There's something about youth sports that takes ordinarily sane human beings and turns some of them into stark raving lunatics.
We've all heard the stories about the Dads (or Moms) at various sporting events where they do something really stupid and violent.
Every coach of a youth team can relay stories of parents who came to them and griped that little Johnny was being treated unfairly.
Depending on the person and the day, I've heard of cases where parents have said that the coach really did something to mess up the kid. Not in a sports-sense, but in a life sense. As in, "Now my kid is traumatized. He's really messed up."
I haven't gone there... yet. But I've come close. I try to keep my comments confined to the game. I also try never to frame anything I say to a coach as, "why does X get to do this, but my son doesn't?"
I think that's unfair to the coach and unfair to the other kids on the team since that's an attack on another player.
If I see something amiss, mostly, what I want is to hear the coach's perspective. Not to say that the coach is right or wrong. Just to hear what they're seeing that I'm not.
The two times I can remember doing this are when Logan got beat out for catcher last year, and this year when he started the season in the 11 hole.
Last year, I called and just asked the coach, "Hey, what happened? All off-season Logan was working his butt off at catcher, but in the first half dozen games, he hasn't gotten to play any."
The coach took his time and patiently explained that Logan was doing a poor job of squeezing the ball. (Basically, he wasn't catching the ball well enough. If he drops a 3rd strike, that gives the runner the chance to try to run to first. You just can't have that, especially in close games. With less than 2 outs, that could give a runner on 3rd the chance to advance to home.)
Unfortunately, I had to agree. The coach made the right call. I wasn't that crazy about Logan playing catcher to begin with (he has the wrong build, IMHO, and it may be an old wive's tale, but I believe that playing catcher ruins your knees prematurely, even with all the modern advances like knee-savers, etc.)
Now, in the best of all worlds, I'd never call the coach and whatever position my son plays, that's what he plays. Thing is, parental involvement is pretty key, here. If it were something like my son needs to do a better job of blocking, then we could work on blocking drills. There are things you can fix, and somethings you can't fix, or you can only fix with difficulty.
For whatever reason, my son didn't "get" what was involved in catching. It's a little different type of catching and he wasn't adjusting to it.
So, the coach explained, I agreed, we moved on. Logan played a minimal amount of catcher (maybe 4 innings all season) and that was it.
This year, I probably over-reacted when Logan got put in the 11 hole. I guessed that it was because of his lack of selectivity at the plate. He was probably the most aggressive hitter last year, which meant he had good power hits, an average batting average, and a lot of strike-outs.
His power actually improved over the Winter. So, I figured the strike-outs had to be killing him. We worked on selectivity and he probably went a little too far onto that side of the continuum.
Eventually, it dawned on me that I guessed what the problem was, but never really asked the coach. Did I correct the wrong thing? Did I actually make things worse while trying to make them better?
I asked the coach what he saw that had him start Logan in the bottom of the order, and he said he honestly couldn't remember. At this point, a half dozen games had gone by. His head is not into a batting lineup decision he made 4 weeks ago.
The fact that he really didn't remember anything specific tells me I probably over-reacted. The coach has to fill out a lineup and somebody's going to bat last. Somebody's going to bat first. The guys in the top of the order tend to be the better hitters. The guys in the bottom tend not to be.
The #11 batter isn't necessarily worse than the #8 batter. It could just be the mood the coach was in when he filled out the card.
Despite my youth sports insanity, I fight a daily battle not to be "that parent". The one who calls the coach to tell them that they ruined my kids' life, or calls the newspaper threatening to sue because they got a statistic wrong.
Every once in a while, though, my emotions get the better of me and I dance way too close to that line.
My son has struggled and as I talked about it with the coach, I said, "I just think his confidence is really low right now. I think it took a hit on opening day when he saw his name in the 11 hole. I honestly don't know what to do for him. He's going to have to do this for himself."
Now, the problem with that was that it sounded like I was placing blame on the coach. I really wasn't, although it comes way too close to sounding that way.
I don't agree that Logan should have been 11. I do think it hit his confidence.
That's a long ways from saying that the coach is to blame for Logan's confidence crisis. Although it seems to be a fine distinction, it's a pretty important one. The coach has to fill in a lineup and frankly, he can't be held responsible if playing Joe Blow in Right Field really makes Joe Blow sad because he wanted to play shortstop this year.
The coach has to make his decisions based on the team, which sometimes means that individual players don't get what they want. In fact, it's almost assured that very few players on the team are ever going to get exactly what they want.
In the final analysis, this brings up why we get so danged crazy.
The coach asked, "Do you want me to talk to him?"
The coach is a great guy. He'd do anything for a player and he listens to everything a parent says. He might not agree, he might not cater to every whim, but he's listening and making good judgements based on what he hears.
I said, "I really have no idea. He's just sorta in a dark-place confidence-wise right now. For the first time in my life, I just have no clue. Whatever you guys come up with, I'm okay with. Mostly, though, I think he's just going to have to work his way out of this by himself."
And that's the deal. When your kid is out there in sports, even though it really isn't reflective on life or their worth in the universe, or frankly, much of what happens to them as an adult, they're pretty much on their own.
As a parent, you really can't do anything to help them. Yeah, you can be supportive. Yeah, you can prepare them as best you can.
However, when they strike out, or the ump makes a bad call on them, or they drop a ball in the outfield, it's on them. They have to deal with it.
You can't help them. This just isn't a situation where you can say or do anything to make things better. In my opinion, you can do things that make things worse, such as getting on the kid and making them feel worse about something they already don't feel good about. However, you can't fix it. You just have to accept that it is the way it is, and there's nothing to be done about it.
Which is why I think parents of young kids get so crazy about this. Even though it's a highly controlled environment, they're on their own and you can't do anything to lessen the blows or prevent a catastrophe.
I also think this has a lot to do with parents' personal insecurity, too. You really walk down a dangerous path if you start to see this as any reflection on the parent, as a person. As much as our kids are reflections of ourselves, they are individuals. The kid who strikes out in every at bat is just as good a person, with just as good a set of parents, as the kid who hits a home run in every at bat.
It's sports. It's supposed to be fair and perfect and always within the rules, but it isn't. It's like real life without the real-life consequences. Just like real life, the kids are going to have to find their own way, and there comes a time when parents have to let go and realize that what happens depends on the kid.
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