travel players vs high school coaches

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pirateplyr,

I dont think that anyone here is talking about "all" high school coaches. ?We know that there are some good ones out there. ?And we know that there are some bad travel coaches out there as well. ?The difference is that the bad travel coaches tend to get weeded out faster than the bad HS coaches.

In another post, I put up a scenerio that was presented to me and asked how others would have handled it. ?In a continuation of that - the same girl approached me last night, very upset. ?Seems the HS coach, whom she is trying to please, has had her completely break down her hitting mechanics (and she was a solid stick, with high onbase percentage for us) because what we have taught her is "wrong". ?Seems that girls should swing with their arms and leave the hip still. ?I havent figured that one out yet. ?He also has changed her pitching mechanics, because they are "wrong" too. ? This same coach had the pitchers pitch blindfolded to prove some point as well. ?I asked her to ask the HS coach to call me at his convenience so that he and I could get on the same page - I dont want to put the player in the middle. ?I'm not adverse to learning something new that can help my teams, but I also dont want a player who left us solid, to come back with mixed up mechanics and no self-confidence. ?

She was at my place last night, working on her own and trying to do what the HS coach wanted her to do. ?The problem was that she KNEW that what he wanted just wouldnt work against better pitching and was trying to come up with a way to do what he wanted and still be effective. ?I was watching her and questioned her (which brought up the whole topic).

The college coach changing you has no bearing here. ?When you are playing in college, either by scholarship or grant package - its no different than having a job. ?You are being "paid" to perform, and you do it their way. ?That is NOT the case in HS ball. ?AND she has to get to the college team first.

I suggested that she stick it out a little longer, but past experience has shown that if she does, we'll end up with a project in late May. The good news is if she does stick it out, we will get her back early enough in May to hopefully have her back on track for our season.

 

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DA if the scenario you have described happened as described my dd would not return to that hs team. ? Especially the pitching mechanics. ? ?I have never been a believer that being a travel ball coach makes you a good coach. ? The only person that has ever tried to change my dd's motion was a travel coach. ? Told her to slow her motion down because the team we were playing had slow bats. ? ? ???? ?The hs coach your player is dealing with could ruin her as a pitcher if she doesn't follow her pitching instructors advise. ? ?

 

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C'mon people!! If someone told you to jump off a bridge, would you? There are good and bad coaches everywhere in BOTH travel, high school AND COLLEGE!!

If you have any hopes of getting to the college level, you had better learn BEFORE high school to sort the wheat from the chaff. Learning how to deal with someone giving you BAD information is a BASIC LIFE SKILL.

Don't blame a coach for teaching bad stuff - blame yourself for taking BAD ADVICE!!

 

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Great asnswer sammy I given my dd some advice on when she asked me what should she I do when the my HS coach is telling me everything I'm doing is wrong do it this way. And all the college clinics we've been to have shown me different. Muskingum,Capital,OSU,Otterbein. I told her to remember who had shown you the techniques that colleges are teaching; and look at your coaches when they interpret and smile and shake your head yes and continue doing it the way you know how. Is this wrong of me? I figured not because their is no verbal disrespect that the HS coach could be taken from this.

 

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I particularly like the "Don't throw so hard, this isn't travel ball"!
.... tell me something I don't know.

 

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Or when their at batting practice with live pitching and the" HS coach" says to his pitcher slow it down so they can hit the ball.

 

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DD's HS coach told both the JV and Varsity teams that they would not be allowed to use a bat longer than 32"...regardless of their size, ability. ? Actually took a ?33" Catalyst from a player and said he would return it after the season ended. ?:-?

 

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That's crazy - I saw a travel coach do that to a 12U team a few years ago- he looked foolish- it was between games at a tournament - there was only one girl using the 33 at that time (and quite well I must add) - I didn't see him with many girls the following year.
MY DDs HS "hitting" coach backed off after the second time he tried to move my DD's hands- she was very polite- ripped 3 line drives off her way and then told him who she coaches with for hitting - lukcily well known person so he left he alone after that- actually he's not been back to any practices since. the head coache is a very good HS and travel coach and may have asked him not to come back

 

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Does every H.S. have that volunteer person that helps out during the season that thinks they are the softball goo-roo. I talked to this man at my DD H.S. and he said hes been around softball 35years. Well its proven still wanting girls to point their gloves use the so called gator mouth. I mentioned time to get updated to this time in day, these are H.S. girls not 10u rec. level,needless to say he was a little unhappy.

 

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All sports evolve as strategy and technique change. There's a stark difference when watching a NFL game from the 1950's compared to today and softball is no different. Just because you were on top of your game 10, 20 , 30 years ago doesn't mean you are now. People like Candrea, Enguist, Hutchins to name a few and what they teach is the cutting edge in the sport today. Coaches and the people who help them simply need to go to clinics to learn what the top coaches are currently doing that works best. All vocations require learning new things in their specific field to keep up, coaching is no different. I would have little tolerance for a coach who is behind the times telling a girl who has kept up better than they have telling her she's doing it wrong.

 

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Can we use that 33-inch Catalyst that will go unused this Spring? Heck, I'll just trade an old 31-inch red TPS bottle bat that we keep for fungo hitting or JV girls who don't have a bat.

 

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At his first practice, my DD's school coach asked the players what positions they played and proceeded to hand out instructions on how to play that position he downloaded off the net like it was a english test. He then told them they would be "graded" and the better scores played that position.
As for hitting, after 2 years of intense studying, hes now a devout student of the "squish the bug" theory.... :

 

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Excellent observations, hockeybuckeye and HITTER23. Unfortunately, until the current "system" of hiring high school coaches is corrected, things won't improve. It's pathetic when a 16 yr. old girl knows more about the game than her coach! Good old-fashioned capitalism keeps the bad summer coaches in check - they either improve their coaching skills or their team will more than likely fold.

 

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I agree completely, Until the most qualified individual who applies gets the job, and not whoever waves a union card, this will continue.

 

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I say lets not put the blame entirely on bad coaches when its the school's athletic director that interviews and hires them. A lot of AD's hire coaches who may not be the best person for the job simply because the AD is not knowledgeable enough about a particular sport to know what to really look for in a coach. Also when its a teacher who takes the position because they get first dibs then you may lose out on a really fantastic coach who may be interested in the job but is not professionally part of your school system so the teacher gets it first. So I'm in Hitter23's corner on this point.

 

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slidehome wrote... "A lot of AD's hire coaches who may not be the best person for the job simply because the AD is not knowledgeable enough about a particular sport to know what to really look for in a coach."

That single sentence is possibly the most astute observation I've ever read here or on the Huddle.

That insight is the main reason why we have so many incompetent coaches in all sports. Would we hire a Spanish teacher who had practically no knowledge of Spanish? A calculus teacher who didn't know calculus? Why do we hire coaches without trying to figure out what they know about a particular sport?

How many athletic directors take the time to learn enough about each sport to do a competent job of hiring? I know next to nothing about lacrosse (surprise, surprise). But if I were put into an AD position at a school that had lacrosse, I would go about finding out who some of the most respected coaches were in that community and would start to familiarize myself with the sport. If I had to make a hire, I'd have a network of lacrosse coaches (high school and college) to call upon for some direction. I would maybe include a respected lacrosse coach to help me make the hire and to help me determine whether candidates know their lacrosse. If I had a football head coach opening, I'd start with Jim Tressel and his staff. "Hey, guys, you know coaches around the state, do you have anybody you can recommend?"

So far as I know, interviews for coaching positions in high school (and maybe college for all I know) are almost all about coaching philosophy and "what would you do in this situation." The topics are appropriate, but most people know how to answer those stock questions. You're not going to find out a coach's true philosophy or how well they communicate, their demeanor, etc., until you see the coach in action for awhile, no matter what answers they gave in an interview. The one area that interviews don't seem to touch is specific questions about the sport. Of all the things that can be gleaned from an interview, knowlege of the sport is the one thing that can be determined with accuracy, and it often goes completely untouched.

It behooves an AD or someone conducting the interview to be qualified to determine whether the candidate knows the sport. At the Division I college level, I'm sure it's safe to assume that candidates interviewing for the OSU football or basketball position know the sport. With the publicity of those sports, they would be exposed quickly if they didn't know the sport. I think at any other college sport, and all high school sports, I'd be making sure a candidate knew the sport well enough to teach it. For example, as a strategy question, if I asked a potential high school or college softball/baseball coach, "You're winning 5-2, it's the bottom of the last inning, the other team has first and third and one out. If the runner on first steals second, what do you want your catcher to do?" If the answer is not an immdediate, "We're throwing down to second to get the runner stealing," then I know I can eliminate that candidate. Similar basic questions could be asked about various mechanics of the game, rules of the game, etc. Once it's determined a candidate knows the basics, then it's time to delve into the finer aspects to separate the best candidates. But if the AD is not capable of asking these questions, then it might be a pure crapshoot as to whether the coach who is hired has any idea what he/she is doing.

I'm not saying the "how to coach" questions are unimportant. That is another area I'd be asking about and be knowledgeable about. "What books have you read in the last two years to become a better basketball coach?" "Anything by John Wooden? Lute Olson's book? The new book on Pistol Pete?" "What track coaches' clinics have you been to in the last couple of years?" "Do you subscribe to the teachings of sports psychology?" "Why or why not?" "If so, how have you incorporated it into your past coaching?"

The list could go on and on. Most of the questions I've seen in these interviews are too general to provide any insight. "How important is winning?" I'd be tempted to answer "If you can't ask me something better than that, I don't want to work for you." Or maybe, "Winning is EVERYTHING!!! By God, if we lose a game those girls are going to run until I'm not mad anymore because they've FAILED AS HUMAN BEINGS!!!" I'd actually probably hire someone who gave me those answers, because it would show they had a sense of humor and that they weren't going to put up with my simpleton questions.

Here are the things that wouldn't matter: Teacher/non-teacher, male/female, minority/non-minority, old/young. I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting. I wouldn't place much emphasis on experience, either, as I think it's highly over-rated.

Well, there's my rant. I'm a little fired up, but am going to try to go to sleep.

 

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Coaches hired at the "visible" large D-I programs, such as OSU, already have a proven track record somewhere. These coaches are far from being unknowns. The interview for them is probably nothing more than a formality. There is a lot at stake when hiring coaches at this level, so the risk of getting a bum steer is minimized by an expert research process - which is time and $$ consuming. But the results pay off.

I doubt there is a high school in the state of Ohio that would put this kind of time and effort into hiring a softball coach. By the same token, they are reluctant to clean house just because of something as insignificant as a losing record. Like I've said before, if the boat ain't rockin', nothing will change. An AD is going to take the path of least resistance.

Done properly, an AD would have their pick of ALL known visible candidates with a proven history. You won't find the top coaches in an interview - they are ALREADY known by knowledgable ADs. This is very similar to recruiting a top level softball player. Every D-I coach in Ohio has their top list of desirable recruits, and they didn't compile that list by just talking to the recruits. They've seen them perform, and know exactly what to expect from them on the field. Top travel teams "recruit" the same way at the upper age levels. If one of the top travel teams in Ohio (you know who they are) is looking for a 16u pitcher, that head coach knows EXACTLY who is in the pool. Most likely, they don't even try out, because they are already a known performer.

But ADs have their hands tied. The hiring pool is artificially limited by the requirements of hiring from the teacher pool first. You can debate ways to "fix" the problems of bad coaches until you turn blue, but as long as it's done the way it is now, it's a crap shoot, and nothing will change.

 

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Thank you very much Joe! Coming from someone with your background and experience that is quite a compliment indeed. Obviously the AD angle evokes some passion and a worthy topic for a new thread since we've gone past this one's original question. Can we bump your last post to the new thread about AD's I'll start?