Why Does Anyone in There Right Mind Coach

As most of you regulars know I have coached a few Little League baseball teams as well as a couple Soccer teams.

We had a lot of success and some less then stellar teams but I've always done the best to teach the kids the game and to win whenever possible. My theory was this....to always teach the best that I knew how and then let the boys/girls do their thing. Winning wasn't everything, but one thing is certain, one does NOT play to lose. After all is said and done you are the guiding force in practice but when it comes right down to it, when the game begins it's a combination of what you have taught them and their raw abilities that will determine who wins the game, the latter being the likely determinate.

I am not coaching this year, for a number of reasons, but I have a good friend who is. He like all people of the human experience has his foibles but that being said he is perhaps the best fundamentally solid baseball instructor that I have ever known, maybe ever seen. He hammers those who show lack of intensity and praises vociferously those who overachieve. He's a lot like me in theory but with an inate sense for the game that I cannot nor will ever possess.

Well it's a month from the beginining of the season and my good friend has already had to endure a bit of inane self-important bravado from a parent who feels his child has not achieved the recognition/position that said parent feels HE'S entitled. It's too bad as the kid is a pretty good natured likabale sort who plays aggresively at Basketball but is a bit timid when it comes to hardball. Nothing against the boy, I happen to like him a lot, but hey, he didn't choose to have an a$$hole as a dad.

Rather than approach things like a man he chose to leave a nasty V-mail threatening to remove his child from the team and then without even answering the coaches reponse went to his X to complain about his (and his childs)alledged mistreatment/disrespect. JP! What is wrong with this the greatest of all cultures that a seemingly intelligent educated individual would behave as a gutless schmuck.

I knew this guy was a lib. I knew his wife went to the Obama inaugeration, I knew I disagreed with him on almost every issue imaginable. I actually enjoyed sparring with him on the issues of the day. What I didn't know is he was a weasely backstabbing, spineless,(unemployed by choice) turd who would not even have the courtesy or most basic respect to honestly confront a coach who gives countless hours of his time to teach his talentless spawn the game of baseball.

Why would anyone want to coach? My friend is a professional. His is time is worth at least $75.00 an hour in the marketplace and yet he chooses to spend that otherwise valuable time giving our kids the benefit of his expertise. Yet there are the imbeciles out there that believe they are doing him a favor by allowing their kids to play on his team. This is a twisted mutation, yet a consistent aborration of the entitlement society. "All things equal in economics and life."... My kid is not good enough on one team.....switch teams. My kid is good enough on one team.....switch coaches. His new team may never win a game but at least his kid is relatively equal with the others on the team.

Please Mr. Z (we'll call him that) realize one thing, in youth sports as in life, excellence is and should be rewarded and mediocrity should not. My boys either cut it or they don't, but they do it on their own. I help whenever possible but I neither extort their teachers nor cut and run to rationlize my overinflated opinion of their talent or abilities. And to tear down another child to raise your own is the epitome of superficial vanity. Shame on you Mr Z you are neither a model for your child or a credit to yourself. For the strength and self reliance you teach them now will be what makes them able to make their own way in life. To deny them adversity is to make them weak and unprepared for the challenging life that they will undoubtedly face.