they are male or female (as it should be). Bad coaching and bullying are not acceptable any more. I always use the analogy: Does someone go out and yell at Tiger Woods (other than he himself) when he hits a bad shot? In some sports, the energy and clock demand a style of coaching. Transfer this to a young golfer in a junior program. This yelling also does not work on a quiet field.

If you take coaching courses, you will understand there is no difference in teaching an 8 year old of either gender. What if you were a parent of a teacher who had different standards for boys and girls in class? It is one thing to have an individual approach but a gender approach is wrong.

Agree wholeheartedly with your first paragraph but respectfully disagree with the second. I have taken coaching courses and my own experience backs up the instruction I received: there is a big difference between girls and boys, even at that age. The message does have to be delivered differently. My DD (11 now) is taking hitting lessons with a former college player, who isn't teaching her anything differently technically than any of her coaches, other instructors, etc. But she figured out in 5 minutes that confidence was the biggest issue she needed to work on, and rebuilt what her last coach destroyed in 15 minutes. She didn't do it my telling her everything that she was doing wrong, instead everything was low key and positive. Again, none of the technical instructions were any different than what she had heard before, but the message was delivered so differently and resonated well. Now, she is showing marked improvement, applying the same lessons she couldn't or didn't learn from so many others. How someone communicates with her is a lot different than what they teach, and I've seen that (and learned the hard way) is true for most girls in sports. Yes, there are some who thrive on criticism and want to prove you wrong, just like the boys that I've coached (and like me, even to this day). But finding 10 girls like that isn't easy.