Reply to Verbal Abuse by Cal-Berk Coach

Forum Index » Soccer

Reply to "Verbal Abuse by Cal-Berk Coach"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]That described my youth travel girl's soccer coach (played for him from 4th grade-Junior year HS).  We were undefeated for nearly 4 years.  5 State Championships won, Eastern Regionals, every WAGs/every year, every tournament.

This was very common in the way coaches talked to players in the 70s/80s, even girls.

It made me tough as balls.  We were deprived water on 90+degree days and made to run laps.  We had balls kicked directly at us by college players.  We were called derogatory names if we were playing bad or made a mistake.

I asked my mother why none of the parents ever complained and she said "because you were winning'.

I did not coach my boys' rec teams because I almost found myself reverting to sh*t my coach used to say to us when I was a player---yikes. I had my husband coach instead.  [/quote]

My daughter has run into a few female coaches who are like what you described. The girls played not to make a mistake and there is no joy in games or practice. They played to not get yelled at or draw the wrath of the coach. I remember asking her why everyone was out of breath when the coach was talking/yelling at them after a short sprint to the coach. DD said the girls pretended to be out of breath so they did not have to engage to the coach. Of course a few parents loved her..what a great coach, she yells during games, she is so tough, etc. These are the same parents who never went to one practice and saw the coach bully, belittle, make them cry, etc every practice.

The joyless practices and games are the worst. They were not playing. You have to take risk, and actually “play” ie be crafty, experiment, move out of your comfort zone, etc during practice and games. [/quote]

Times have definitely changed. Do any of you work, or worked, for a boss who acted in the manner described?  How was the situation handled within your professional environment?  Were claims of misconduct brought to the supervisor or board and dismissed?

By no means am I defending the college coach, if the claims are accurate, there is no place in sports for it. Sports are the safe place for young and old. From the sounds of it, UC-Berkeley botched this one from start to finish and will spend a lot of resources to improve its image in both the athletic side and administrative side of things. They did the girls wrong by not addressing the multiple claims brought forward by many athletes. The true indication of a well run program or environment is retention, the lack of retention shows a broken or hostile system.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics