How do I assistant coach girls softball in the inner-city with difficult mothers?

Question

I am at the point where I feel it was a bad idea to return to where I grew up in order to coach. I deal with irrate mothers (haven't seen a dad all season) who do not know the game, yet complain that we are doing things wrong or treating their child unfair.

They disrespect me on the sidelines in front of my kids and family. They contradict our coaching on the field and in practice, sometimes calling their child away while we are speaking to them.

These attitudes leak into their children who feel they don't have to listen. I have had to tell some kids they can only work with the head coach, because they are so unruly.

Ironically, the head coach is only their for his child and does not know the game well, so I became his assistant rather than remove my child from the team. I am the one teaching the girls fundamentals, because the coach can't. Through it all we are undefeated.

Since I'm hands on, all the parent's anger is towards me and I'm at my breaking point.

Answer 1

I sympathize with you. I am not athletic but my entire family is. My dad had coached kids. My brother played ball all his life - he finally quit and coached his girls. He went through almost the same thing. They were not disrespectful to him but came to him with every gripe. AND no help. I went to watch his daughter once (because of my schedule I could not go a lot that year); he was alone in coaching as his wife was off at a younger daughters game. He was doing everything and parents were standing in line to talk to him. He got a call (this was just before a tournament) that one poor mother had barely got her car into a service station a couple of miles away (she had broken down). These stupid people heard him on the phone but no one offered anything. He had to come and ask me and I had to go and try to find people who did not have the slightest idea what I looked like. I found them of course because of the child's uniform color. This is the kind of support he had.

And to top it off, these were NOT inter-city people. Where he lived (he was very successful) is a wealthier section. Many wealthy people live there. He was not wealthy but has a good job and chose to go to a nicer area because of the schools. So many of these people did not even have both parents who had to work. And they had easier lives with nice cars, enough money to buy dinner out frequently, etc.

Honey I feel for you, it is the same everywhere no matter what the income level. One of the years my brother coached, my niece (his daughter) spent most of the time in the dug-out yelling "LISTEN, MY DAD IS TALKING."

Many times, he got off work, dragged the fields, hauled the equipment, coached and brought the snacks.

I wanted to let you know I feel bad for you. I don't have a solution for you except as you know --- if you touch just one kid you have done a wonderful thing.

As an aside - we just buried my brother and the memorial was today. A coach from many years ago read it in the paper and came to the service. My brother was 44 years old, so you know how long ago it must have been that he knew that coach. That was a great thing for us, as his family, to see.

Sorry if I have gone on and on with no help to you.

Answer 2

Just don't listen to them; tune them out. I have seen parents fight behind the dugout during a game one time and the coach was so used to blocking out parents that he had no idea what was going on ten feet behind him. Get the head coach on the same page as you. If you both stick to an arrangement of how to handle parents, then parents will either submit to your demands or pull the athlete. Any athlete that does not respect their coach always received little playing time, but that was back in my day when ice covered the Earth and we played with rocks.