Do coaches really factor in the parents when assigning teams?
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Anonymous
| Is the sportsmanship, involvement, difficulty of the parent factor in to the decision? |
Anonymous
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Yes.
I coached a sport for several years so I have plenty of examples but the one that sticks out the most is when a parent was confrontational/rude to one of my coaches. Her child didn’t make the team. The parent knew that had to be the reason and later apologized (only after she couldn’t get her child on the team by going over my head). |
Anonymous
| I never promote a student whose parent is rude to my staff. |
Anonymous
| What grade? My husband coaches ES soccer, and this does not affect him - equal play for all kids. But he was very happy when a lovely girl with a very rude mom did not sign up this season. |
Anonymous
Question is about assigning kids to teams, not play time once teams are determined For our league (and public school class determinations) absolutely yes. No one coach/teacher gets more than a fair share of pita parents. |
Anonymous
Same. |
Anonymous
In our league, assignments are based on school so it does not make a difference. |
Anonymous
I posted above and I coached High School. |
Anonymous
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I was a coach (ES & MS). I quickly realized that the director put all of the PITA and less involved and "less gifted" kids on the same team. Anyone with PITA parents was assigned to that team, too. Yes, parent personality weighs in a lot as well as difficulty and skill level of the child. They are supposed to be evenly distributed through the league but there is often little oversight.
My year, they stacked teams to make the team with the coaches' kids more likely to be noticed or recruited. One team was all coaches' kids and their close friends, one was middling, the third team (mine) was the PITA/uninvolved team. It was so sad because the kids knew it. Actually, those uninvolved PITA kids were awesome and talented. It was finally realized because we actually individualized our coaching and enforced equal play time. The wonderful irony is we won all of our games. |
Anonymous
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I coached in es for most of my kids teams. If a parent gave me a hard time or was confrontational, I did one of two things:
1. Not remind them to sign up for next season 2. Ask the league commissioner to have that kid be on a different team the following season All kids got equal play time regardless of whether I like them or their parents. |
Anonymous
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20:20- we did the first thing too. Our parents are all ok but some of them are unreliable and some of the kids are disruptive or annoying. When registration opens, they all get emails from the club, but we did our reminder emails in phases. First round of reminders went out to just the families we liked the most, to make sure they all got spots. After they were all signed up, the reminder went out to everyone else.
We had to do this because we initially had more kids interested than we had roster spots and we had a couple of girls booted to other teams in a previous season because random outside girls requested our team. Wanted to make sure the known reliable girls got spots. |
Anonymous
| This thread is incredible. Makes me yearn for my childhood in a socialist country. The kids seem to get discriminated against at every turn and every age. |
Anonymous
My childs team has two kids who are huge time sucks for the Coaches and whose parents are doing nothing to help with the kid. One is the oldest and either decided he doesn't want to be there and just walks around or doesn't throw the ball and makes inappropriate comments. His version of cheering for his teammates annoys them and he doesn't stop when told to. The other kid wants to play with the others but not the sport in question. He refuses to use the equipment that is required and goofs off at every opportunity. We have had both these kids on different teams and it is always the same thing. One season the older boys parents were more involved and trying to get their kid to do what he was suppose to and things went a lot better. At least the parents were helping the child modify his behavior. Not this season. So we have two kids who are eating up the time of one of the Coaches, which hurts the other kids who are trying to learn how to play the sport. Parents who are pains in the ass and have to be reminded about good sportsmanship and behavior are a huge problem today. No one wants them on their teams. But you also don't want parents who are going to leave their child who doesn't want to play the sport dropped off with volunteer coaches. What it gets down to is that parents need to do a better job parenting and modeling good behavior when it comes to sports, or any event. There are a growing number of parents who are too invested in their kid being the top player and behaving badly or checking out when their kid is not interested in the activity and making it harder for the other kids to enjoy. |
Anonymous
I've been coaching ES softball for 4 years. Our girls are aging up to middle school after this season and I am thankful that we've got a great group of parents this year that are really helpful and support all the kids on the team. Two years ago we had parents that kept trying to coach from the sidelines... worst parents ever. I tell their kid to hold up at first after a base hit and they just keep yelling 'keep going'. I asked them to stop and the dad said 'you want me to come out there? We can settle this.' Yeah, please threaten the volunteer coach... that makes everything better. So yeah, kids will be judged by their parents actions. The coaches are all volunteers who would honestly just love to sit and watch their kid play but they've committed their time to helping your kid. Don't be an asshole. 
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Anonymous
You are talking about rec sports, right? Its not travel with the expectation that kids get to stay on the same team every season. Why shouldn't "random" kids be put on your team? Who should get all the "random" kids? |