Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Team managers are the worst for this

Wow. I have been the team manager for my son's teams for the past 5 years, because not one single other person was willing to do it. We had no one volunteer, and the coaches had to send out multiple emails begging someone to step up. I haven't asked for anything special for my son, or offered the coach anything beyond dealing with tons of scheduling issues with other teams and searching for an arranging for the guest players that the coach needed or requested from me. If you are that unhappy with the team managers of your child's team, I suggest that you step up and volunteer yourself.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Team managers are the worst for this

Wow. I have been the team manager for my son's teams for the past 5 years, because not one single other person was willing to do it. We had no one volunteer, and the coaches had to send out multiple emails begging someone to step up. I haven't asked for anything special for my son, or offered the coach anything beyond dealing with tons of scheduling issues with other teams and searching for an arranging for the guest players that the coach needed or requested from me. If you are that unhappy with the team managers of your child's team, I suggest that you step up and volunteer yourself.

Team managers are the worst for this


Wow. I have been the team manager for my son's teams for the past 5 years, because not one single other person was willing to do it. We had no one volunteer, and the coaches had to send out multiple emails begging someone to step up. I haven't asked for anything special for my son, or offered the coach anything beyond dealing with tons of scheduling issues with other teams and searching for an arranging for the guest players that the coach needed or requested from me. If you are that unhappy with the team managers of your child's team, I suggest that you step up and volunteer yourself.



This makes no sense. No one said they were unhappy with their team manager. Being team manager doesn't mean your kid should get undeserved preferential treament.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a coach, I’d estimate about 1/2 of parents are contacting coaches to opine about their kid and, eventually, it slides into commentary on the team as a whole, other players, etc. And it’s markedly worse than 5-10 years ago. Unfortunately, I see a lot of coaches who - possibly unintentionally - acquiesce to the parent’s demands/“suggestions”.

When you say "opine", what do you mean? I approach my DS' coach about my son once a year about 1/3 of the way through the season - but just to ask how he's doing, what he should be focusing on, and what reasonable expectations should be as far as recruiting goals. Are you including this sort of behaviour, or is this people trying to tell the coach that their kid should be used differently?

Nothing wrong with that. It’s parents with “my kid is better at position X”, “my kid doesn’t want to play position X”, “my kid should be practicing/playing with the A team”, “player X [not their kid] hasn’t been scoring much at Striker, they might be better as a Center Back”...And you see it where the parent’s kid gets the opportunity with the A team, even if they aren’t the most deserving kid. Unfortunately, especially in the current climate, clubs and coaches are responsive to it because they don’t want players leaving.

Both team managers kids on my son’s U16 team. They aren’t even in the top 5 of best players on the team. Not even close.

I think this definitely happens. However it is also true that many parents do not know enough about soccer to reliably know which kids "should" be starting. I'm not just talking about the inbuilt bias every parent has towards their own kid, but a genuine inability to see and understand what the coach sees when he looks at a soccer player. This remains true at all levels of kids' soccer - as the kids get better the parents tend to know and see more, but it gets harder to distinguish between two talented kids. Parents can see speed, one-on-one wins, and they can see goals and assists easily enough - but it's harder to pick up on things like first touch, and soft feet and I would guess that very few parents can reliably assess off the ball movement, awareness and decision-making.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a coach, I’d estimate about 1/2 of parents are contacting coaches to opine about their kid and, eventually, it slides into commentary on the team as a whole, other players, etc. And it’s markedly worse than 5-10 years ago. Unfortunately, I see a lot of coaches who - possibly unintentionally - acquiesce to the parent’s demands/“suggestions”.

When you say "opine", what do you mean? I approach my DS' coach about my son once a year about 1/3 of the way through the season - but just to ask how he's doing, what he should be focusing on, and what reasonable expectations should be as far as recruiting goals. Are you including this sort of behaviour, or is this people trying to tell the coach that their kid should be used differently?

Nothing wrong with that. It’s parents with “my kid is better at position X”, “my kid doesn’t want to play position X”, “my kid should be practicing/playing with the A team”, “player X [not their kid] hasn’t been scoring much at Striker, they might be better as a Center Back”...And you see it where the parent’s kid gets the opportunity with the A team, even if they aren’t the most deserving kid. Unfortunately, especially in the current climate, clubs and coaches are responsive to it because they don’t want players leaving.

Both team managers kids on my son’s U16 team. They aren’t even in the top 5 of best players on the team. Not even close.

I think this definitely happens. However it is also true that many parents do not know enough about soccer to reliably know which kids "should" be starting. I'm not just talking about the inbuilt bias every parent has towards their own kid, but a genuine inability to see and understand what the coach sees when he looks at a soccer player. This remains true at all levels of kids' soccer - as the kids get better the parents tend to know and see more, but it gets harder to distinguish between two talented kids. Parents can see speed, one-on-one wins, and they can see goals and assists easily enough - but it's harder to pick up on things like first touch, and soft feet and I would guess that very few parents can reliably assess off the ball movement, awareness and decision-making.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has been very common in our experience. Certain kids get preferred treatment because the parents kiss a$$ constantly. This is even more apparent if the coach also trains kids or has a side business, which most do. It's all a game. The kids who do "extra" training with the coach and just so happen pay their coach to train more are treated differently.

We do extra training, but I like my kids to hear from many different coaches and have different experiences instead of just one. God forbid you don't do the extra training, camps, trips etc that your coach puts on. Some parents push a lot of business to their coach through their training businesses and those kids are always treated differently. If you cut the kid, or piss of the parents, it will cost you many thousands of dollars every year so the coaches have a financial interest in making sure an inferior player keeps up. We have one parent who really pushes business to the coach, like a lot. Before and after every game he is over there talking with the coach - It's incredibly annoying to watch. It always starts with a plug on how they just gave the coaches info to someone for training and then get quickly into their own self interests. It's crazy.

VDA parent (s).

Anonymous wrote:

Team managers are the worst for this

Wow. I have been the team manager for my son's teams for the past 5 years, because not one single other person was willing to do it. We had no one volunteer, and the coaches had to send out multiple emails begging someone to step up. I haven't asked for anything special for my son, or offered the coach anything beyond dealing with tons of scheduling issues with other teams and searching for an arranging for the guest players that the coach needed or requested from me. If you are that unhappy with the team managers of your child's team, I suggest that you step up and volunteer yourself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a coach, I’d estimate about 1/2 of parents are contacting coaches to opine about their kid and, eventually, it slides into commentary on the team as a whole, other players, etc. And it’s markedly worse than 5-10 years ago. Unfortunately, I see a lot of coaches who - possibly unintentionally - acquiesce to the parent’s demands/“suggestions”.

When you say "opine", what do you mean? I approach my DS' coach about my son once a year about 1/3 of the way through the season - but just to ask how he's doing, what he should be focusing on, and what reasonable expectations should be as far as recruiting goals. Are you including this sort of behaviour, or is this people trying to tell the coach that their kid should be used differently?

Nothing wrong with that. It’s parents with “my kid is better at position X”, “my kid doesn’t want to play position X”, “my kid should be practicing/playing with the A team”, “player X [not their kid] hasn’t been scoring much at Striker, they might be better as a Center Back”...And you see it where the parent’s kid gets the opportunity with the A team, even if they aren’t the most deserving kid. Unfortunately, especially in the current climate, clubs and coaches are responsive to it because they don’t want players leaving.

Both team managers kids on my son’s U16 team. They aren’t even in the top 5 of best players on the team. Not even close.

Anonymous wrote:

This is even more apparent if the coach also trains kids or has a side business, which most do. It's all a game. The kids who do "extra" training with the coach and just so happen pay their coach to train more are treated differently.

Yeah, I find it strange that parents can pay extra to have their kids' coach do additional individual training. We have hired a coach from my son's club to work with him individually, but he coaches a team a year below my son's team, not my son's team (he was never my son's coach). I didn't even think it would be allowed to hire your own coach, but I guess it is.

Anonymous wrote:My god!! When does it stop?!

My oldest is U16, youngest U13. We suffered at some Clubs where the parents currying favor were at insane levels.

It hasn’t stopped. Both teams have a dad that has self-appointed him assistant coach and in charge of the Coach’s refreshments—-even handing them out during the game.

We arrived early to the U13 game where “Coach” dad was giving real Coacj his assessment of the team and how they play and where kids should play. Of course, with his kid (not even a top 5-8 player on team) as starring role.

And this sh@t actually works. Kid starts every game—though usually pulled out after 15 min for better player that plays rest of game. But it does a psych # on kids when they see these kids with kiss @ss dads be the 1 player to move up or start on first team even when they aren’t one of the top players.

It is less so on elite teams—but to my dismay it still happens.

Makes me laugh too since so many of these dads never played the game or did so at a low level. I have to sit here as a D1, National club team player, Gatorade state player and bite my tongue.

I’m not paying $3k/year for my kid to be coached by dipsh@t Coach dad.

This is even more apparent if the coach also trains kids or has a side business, which most do. It's all a game. The kids who do "extra" training with the coach and just so happen pay their coach to train more are treated differently.

Anonymous wrote:This has been very common in our experience. Certain kids get preferred treatment because the parents kiss a$$ constantly. This is even more apparent if the coach also trains kids or has a side business, which most do. It's all a game. The kids who do "extra" training with the coach and just so happen pay their coach to train more are treated differently.

We do extra training, but I like my kids to hear from many different coaches and have different experiences instead of just one. God forbid you don't do the extra training, camps, trips etc that your coach puts on. Some parents push a lot of business to their coach through their training businesses and those kids are always treated differently. If you cut the kid, or piss of the parents, it will cost you many thousands of dollars every year so the coaches have a financial interest in making sure an inferior player keeps up. We have one parent who really pushes business to the coach, like a lot. Before and after every game he is over there talking with the coach - It's incredibly annoying to watch. It always starts with a plug on how they just gave the coaches info to someone for training and then get quickly into their own self interests. It's crazy.