This has been driving me nuts, but there are coaches in our leagues that yell at their kids. I mean we are talking 7 and 8 year old boys playing tournament baseball.... I just don't fricken get it......and it pisses me off.... Not to mention all the politics that go on for the all star selections, where you have dads putting up with the screaming coaches just to curry favor for their all star vote for their son. It is 100% bizzare.....there is a good friend of mine who is doing that right now, and his son is a good player (not great) but he is a great guy, and good coach who is assisting a screamer on a select team. He is completely comprimising his morals, and when I asked him about it, he says, well...he is not yelling at my kid......and I am like "Yeah, but your kid sees him yellling at his own kid"..... I mean, I like to win as much as the next guy, and coach almost all of my son's sports.....but I never yell at them.....and now, we are coming up to the spring season, and I am weighing putting a list down of the coaches that I will not let my kid play for because they are ASSHATS. Sorry this is a rant, but man....these kids are basically 8 years old....and if they make a mistake......you don't yell at them, they are not going to play better because they are being yelled at, they are going to shut you out. Just frustrating as hell...... Last season, another friend of mine had his son on a team and the two coaches on the field got into a confrontation on the field...yelling at each other....my friend took his son out of the game and went home.....the coach was like..."What are you doing?" And my buddy said "I am not going to subject my son to two idiots, yelling at each other over an 8 year old baseball game" Several other parents also pulled their kid and the game was cancelled and the coaches reprimanded. I just don't get it.......8 year olds should be having fun learning the game......and how to win and lose with dignity and pride.... Bunch of idiots yelling at their kids.......just sad. Rant over. DD
it may not be popular with others, but I make sure i pull the coaches aside and tell them to lay off.
I like the tournament scenario though, less practices per week and the better kids get a chance to play with other kids that can catch and throw. But it doesn't mean you have to be an ******* to let them play. My son sat out the fall season, and decided against select ball just because this guy was coaching...actually, my wife and I made that decision for him. Now, I am coming up to the Spring season, and he wants to play again, but I am not going to let him play with any coach who is a dick to his kids....I just don't get it. One of the guys is an attorney here in Austin, and he has 6 kids...I could post a link to his site..lol.....and he is a huge offender.....just screams at his son, who is decent but not as good as he thinks he is..... Lots of complaints lodged against him by parents of the OTHER team......and I know by putting his name down as someone we DON'T want our son to play for is not going to be a popular move. Oh well.....que cera cera ! DD
I went to watch a few of my nephews t-ball games back in the spring and I was disgusted at how the coaches yell at those poor kids. I did not understand what exactly they got out of it by yelling at them and in fact it pissed me off every time I would see a dad chew out his son as he went back to the dugout. Unfortunately some parents get caught up with winning and forget that it's about having fun for their kids and like you said teaching them to win/lose with dignity and pride.
I'm right there with you. My son is in U-5 soccer right now in Round Rock. So far, just about every parent and coach has been great and understands that these are little kids. There was one, though, that was relentless. He had apparently taught his 4-yr old to slide tackle...and then cheered every time the kid did it LOUDLY. He was yelling "IT'S YOUR BALL!" over and over like this was a matter of life and death. It was simply a disturbing experience. I wanted to go over and smack him. I've chosen not to coach my son for the first couple of years. When I do, I assure you I will not be one of these guys. Besides, if you have to yell at them during the games, it's only because you've done such a s***ty job in practice. It basically means you're a terrible coach. The good coaches don't have to say a word during the run of play.
Leroy, Slide tackling is illegal at that level, you should talk to your commissionar. While I love the aggressive attitude of going to get the ball, the kid needs to learn the rules, and it sounds like, so does his father. Are you guys doing the Master of the ball deal where you just kick it back in play? Also, I think when you start coaching, you will find that you still need to talk with your kids during the game, young kiddos attention spans are....very short...lol. I have coached soccer for more than 7 years, and have developed some pretty good incentives. I give stars to iron on their shorts for good play, not for goals, but for good passes, good defense, good sportsmanship etc..etc..etc.... Every week the players all get a star for something they did well, and then one player gets a gold star as the star of the game.... Those kids love it. DD
Nothing brings out the delusion in parents like Little League baseball. There may be one kid in your entire Little League who is good enough to play college baseball, let alone pros. Yet, every single team has at least 5 or 6 sets of parents who are convinced that their kid is the next A-Rod. It's ridiculous. These kids are playing baseball year-round, and their bodies can't handle it. I know so many kids who have had Tommy John surgery IN HIGH SCHOOL. The thing parents don't understand: If your kid is not batting at least .500, or striking our damn near every person he faces when he is in middle school, then he will not make it big. Playing baseball every weekend for the entire year will not change that. /rant. Sorry, I'm witnessing the horrors of organized baseball firsthand as my brother went through it. There has always been politics in Little League, but it has gotten way worse since I stopped playing ten or so years ago, IMO.
Seems to me this is the right way to handle it. You go up to them, calmly tell them their behavior is not acceptable, that you are removing your child from a hostile environment and that you'll be suggesting other parents do the same, and that you'll be lodging formal complaints with the commisioner of the league. Sooner or later, the idiots will get the hint: that junk has no business in youth sports.
Excatly !!! It is mind numbing watching people end relationships with others over little league baseball. I am uber competitive, and my wife has a code word for me when I get excited.....it works...lol......but I never yell at the kids in a negative light.....but kids can read body language too, and you need to constantly be positive to reinforce it.......thus the code word..... Either way.....there is a right way to explain to a kiddo what they did wrong and how to correct it, and yelling is not it. BTW - the reason for this thread is that my buddy is being a big old hypocrite about this, and he knows better and it is a little disconcerting to me that he would put up with it, and cower down by saying "Well he is not yelling at my son"...... DD
I saw this same thing over the summer when my girlfriend's cousin played softball. The sad thing was it wasn't only the coaches but parents were sitting there yelling and screaming at these girls driving them to tears many times. I didn't have a kid playing so I really did not let my opinion be known but I did mention it to some other people watching and they replied with "How do you expect them to learn the game?" I mean, really??? It seems that parents are overly doing it in kids sports these days spending thousands of dollars on the best equipment, training, etc. to make sure their kids have the edge. One of the teams in the league I mentioned above made girls try out for the team and pay a $1400 membership fee and they had a full squad. I am not sure what is driving parents to do this but it is certainly not them wanting their children to learn the sport and more importantly have a little fun.
I don't know if our rules specify it and clearly the refs didn't know it. He didn't hurt anyone and we won't see that team again, so I'm not going to worry about it. I think you misunderstood me. Yes, there are points in the run of play that some level of coaching is necessary. On top of playing for over 30 years, in my past life, I was a professional trainer for club teams in The Woodlands area (best job I've ever had). I've trained from U12 through U19 (actually had the U19 team when I was only 19 myself). Naturally, it depends on the kids and their attention spans. Some kids soak it in during practices and are able to bring it out in games. Others need attention. It almost never requires yelling. The great thing about youth soccer is open subs. You can always pull them out for a rest and talk to them about it at that point.
If you are in the LoneStar soccer program it is specifically in the rules, check the orgs website. We can't even slide tackle and my son is on the U8 level right now..... I will say that this week, he did his first ever header, and it was on defense to stop a goal....it was awesome ! DD
We had one a couple of seasons back in soccer (YMCA) that was like nothing I've ever seen. He yelled the entire time. Not constantly in a berating way, but just yelled the entire time. GO GO GO GO GET THE BALL GET IT GET IT GET IT THROW IT IN NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW! Games... practice... all the time. I would go into the various tales of what he did through the season, but suffice to say it was the worst example I've seen yet. That said, they were undefeated and quite a good team for such young kids. It's funny, my kid responded somewhat well to it (We just told him to work hard and things would work out), so I didn't freak out too much knowing it would be over soon, but with this coach there were several missteps along the way (near altercations) and he was quite the embarrassment to all (most) of us parents, and especially his children who said so directly to me (assistant coach at the time) as early as our second practice. It basically was my first direct experience with having to witness and wonder how much is too much when watching these guys coach kids who joined to have a good time and learn the game.
About as stupid as kids yelling at refs, coaches, and other parents at their kids little league events. Cheering is good, booing, cussing, and yelling at others is ugly.
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ry1tNGC6npg?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ry1tNGC6npg?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object> Juicebox boy humor ! DD
I laughed a little. It is just amazing. I mean 7 and 8 year olds should not be getting yelled at because they missed a ground ball. I mean come on.....what is that? DD
