You have seen it before, the irate parent who thinks his kid is the superstar and if you haven’t you either don’t go near a field or you live in a place I would love to move to. What I don’t understand is why kids understand and know who deserves to play but parents just can’t face the facts. I am not saying the kids like to sit the bench but they all know who the best players are and who deserves to start.
As a coach I hear it non stop. I have many conversations with parents about why their kid is not catching or why he is not hitting third and what I don’t understand is even after I show them proof of the difference in performance, I am still an idiot. For example I had a kid the very first year I was coaching who wasn’t going to make the trip to a tournament because he hadn’t been playing third base. His parents were the ones making the decision and the Mom actually approached me and said my son isn’t going and this is why. I said OK, I’ll tell you what, he will start the first game at third base. Four errors later I pulled the kid and he totally understood but his mother was even more frustrated then before. In this case as a coach all you can do is simply fall back on the fact you know and the kids know what the right decision is. Later that night I called the kid into the room and asked him if he thought he deserves to start tomorrow. I told him if you feel you deserve it I will start you. The kid looked at me and said I think being the DH is where I belong coach. I said OK and made my line up.
The point of this story is for the parents who think their kid is the best. I have an idea, ask your kid what he thinks. I promise you will be surprised at what they say. Rarely and I mean rarely does it happen that the best player is on the bench on a consistent basis. How do I know this, because if there was a kid I didn’t like or thought he had a bad attitude I would not pick him up and sit him on the bench just to prove a point. Coaches want the best players, and they want the best players on the field. Again sometimes you run into the coaches son situation and I agree that this can be an issue but at the end of the day more parents are mad about something the kid doesn’t care about or that is actually not even happening.
To prove that kids know the truth I once gave each kid a piece of paper and told them to make the best line up we could put on the field. Amazingly 10-13 players had the same 10 kids in the line up (in summer we can use the EH). Some had different orders but to have 10 kids give me the same line up is crazy. I did not share the results, I simply wanted to see what they would put down.
Parents I ask you simply relax, breath, and talk to your kid about the situation. If you move from team to team every year and always have the same problem, I am 100% sure you are the problem. Think about it and it makes sense.
