Crazy Parents

Yappi

Yappi

Go Buckeyes
Not to get into specifics but anyone have some stories about crazy softball parents?
 
 
My wife has coached for the last 10 years or so, so I have a lot of them, but my favorite was a Dad showed up to a tryout (his daughter had not been offered a spot on the team) with a written "contract" that said his daughter would pitch at least half the games every weekend, play in the infield when she wasn't pitching and bat no lower than 5th in the batting order. I think his daughter was 11. My wife and her assistant laughed because they thought he was joking, he wasn't.

My next favorite is a Mom who's daughter was a few years younger than the age group my daughter played at approached my wife at a tournament and told my wife she was interested in moving her daughter up because she was too good to play with her age group. She proceeded to pull a chart out of her purse that showed Jenny Finch's pitching speeds at different ages and compared what her daughter's speeds at the same age. She told my wife that her pitching coach told her she was the next big thing in Ohio. She was 10 lol. And when we went to watch her and clocked her, her speeds where 10-15 mph less than what the mom claimed. And she gave up 6 or 7 runs in three innings, against her own age group.

Pitchers parents are the best. Even the ones who aren't "crazy" are crazier than almost all the other parents on the team.
 
I thought little league baseball was bad until friends started telling me the horror stories of little league "premier elite travel" softball.
 
Have you ever seen the "Runaway Player"? That is the player that has a parent that can't be happy anywhere?

I'm sure most coaches think; "we're different. We can fix the problems they've dealt with in the past." Only to end up with an angry parent when they head off to their next team.

I think it would be a great study to see how softball players that played for 10+ travel teams in their youth years do as high school players. Do they continue playing? Get burned out? Turn into the college players that their Dad talked about at the t-ball games?
 
Yappi said:
Have you ever seen the "Runaway Player"? That is the player that has a parent that can't be happy anywhere?

I'm sure most coaches think; "we're different. We can fix the problems they've dealt with in the past." Only to end up with an angry parent when they head off to their next team.

I think it would be a great study to see how softball players that played for 10+ travel teams in their youth years do as high school players. Do they continue playing? Get burned out? Turn into the college players that their Dad talked about at the t-ball games?
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I've seen too many "runaway players."

The ones that jump teams every year. Parents unhappy with where the kid is playing, at in the batting order, how you are using them, etc...sky is blue, they complain, cloudy out, they complain. The sad part is 99.9% of the time the kid is alright. It is always the parent(s).

Kids grow so differently. There are many 10 year olds that will top out at 11/12. I have a good friend whose daughter was a dynamite youth swimmer. Nationally ranked. At age 14 she developed double D breasts. There went her swim career.;)
 
NewOldBlood said:
My wife has coached for the last 10 years or so, so I have a lot of them, but my favorite was a Dad showed up to a tryout (his daughter had not been offered a spot on the team) with a written "contract" that said his daughter would pitch at least half the games every weekend, play in the infield when she wasn't pitching and bat no lower than 5th in the batting order. I think his daughter was 11. My wife and her assistant laughed because they thought he was joking, he wasn't.

My next favorite is a Mom who's daughter was a few years younger than the age group my daughter played at approached my wife at a tournament and told my wife she was interested in moving her daughter up because she was too good to play with her age group. She proceeded to pull a chart out of her purse that showed Jenny Finch's pitching speeds at different ages and compared what her daughter's speeds at the same age. She told my wife that her pitching coach told her she was the next big thing in Ohio. She was 10 lol. And when we went to watch her and clocked her, her speeds where 10-15 mph less than what the mom claimed. And she gave up 6 or 7 runs in three innings, against her own age group.

Pitchers parents are the best. Even the ones who aren't "crazy" are crazier than almost all the other parents on the team.
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This is hilarious..I would have loved to have been there for that first story.

Coached a 13-year old Babe Ruth team that went to the BR World Series in Williston, ND in 2013. The following year we had a few "travel" players join our rec league in hopes of making the All-Star team and have another chance to advance to the WS. Our team was stacked but truly needed a better SS and leadoff hitter. One new player fit our needs perfectly. He was selected to the team. On picture day, the parents stopped us in the parking lot to discuss their son's role on the team. We (coaches) were pumped to have him and had planned to have him as our regular SS, leadoff hitter and use him for some pitching if needed. We were stunned when the parents demanded that he "never leave the field". We explained that we finished 5th in the country in the World Series the year before and our entire team was returning and how much we were looking foward to having their son on the team...thought he fit in well, etc. Knowing darn well that the kid would definitely never leave the field! However, we certainly were not going to tell them that or make any type of ridiculous guarantees. Needless to say, they elected not to play. People are nutty.
 
Runaway players...seen that this past year.

Parents complained all last year of EVERYTHING. New team this year and the parents got what they wanted, playing SS, batting third and getting a lot of time on the mound.

When I first saw him pitch, I could see why didn't get innings on his previous team.
 
BobcatQB said:
This is hilarious..I would have loved to have been there for that first story.

Coached a 13-year old Babe Ruth team that went to the BR World Series in Williston, ND in 2013. The following year we had a few "travel" players join our rec league in hopes of making the All-Star team and have another chance to advance to the WS. Our team was stacked but truly needed a better SS and leadoff hitter. One new player fit our needs perfectly. He was selected to the team. On picture day, the parents stopped us in the parking lot to discuss their son's role on the team. We (coaches) were pumped to have him and had planned to have him as our regular SS, leadoff hitter and use him for some pitching if needed. We were stunned when the parents demanded that he "never leave the field". We explained that we finished 5th in the country in the World Series the year before and our entire team was returning and how much we were looking foward to having their son on the team...thought he fit in well, etc. Knowing darn well that the kid would definitely never leave the field! However, we certainly were not going to tell them that or make any type of ridiculous guarantees. Needless to say, they elected not to play. People are nutty.
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Good for you for not kissing their . Too many coaches would have told them exactly what they wanted to hear and then been shocked when things didn't work out.
 
I think the runaway players are the end result of too much travel ball. We need a balance between rec ball and travel ball where these type of runaway players do not have an unlimited amount of teams that they can burn after a season (or partial season).
 
Runaway to a new team or just start your own. A couple parents asked if I wanted to help coach next year as we would take their sons and my step son and start a new team because they were not happy with the coaching
 
NewOldBlood said:
Pitchers parents are the best. Even the ones who aren't "crazy" are crazier than almost all the other parents on the team.
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Hey, as a parent of a pitcher that's not always the case, in my book pitcher and catcher parents are usually the best :) In fact the worst parent on my kid's team she was affiliated with the most was the little speedster that played CF. Her dad thought that we should only play small ball and if the coach didn't send daughter for a steal on the 1st pitch he was in the ear of the coach yelling about the need to keep the gears moving and putting pressure on the other team's defense. Of course he was quiet when daughter would fail to hit the cutoff for the 100th time allowing runners to move up a base.

We should also have a thread on idiot coaches. Of course at the top of the heap is the "yeller" that screams out all instructions. The last thing a 14 year old girl wants to hear is some adult screaming at her about some small thing she did wrong that is coach's pet peeve, all the girls do at that point is tune them out. I also was bothered by the "no fun" coaches that ran their team like a platoon of soldiers with draconian rules for every aspect of the team. I saw one team's rule sheet and it was two pages single spaced that had a rule for everything, one of our parents made a joke that the girls were not allowed to breath unless the coach gave them prior approval.
 
Maybe in SB the pitchers parents aren't that bad, but I have noticed in baseball they are mostly due to pitch count, innings, etc.
 
I've been through this gamut three times now since the late 90's to 2014.

Every team starts off pretty good. A solid premiere elite travel :LOL: 9U team (softball or baseball).

Every parent can tell everyone else how their daughter or son is travel premiere elite and they get along with all of the other parents but then year two comes. Now, all of a sudden, skill sets have changed, kids grow differently. Some parents went out and got a personal pitching coach who teaches things differently than the head coach. Another couple dads went out and watched some YouTube videos and now are all swing doctors. Parents who were friends the year before now hate each other (and the coach) and actually are jealous of each others kids. Parents start believing that other parents (and their kid) "think" they are better than everyone else. Then a couple parents pull their kids to an even more elite premiere travel program :LOL: and a couple other dads start up their own squad and the process usually starts all over again to some degree.

Classic youth baseball & softball.
 
Auggie said:
I also was bothered by the "no fun" coaches that ran their team like a platoon of soldiers.
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I try to be the fun coach. Sometimes it works, other times, not so much.

After watching the youtube parody video about a "bad" coach, I used one of his lines for the huddle breakup. I said, that team over there is pretty good, but we are gooder. Then I went into the chant, "gooder on three." A few kids loved it. The others...not so much. Got a couple strange looks from the other coaches too. People need to watch more youtube.

 
Yappi said:
I try to be the fun coach. Sometimes it works, other times, not so much.

After watching the youtube parody video about a "bad" coach, I used one of his lines for the huddle breakup. I said, that team over there is pretty good, but we are gooder. Then I went into the chant, "gooder on three." A few kids loved it. The others...not so much. Got a couple strange looks from the other coaches too. People need to watch more youtube.

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As discussed in the thread, dad jokes are great for 10U & 12U especially for circle visits when things are not going well. At 14U things change and I never figured out how to communicate with those girls.
 
Auggie said:
As discussed in the thread, dad jokes are great for 10U & 12U especially for circle visits when things are not going well. At 14U things change and I never figured out how to communicate with those girls.
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I can imagine. I'm coaching 12U right now. It is a fun group and they are still "young". Once they hit those teenage years, I'm guessing it will be quite a bit different. Not sure I'll be ready for it.
 
My wife would tell you it's not nearly as fun after 14u. 16u and up becomes more about showcasing and recruiting and less about the team and winning. And obviously the attitudes change. It's still fun, but to be honest as my daughter finishes up 18u and heads to college, I'm kind of glad it's wrapping up. It will be nice to have our summers back for the first time in a lot of years.
 
I'm not quite ready to move on but I'm getting there. I was on the baseball side first and now on the softball side. For the most part, Summers have been spent at the ballpark for the last 12 years. It will be strange to not be hustling to a game in a few years. Probably have grandkids by then and start following them!!
 
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