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- Please no inappropriate usernames (remember that there may be youngsters in the room)
- Personal attacks on other community members are unacceptable, practice the good manners your mama taught you when engaging with fellow Dawg fans
- Use common sense and respect personal differences in the community: sexual and other inappropriate language or imagery, political rants and belittling the opinions of others will get your posts deleted and result in warnings and/ or banning from the forum
- 3/17/19 UPDATE -- We've updated the permissions for our "Football" and "Commit to the G" recruiting message boards. We aim to be the best free board out there and that has not changed. We do now ask that all of you good people register as a member of our forum in order to see the sugar that is falling from our skies, so to speak.
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Great post, @texdawg!
RE:#2, I still have to "force" my nearly 13 year old to go hit the cages. She kicks and screams as I drag her to the tee but she's always glad afterward. It's as though she forgets that she enjoys it.
Coached almost all of both my kid's teams from ages 4 through Jr High (I have not coached HS). Just some of my thoughts.
These are excellent PGJ. Across the board.
One thing I would add to #5 is don't be a grumbler either. Sometimes the parent who constantly complains about the coach quietly in the bleachers is the bad apple who ruins the barrel.
As the coach, you may never even know it.
Thanks. I miss coaching. I never had a problem with a kid...it was always the over-competitive parents. I think my #1 piece of advice I would give to parents is to just chill. At the first practice I always called all the parents off to the side and had a little heart-to-heart about sportsmanship and expectations. It is also equally important for coaches to keep their cool. I've seen a LOT of coaches loose their s#it in the middle of a game. Generally, those teams that had a hot-head coach also had hot-head parents.
Probably my favorite coaching memory was a U12 girls soccer team. We were a mid level team throughout the season, but did well enough to make the playoffs. Amazingly we made it to the championship game against a juggernaught team that had been destroying teams by an average of 10 points. I knew we had to strengthen the defense and hope to go into a overtime PK situation. Amazingly, that's what happened. 0-0 after regulation. We went to PKs and ended up losing by one point. After the other team scored th game winning goal, I just nodded to the girls and said "go get Maddie (our goalie who played her heart out and was visibly upset that we lost). the entire team ran down the field and literally picked her up on their shoulders and carried her off the field in celebration. You would have thought we won. The other team looked defeated and upset. It was a Rocky I scenario. We lost, but the girls didn't care because it was so fun. I still have the celebration on video.
Great story.
Love that stuff, @pgjackson - I 100% agree that the worst thing about coaching kids is almost always the parents.
As for parent coaches, I know there are some notable examples where a coach's son goes on to have a great college/pro career but for the vast majority of parent coaches, the reality is that their kid will not be the best on the team and in many (not all) cases, there is likely a better coach who could get even more out of your kid as an athlete. Even if your kid is the best athlete, parents and players will accuse the parent of favoritism anyway (revert to Rule 1 "Parents are the worst").
Both my daughters played at a high level in their respective sports and I'd be lying if I didn't get caught up in the proud parent high as they both started getting recruited (one a swimmer, one a soccer player); and we were really surprised (OK - pis$ed) when they each decided well down their recruitment paths that they didn't want to pursue their sports in college...but with time and perspective, none of us would have traded those moments - the highs and lows, victories and tears - for anything .
Our youngest is off to college this Fall and I'd already give anything for one more 3-hour car ride with one of my daughters to either a swim meet or soccer tournament that became our automatic weekend routine for so many years. In hindsight - it's those times in the car that we'll miss the most vs anything that happened in the water or on the field.
My point being that none of these opportunities would have existed had I decided to continue coach them beyond elementary school. We're eternally grateful for all of the coaches who had a role in shaping our daughters as athletes and as young women on and off the field.
Some very good points.
Coaching your own child.....especially in higher levels is very difficult.
It is very difficult on the relationship.
Obviously there are those parent coaches that play favoritism.....but I found the opposite to be true more times than not......the parent coach that goes out of their way not to play favoritism.
God bless all the parents that are qualified to coach and do a great job at it. There simply wouldn't be enough coaches if not for them.
I agree with you point about it being harder to be the coach's kid because they're gonna be harder on them to prove their NOT playing favorites. Definitely see a lot of that. I'd argue that might actually hurt the team in the bigger picture if the athlete really is one of the better players. (ie - a coach leaving their kid on the bench in the final minutes of a close game so parents don't accuse of them of favoritism), because if they're truly elite/clutch a coach who's not their parent is more likely to play them more or in key sports.
Again - there are plenty of examples where it works out fine (Joe Burrow comes to mind). I'm also thankful to any one who volunteers their time to coach kids - especially my own.
I always paid special attention to not show favoritism to my kids. Both my kids were good athletes and typically one of the best players on the team, but I made sure they took their fair share of "riding the pine". A coach also has to be cognizant of not riding their kid harder than the other players. That's a good way of pushing your kid out of sports.