Old-school sports parenting

My son asked me if I would coach his t-ball team last year with the guy who was his first-year t-ball coach. I had trained boxers at one time many years ago but had never done any other coaching. Baseball was my fave sport and I had played it a lot growing up.

Coaching was fun - if a little crazy dealing with parents and coaches who might not be as familiar with the rules as I was - but the team had a lot of success and the kids seemed to have fun. I ended up as an assistant coach on the all-star team (yes, there was such a thing in t-ball) and that was a great weekend, terrific, very competitive ball.

Baseball in my neck of the woods is nowhere near as insane as minor hockey as JR can attest. My son has no interest in playing organized hockey and I don't blame him. It's a fucking cesspool, ruined by coaches and parents.

 

JR, that's a fucking GTHL hockey parent rant if I've ever seen one!

 

Huggy,

Pretty much.

As a matter of fact, I've heard that one before from a few hockey parents.

 

And then they buy a Tier II or Jr. B team for their kid to play on. Or pay his minor-hockey coach 80K to coach 10-year-olds.

 

I am curious what you mean when you say that sports is only an "outlet?" Could you please clarify?

 

I first became aware of this Web site about a year ago. I traded e-mails with the guy who runs it and he seems OK.
I'm sure we could all say this, but I agree with some of what he says and disagree with other things.
To me, the whole competition vs. having fun issue is polarized to a ridiculous degree. Everyone seems to think anyone who disagrees with them on the issue is either a Mr. Buzzcut/Vince Lombardi type or a trophies-for-everyone/Mr. Van Dreisen type.
The analogy one SportsJournalists.comer brought up about hunters and animal rights activists was a good one. Neither side understands the other and neither side wants to understand the other.
These days it seems like there's something wrong with you if you can understand both sides of an issue.
There's a time and a place for everything. As a young athlete gets older and more serious a higher level of commitment should be expected. Expecting 5-year-old t-ball players to practice year-round and for their families to give up their vacations is absurd, but so is not keeping score and handing out juice boxes at varsity high school football games.

 

Sigh ... not just GTHL ... hell, I fielded those calls in all three of the locales where I wrote sports. It was the worst in Petit Montreal, where there were lawsuits threatened, filed and tossed out of court.

 

Every parent needs to be sensitive to their individual child's needs, temperment and skills.

Bear with me. This is not meant to be a "look how fucking great my kids are" post.

I have three sons--the eldest is 22 and then there are the 20 year old twins.

They all played baseball and hockey growing up but their skill levels and attitudes were so different that our approach to each son's involvement in sports was entirely different.

The eldest was a good baseball player (he played hs ball with Joey Votto of the Reds) a terrific goalie and now he plays Canadian university football.

He has always driven himself to be better.

He played house league hockey til he was eight and then was bored. He started playing AA hockey, played AAA in Peewee and played AA in Bantam and Midget. He was the starting goalie for his hs hockey team in grade nine, a team that was a penalty shot away from representing Toronto at the provincial tournament.

He pestered me constantly about going to goalie schools, taking private lessons. He was always the most dedicated and focused player on his team.

When he discovered football in hs, he approached it with the same dedication

Thing is, I could drive him, cajole him, push him and challenge him and he took it all in stride.

Of the twins, one was the most naturally gifted athlete of the three of them. It all came to him effortlessly and he has never worked all that hard at any sport. Just enough to get by/make the team

He was a terrific hockey player---a beautiful natural skater and when he was 12 decided to become a goalie like his older brother. Upside for his teams was he could play forward, defense and goal. I enrolled him in goalie school (same one as his older brother) and at the end of the first day said, "I didn't realise it'd be so much work". It did NOT come to him naturally and he wasn't convinced there was any upside to all this physical exertion

He played house league and rep hockey but never aspired to anything else. Pushing and challenging him just made him disinterested in the sport. He too is playing football at the same university as his older brother--he's raw talent but has little self discipline when it comes to working out. Ragging on him was and is counterproductive.

His twin brother was never very skilled at sports but it certainly didn't dampen his enthusiasm--he played for the social aspect. He loved going to the rink, playing his house league games and goofing off in the dressing room. He never learned to skate properly, never learned to hit a baseball very well. He hated going to any practices
.
I mean, he was the 10 year old version of the beer league hockey player--he was in it for the juice box and snacks afterwards.

The idea of riding him about a botched play in centre field would have been so preposterous that he would have just stared at me like I was from Mars.

Smallpotatoes is right. It's not an either/or situation. It also varies from child to child depending on their skill level and personallity.

 

Good post, JR.

And I see kids playing baseball that just eat it up, want to get better and love the game.

I also see a lot who are doing it because daddy is driving it and expecting great things from them.

And I also think that a lot of the parents would be ashamed if their kid didn't make All-Stars or the hot-shot AAU team and are primarily motivated by that.

 

RIGHT ON THE MONEY!!!

 

Again, I'm torn.

I provided the Hegins hunter/PETA analogy ... and yet, I introduced the Van Driesen stereotype.

I got it. Let's blame the soccer moms.

 

Sorry for not giving you the proper credit.