Our 8U softball coach berates & belittles the girls.

by Lisa
(Oklahoma)

I am writing to ask for some advice on what I should do about my daughter's softball coaches. It is a husband & wife team, and now, even the wife is tearing down these 8 & 9 year old girls. Let me also say that I think this is their first year to actually coach, though their daughter has been on teams before.

First, the husband is a bully. I've even seen his wife cringe and hurry up to please him when he is mad. He has made his own daughter on first base stand there and cry. He made a little girl, whose first year it was, run to a tree and back for not paying attention, like he said he would, but he then only verbally chastised everyone else at the same time. She has asthma and had to have help getting back and then she never came back.

This coach is always yelling at the girls, "You HAVE to catch the ball" "You have to make good throws. That's what killed us the last time & there's no reason you can't make good throws..." He says things like, "I didn't teach you to do it that way; that's not the way you do it...

He has an assistant coach who has coached before and I've heard people say he'd never coach their kids again. But my daughter actually likes him and he does not make it sound like "YOU IDIOT" when he talks to the girls. He has had a lot of success teaching the to bat; he's been really good at it.

Our "real" coach hasn't taught the girls anything unless it happens to come up. Then he yells at them for doing it wrong, when he has never taught them how to do it in the first place. There are some kids whose first time it is to play ball. My daughter is one and she loved it at first, even practice.

Today, the coach told her if she dug one more hole with her foot, in the outfield, she was going to sit on the bench. I didn't even know it but she cried to herself when she got back to the dugout. She hasn't missed a ball coming to her, except when it rolls on through her legs (-: because she was digging holes. She is very smart and easily bored and uses her toe to "mark" her spot when they play outfield. They threw her out there without any training/teaching at all and they stand there and yell, "MOVE OVER" if she isn't where she should be, in that same "YOU IDIOT" tone.

The wife had been nicer until the last few games, especially one we lost. Today she decided on the spur of the moment that she wouldn't give the girls stickers for their helmets just for getting a hit; they had to be safe on 1st, too. I spoke up and told the girls that they did great even if they were out on 1st and asked her if she needed me to buy her some more stickers. She said no, it's just that it's later in the season and it's a reward and "shrug" they need to earn it. I told her she needed to tell the girls that then so they didn't think they were getting punished for hitting the ball, now. Then, the husband started talking about paying attention, and snatched my daughter's visor out of her hands (she was sitting front & center where she always does because she wants to learn) because she was adjusting it and said see what I mean about paying attention. I could see him seething while I was putting my two cents in about the stickers. He then jerked her helmet away from her when she was fiddling with that, while many of the other girls were eating their snacks, fiddling with the chip bags, while he was talking. He did it because he was mad at me. He made her feel like she was just a very bad person. Oh, and, they might just have to make them start running laps as punishment for playing so badly.

Am I wrong, or don't many of the outs occur at first base in the Majors????????????

I asked my daughter if she thought that the reason she was out at first was because she didn't run fast enough, and she said yes. I told her, NO, it's because they fielded the ball well and got it to first before she got there.

They told the girls today, after they lost, that they didn't know if they could keep coaching if the girls didn't give more than they are giving. They berated then for a full 15 minutes, at least, the husband telling all the girls that he was only there because he loved the game and he thought they could win, but he has to be at work at 3 am so he's tired and if they didn't put out more effort he didn't know if he could keep coaching them. They told the girls that the team they played wasn't even a good team and they should not have lost that game.

The other team fielded the ball better than I've seen many of these teams do this year. They really did a great job at it. Our girls lost because the other team shut down their running game. They were better than them and isn't that how it's going to be throughout their "careers"?

They always tell the girls that if they will just listen to them they will win every game. That has always bugged me. I told my daughter that even a professional bowler cannot get a strike EVERY, EVERY time. I asked her if she thought they lost because they were bad. She said yes, again, and again I said, "NO!' You lost because the other team played better today.

We paid to register, we paid for uniforms, we pay $2 a game to get in...I wanted her to stick it out; I told her that we would practice and practice and she would make them eat all their words -- the best revenge. After writing this, I am thinking, what am I thinking? They've been this way from the beginning, are they going to change? No! QUIT!

I hate this because she ABSOLUTELY LOVED the game when we first started. But will she hate it forever if we don't quit? And I won't quit without bringing these things to the attention of SOMEBODY in authority. I am having trouble figuring out who that would be, but I will. I think we should ask for our money back or a transfer to another team. Or we should stick it out so she can play next year, on another team, without these adults talking about her behind her back.....

What would you do?

Please, Please give me your honest opinion. I will weigh it with all the other info I am finding in my research on what makes a good coach. So, far, what I have read points in exactly the opposite direction from our coaches.

Thank You!