Parent coaches

[Anonymous]

What is your experience with parent coaches in your kids sport? We had such a horrible experience in our sport (head coach surrounding himself with low quality parent coaches). All kinds of issues: poor instruction and organization of competitions, bad mouthing other parents or athletes (my kid even knew what the parent coach was telling about other parents at the dinner table); nepotism; fights over financial access to best athletes between themselves or even with head coach.
What’s funny, in most cases nepotism doesn’t really help their own children but further traumatized them by either overuse or excessive expectations, not commensurate with abilities.
I wonder if it’s the same in all sports? Shouldn’t there be rules not allowing to train same group where your own child trains, etc.?

[Anonymous]

When do parent coaches have financial access to children in sports?

That part does not make sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When do parent coaches have financial access to children in sports?

That part does not make sense.

When they are giving private instruction while being coaches on same team. In our sport it was allowed

[Anonymous]

Personally, I think it depends on the level.

For rec. sports, parents are volunteers. Yes, often they aren't the best and sometimes they favor their own child and their children's friends, but really, if you don't like it, you can feel free to step up and coach. My son played on a rec. basketball team with a coach who instructed my son and the other defensive player that if they got a steal, they were NOT to shoot or move the ball, but instead should immediately pass to his son or another kid. The lazy shooters made no effort on defense, but the other kids had to give them the ball or else get yelled at. I thought that was ridiculous, but the coach was a volunteer, so we kept quiet.

If I am paying for travel level, I would prefer to not have parent coaches at all. The only exception might be if the coach's kid is one of the best on the team. That way, there can be no question about playing time, position, or other decisions related to the coach's child - he or she deserves to be playing. My kids have played for a travel soccer club with parent coaches where it did not work well. In one case, the coach's kid really wasn't playing at the appropriate level for the team and in another, the composition of the team seemed geared toward keeping the coach's kid's friends together. As to the latter, that might not be a problem if you are one of the chosen. However, if you are a strong player on a weak B team who is as good as or better than the A team players and there seems to be no chance of moving because no one is going to be moved down from the A team, there is no reason to stay at the club. The only way it would work is if decisions are made fairly without regard for interests specific to the coach's kid. But that is hard to do, even with the best of intentions.

[Anonymous]

That was the case at our club as well - I wish it was just about the parent coaches’ children. But if went as far as favoring a whole group of 5-6 players who were not really strong athletes but trained with or went to same school with the parent coach kid for many years. Or their parents were neighbors or friends of the parent coach, sharing carpools, taking private lessons etc.They were consistently getting moved up while other stronger kids often left sitting on benches. Of course, some athletes had left.

I started feeling at some point that the whole sport was a scam built to benefit those limited groups and not necessarily merit-based.

[Anonymous]

Parent coaches can be fine, it all depends on how they handle the responsibilities. There will always be parents who coach so that they can favor their own kids, and this is usually a losing proposition, though there are some parents who coach and whose kids are clearly the stars and then this is not much of a problem. Some parent coaches will also favor friends, neighbors or whatever, and just as often, the parent coaches will be seriously out of date in terms of current instruction. You can see this easily in baseball where hitting (swing for the fences, swing only at strikes) has changed pretty drastically from the 80s (make contact, protect, swing at anything close . . . ). But non-parent coaches can easily succumb to the same and different problems, and it is even worse now with all of the private coaching. In many areas, paying for private lessons, often at $100 an hour or more, will put you in the starting lineup. that is kind of sick and should never be tolerated but it happens all the time and ia also happening increasingly in HS where coaches will run private clubs or training and favor those who pay to play so to speak Might God, you might as well take a bribe. In other words, good coaches are hard to find, unfortunately, but when you find one, bet thankful.

[Anonymous]

It can be fine, depending on the individual coach, obviously. If it's a volunteer coaching position, the alternative is for you or your spouse to step up and volunteer to coach.

If you have a non-parent coach, you're typically paying more bc you're paying for the coach.