I'm just ventilating.

Mom of my #1 draft pick (basketball) tried everything to get her kid off my team. Complained to everyone, including league commissioner. Tired of his being the best kid on his teams etc. Well duh... he's a great athlete and will be the best on just about every team.

Anyhow, now Mom won't talk to me, return messages etc. No biggie.

This weekend, #1 and his friend have no one meeting them after our game - which is the last game of the day, ends at 4. So #1 and his friend are waiting in the parking lot as it gets dark. Since I'm the last to leave, my family and I wait around (we had something else to do) until friend's Mom picks them up - 1/2 hour later.

Of course, friend's Mom won't tell #1's Mom that she screwed up and forgot to pick up the kids. So I don't even get points for being a good guy.

As I tell other coaches, if you want gratitude, get a dog.

My favorite story. Another coach had a parent forget a kid and leaves him at the gym for 8 hours while she does other stuff. I guess a half hour's not so bad.

I'd rather coach the dog.

__________________

I've had a couple of "difficult" parents. The kids graduated. I try not to think about their parents anymore. Tried dealing with one mom two different ways: keeping her close and keeping her distant. Close seemed to work better, but not by much. Oh, and just to prove I'm really crazy, I coach high school coed cheerleading.

One of my favorites:

Coach Al to kid: "Jake, I want you to go out and play right field this inning."

Jake: "Aw Coach, can I play the same position as last inning?"

Coach Al, puzzled, checking scorecard, "Son, you were on the bench last inning."

Jake: "Yeah, that's the position I want to play."

The punch line... The kid was signed up by his parents for the following year. When Jake wasn't drafted into the Majors, Mom called up the league, cursing.

Do these parents talk to their kid at all?

1) I agree, close is better. I try to make the PITAs an assistant of some sort. As Lyndon Johnson said about a PITA, "I'd rather have him on the inside pissing out, than on the outside pissing in."

2) I tell people I coach because I love the kids. If I coached high school coed cheerleading, I'd get arrested if I said that.

Point #2. yeah, it's a difficult area. And since I work in catholic high school, it is triple bad. Then throw in the fact that I spend a good but of my time trying to teach stunting to these kids. That means that someone (hopefully) small gets held up in the air by someone (hopefully) larger, for a reasonable amount of time before being SAFELY returned to the ground. If you do the stunt 100 times, you get the following:
first 20 tries: girl falls 19 times.
next 40 tries: girl falls 32 times.
next 20 times: girls falls 8 times.
last 20 tries: girls falls 1 time.
Every time girl falls, SOMEBODY darn well better catch her. With a base group with 2-3 years working together, they will catch most of the time. Group that has not worked together long has a much worse catch/miss ratio. Catcher of last resort is of course me. I refuse to let anybody get seriously hurt (besides me). Took an elbow to the jaw the other day, the likes of which I haven't seen since I taugh Karate.
Still, four years ago, we took second at nationals....

So I'm coaching a baseball travel team this summer. This will be the #2 12-year-old team, which will be made up of kids who aren't good enough for the #1 team, but want to keep playing baseball.

In picking the team, I decided to take a lean team, that is, take only enough kids so that everyone would get a lot of playing time. Told all the parents my plan.

TOMORROW I have to turn in my roster and order uniforms.

Last week, 2 kids dropped out. No biggie. I replaced them with the last 2 kids on the bubble. (Team quality will decline a little, but that's life.)

But I had a funny feeling about 1 more parent, who seemed to be ducking my calls.

This parent controlled 3 slots - his twins, PLUS a nephew from another town (staying with him over the summer), who I was permitting on the team. I knew I was going to get in trouble with my league management if they found out I was taking nephew over our own kids, but I'm taking him to make Dad's life easier.

Last NIGHT, I finally reach Dad, who tells me the nephew, AND one of the twins, won't be playing baseball this summer.

I have no more kids on my waiting list.

Coach Al thinking, but did not say:

1) Why did I have to track YOU down to find out?

2) You just found out LAST NIGHT that nephew isn't going to stay with you over the summer? And you just figgered out that twin #2 doesn't really like baseball?



3) And ..... I rescheduled my other hip replacement (and I'm going to continue popping vicodin like Tic Tacs over the summer and try to finish out the season without the bone popping out of the socket, AND I'm going to be making up the field while the parents sit in the stands, AND I'm old enough to be the grandfather of most of the kids on the team), to put up with this garbage.....


4) And .... the season hasn't started yet.

I can't wait to see the problems I have when the games actually start and the parents start saying, "since we're going to lose anyway, why can't Johnny pitch... or play short" or whatever, despite the fact that in 6 years in LL, the kid has never pitched or played short, and this is a travel team, and the other teams aren't going to let up on us just because we're a #2 team.



Remember ... appreciate your kids' coaches or else you're going to have to do this #&%*% youself....

Thanks for letting me vent.

Good story from last season.

I'm umping home plate.

Clueless kid steps up to bat. Gung-ho coach at 3rd is signaling like crazy.

CK steps out, looks at GHC, steps in, takes a strike. Steps out again, stares at GHC. Comes back to plate, mumbling to himself ...

"I don't know why he wants me to cross myself, I'm Jewish...."