Thavoice
Well-known member
Look, we just have to ignore Baseswimparent. He is either a Troll looking to attract attention or he is simply someone who really has very little knowledge of what he speaks. If you read the majority of his posts, he just has an ax to grind with a particular coach or handful of coaches. Yet he spreads this small sample size to ALL high school baseball coaches (or maybe ALL high school coaches).
Again, in 35 years of coaching, from head coach to assistant coach, to a youth coach to high school and to college, I'm betting I've run across and coached with a much larger sample size than BaseSwim ever has. Have I run into some BAD coaches? You bet. Is that the MAJORITY of coaches? ABSOLUTELY NOT!! The majority of high school coaches absolutely love their kids and love coaching; they want to make the kids better players and better people. They want to win, but they want to do it right. And I don't think for a minute that us parochial coaches have an edge on any of the public school coaches as far as our skill, intensity, honesty or desire to do well.
BaseSwim blathers on about whether players can or can't practice under OHSAA rules. Yet when it is pointed out that he is incorrect, he simply dries up and blows away. He criticizes all SW Ohio coaches for bunting too much. Really? And yet what qualifies him to make that appraisal, let alone how does he see ALL the SW Ohio teams play.
He says a coach can't possibly make a correct judgment about players with only 3 days of tryouts unless that coach goes and sees all those players play in the summer. (Something I actually DO, as much as possible, but mainly because I love my kids and I like watching baseball). This simply shows his ignorance of the knowledge and skill of a coach who has been coaching for many years and knows what he's dealing with if he runs a proper tryout. Guess what? I already see my players play the spring BEFORE, so I already know about the skill level of all the players in my program, except for the Freshmen who come in the next year.
Another question: How is it that tryouts, (high school, college, pro, and showcase type) are held all over the country by people who watch players for, literally, a few hours, and yet they are still expected to evaluate those players for selection to high level programs or events. Are you suggesting that all of those gentlemen really can't judge players because they don't see them play all summer? That's laughable.
Finally, BS (for short), I will tell you that I can tell more about a player's mental make-up, hustle and attitude from the year before in my own program,or in my 3 day tryout, then I could ever pick up watching him play in a meaningless summer game. And for me, his attitude, behavior and mental discipline mean a lot more than his 60 time or his "velo"......before you make a blanket statement about high school coaches, I suggest you come to some of our tryouts and watch what we put them through and watch to see what we see.
Maybe your school's coach IS an absolute boob who knows nothing. But I'm going to bet the person with the problem in this picture might just be someone else. And again, that is just the reading of your many posts and the attitude that bleeds through. I'm guessing if you ask for some other opinions on this board, you'll find that I'm not the only person that guesses you'd be a nightmare to have around as a parent, whether baseball or swimming. Have a good day, BS.
Often times it does not even take that long! A spring coach wanted to see how a certain kid looked at 2B one summer. It took about 5 reps doing double plays (actually less, but after the 2nd one showed him how it needed to be done) to know that was not going to be in his, or the team's, best interest.
One time I had the unfortunate task of coaching a HS aged team knowing NOTHING about the kids, never seen them one time, and had to be ready to play a game within a week.
That sucked, but it really didnt take too terrible long to evaluate.
As a matter of fact, after practice 1 where i had all the pitchers throw, I noticed one had some very special talent (summer between his FROSH and SOPH year) so I called a local guy who had the scouting connections. He just chuckled and said "Are you talking about _______? We already know all about him"!
Not to tout my own horn because I dont know much of anything, but a couple of years ago I saw a HS highlights on the tv news. They showed a kid getting a hit and I was like "wow, that kid looks like he has a clue, wonder who he is" and at the end of the replays they said he had just broken the school record for hits and was going someplace to play college ball.
The truly good players it does not take too long if you have a knack for it i guess ya could say!