Children's sports are definitely appealing to a lower common denominator these days. Sad, but I don't know how to fix it.
Children's sports are definitely appealing to a lower common denominator these days. Sad, but I don't know how to fix it.
Holy crap. I started running cross country/track in 7th grade. I didn't letter in CC until my junior year.Originally Posted by Larommi
The local baseball program here runs a spring and a fall season. I found myself agreeing with Blake's fall ball coach last year, and I really hope his coach this year has the same mentality. Spring baseball is for competition (league standings, tournament, all-star teams formed after season), and fall baseball is for learning (no league standings, tournament, all-star teams afterwards). Also fall ball is when players are promoted to the next league.
I get that sports should be competitive, but also think there's a needed balance to it. A player and an assistant coach (son/father) on Blake's team this past season are ultra competitive people. The son is a very good 1st baseman, but has issues with taking instructions, argues with his dad, and throws tantrums when the team loses and/or he does poorly. 1st game, the head coach had this boy play 2nd and put another kid on 1st during the 6th inning because we had a 10+ run lead. The other team came back and won. The son stormed out shouting about how he should have been on 1st and didn't meet with the team afterwards. His dad made him apologize at the next practice/game. A lot of games had drama because of him (while playing short stop running towards 2nd to make a play, then making a wild throw towards 1st when he realized he couldn't make the out. 2nd baseman was standing on 2nd ready for the throw; rolling the ball back to the pitcher instead of throwing it; not stopping on 3rd when his dad (3rd base running coach) told him to stop then yanking away when his dad grabbed him; outright refused to play catcher. would rather play right field; dad getting frustrated and picking up a overthrown ball, then throwing it fairly hard at the umpire). The mother in the family had the same ultra competitiveness. When it was mentioned about having fun, she stated something about winning is fun which could be taken as only winning is fun.
Despite all that craziness, Blake (and the team) had a fairly good season. They actually lost most of their games and were in the bottom half of the league when the tournament started, but managed to make it to the quarter finals of the tournament by beating 2 really good teams. The game they lost was only by 1 point, and the other team never had the lead until then. Blake kept getting down on himself because he was normally put in the outfield or catcher. He believes the outfield is where the lesser skilled players are put (which is partially true, but there's also politics involved. coach's kids almost never were in the outfield despite their skill level). However, he did make a game winning catch in one game while in left field.
Him and another boy (Nick) were really good a catching. Most times the catcher doesn't really do anything (don't go after foul balls, don't cover the plate, etc.), but Blake and Nick were always doing that. Both made plays at the plate (Blake got an out, and Nick's should have been an out (umpire was at the pitching machine and couldn't see the play)), and both went after pop up foul balls. Blake actually asked for catcher's gear for his birthday and is showing interest in playing catcher in the self pitch leagues despite getting tagged by a pitch on his elbow (inside the arm where it bends) and having seam marks for a few days. I'm trying to work with him over the summer so hopefully he'll be more ready for it.
I liked the head coach for the most part. One thing I disagreed with his coach on was who played catcher. In the tournament games, Blake would play 2 innings, and the other good catcher would play 2 innings. The remaining innings were split between 2 players who were well behind Blake/Nick's level (one would stand up out of the squat position while the ball was being pitched, and the other wouldn't let go of the helmet even when trying to catch a thrown ball or throw the ball himself). I also thought he stressed hitting the cutoff man too much when throwing from the outfield. Didn't matter if the outfielder fielded a ball 5 feet into the outfield, he was supposed to throw it to the cutoff man standing 1-2 feet from him instead of making the throw to 2nd.
The main reason I liked him is because him (and some other newer coaches) screwed with the developed good ole boy network. I was told that during the draft, the league commissioner showed up and told the head coaches they were not allowed to pre-pick their assistant coaches (and automatically get the assistant coaches' sons). Despite that, some coaches worked out who was going to pick who anyway, but Blake's coach screwed it up by picking a player who's dad was planning to assistant coach for another team.
We had a fall ball league last year for my daughter's softball team and it was the same way, sort of laid back, having fun while learning. The girls really enjoyed it.
"Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free." - Jim Morrison
Before when signing Blake up for baseball, we listed every position he played (outfield, pitcher, 2nd, 3rd, catcher), but for fall ball this year, we're only putting catcher. I don't expect him to start out playing the first game or anything, but I want his coach(es) to know that's where he wants to be and to work with him on it.
This will also be the first year Caleb plays t-ball. I'm half tempted to sign up as a coach, but I'm still mulling it over.
EDIT: Regarding fall ball being laid back, many coaches don't see it that way. Blake's coach last year outright told another coach that he sucked as a coach because the other coach refused to moved players to different positions. He put them in one spot and that's where they played the whole season.
Last edited by riot; 07-11-2014 at 05:15 PM.
Sign up as coach, it's very rewarding. I helped last year and this year signed up to help again. Before the season started this year the other coach got ahold of me and asked if I wanted to take the head coach job and I declined because I was worried about not knowing how to work with the pitchers. That was a mistake because he was the head coach but missed a good bit so I was running it most of the time anyhow, but he made all the calls (such as never taking the girls for ice cream after games, who started where, etc.). Next year I'm telling them I want to head coach my daughter's team if at all possible.
"Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free." - Jim Morrison
Some people are way too competitive to see sports for anything but a competition all the time. Our team last year had a fun fall league last year and bounced the girls around to places where they never played before, etc.
"Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free." - Jim Morrison
I was concerned about the same thing but then I saw how some of those other guys were operating and I just said that I could do better than these nimrods. I ended up being head coach for two of the most memorable years ever. I promised everybody that if they didn't start this game then they would definitely start the next game. That gave some of the lesser players something to look forward to and invite their folks to come watch them play. I even coached the 13/14 year old allstars and it was a blast. Just had a hard time keeping some of the better players around once school let out...seems like everybody takes off for vacation and leaves nobody to play ball. When I was a kid, everybody wanted to be an allstar. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore...
My daughter didn't make allstars this year or last. Last year I knew she wouldn't because it was her first year. This year she really improved and honestly wasn't the best kid at tryouts but I thought she still had a shot. Problem was, there were 3 women coaching the team and between the 3 of them they had 5 girls so right there took up 5 spots leaving only another 7 or so to compete for......
"Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free." - Jim Morrison
Blake asked about all stars this year, but when we told him how much of a commitment it was, he decided he didn't want to do it. Last year was the first time it was clearly stated how the teams were selected. If you were interested, you had to fill out a form stating when you would be on vacation so they could consider that during the evaluations.
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