I suppose you're right. It would have been better to let my son approach the coach. After all, my son was the one who had put in the work. He'd spent the entire school year in the weight room ... the only baseball player in the program who did so. The coach knew it, too, because he saw him in there and talked to him about it and actually encouraged him. I guess I was just so bewildered by the whole thing that I felt I had to speak up. Plus, I'd always taught my son to let his play (especially his bat) do the talking for him. So he was sort of conditioned not to "complain."StumpHunter wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2019 9:17 amIt sounds to me like your son’s coach was extremely hard headed and set in his ways. I also believe he was wrong for saying anything negative about how you approached him. You were right and he was wrong, and he didn't like that.J. Kapp 11 wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2019 8:13 pm
With all due respect, is that any reason to not take a man at his word?
I don't think we should automatically dismiss the father's claims simply because it was a "sports dad" who made them. You seem to be making that assertion based on your own experiences as a coach. Logically, that's flawed. It's an egocentric fallacy; that is, applying your own experiences to everyone else. In analytics, it would be like taking a sample size of one and calling the outcome probable for every other instance.
I'm not discounting your experiences, PHP. I believe every word you've said, and you know I respect your opinion. But aren't there also GOOD parents? How do you know Mitchell's dad is a bad dude or an unruly parent?
I was a good parent. At least I always thought so. My son was a really good baseball player, ranked in the top 50 in South Carolina when he was a freshman in high school. When he was 12, I was approached after an all-star tournament game by coaches from Clemson, South Carolina and the College of Charleston. He was TWELVE! Then we moved to Iowa, and I enrolled him at my alma mater. Crazy enough, his high-school coach wouldn't even look at him for varsity as a sophomore, even though he had lettered and excelled as a freshman in SC against far stiffer competition. Then, as if that weren't bad enough, he was left off varsity after spring practice in his JUNIOR year, even though he had hit .450 for the sophomore team. The truly wild thing was that the varsity needed bats. They had finished in last place and averaged about 2 runs per game the previous season.
So after practice one day, I stopped the coach in the parking lot and had a polite, respectful conversation with him, asking him why he was leaving my son off varsity. He said, "He's not a very good defensive player." I said, "Fair enough. But your team needs hitters, and he's your best. Couldn't you make him the DH?" The coach then gave the most ridiculous answer I'd ever heard: "I don't believe in the DH." Should have known he was a college pitcher who never got to hit. My response was, "Well, the other 17 teams in the league believe in the DH, so maybe that's why we finished in last place." Again, a very calm, measured conversation and tone. Eventually the coach relented and put my son on the varsity, but he gave him very few opportunities. -- just 44 plate appearances in 40 games. Yet he hit .385 and finished 3rd in the league with 7 home runs.
My question is simple: Was I a bad parent because I spoke up?
Apparently the coach thought so. A couple years later, a friend of mine at church (the coach attended that church, too) told me that he had overheard the coach speaking of me in the same way you speak of the unruly parent. And he did this even though I never said another word to the coach about my son's playing time.
Again, I believe you completely, PHP. Every word. But we all view things through the lens of our own lives.
With that in mind, it seems appropriate to let the facts come to light. We shouldn't just take Mitchell's dad at his word, but we also shouldn't just take the critics at theirs. None of us knows whether Mitchell's reputation is deserved. Maybe we ought to let the facts play out, as well as the young man's career. And heck, even if his reputation was deserved, a certain Hall-of-Famer who wore 84 for the Vikings also had a troubled history as a collegian. People can change, especially if they get in the right situation and rub shoulders with good people.
However, I would strongly recommend any parents with players in High School sports to never approach a coach about playing time or moving a player up to a higher level. It will 9 times out of 10 not go well for you, no matter how right you are.
What does work 9 times out of 10, is the player approaching a coach and telling him he deserves a shot. I actually coach lacrosse myself like PHP, and I can tell you right now that if a player asked me if they could get a chance at man down or man up, because they have worked really hard and believe they can contribute, I would get them on a man down or man up. If a parent asked to put their kid on it, I can guarantee it wouldn’t happen.
If your player is shy or afraid to approach their coach, what an awesome life lesson for them to learn how to approach their superior to ask for something that they want. If your player arrogant and too proud to ask, again, great life lesson.
I actually ended up starting on varsity because in our evals of the previous season I pointed out I lead my team in goals, something the coach had no idea that I did. If my Dad had told my coach that I lead the team in goals, there is likely no way I end up starting. That lesson has helped me a lot in life, teaching me that when I do something better than my peers, it might be a good idea to point that out to management, because they do not see everything going on.
Anyway, water under the bridge at this point. By the time my son's senior year rolled around, his interest in baseball had waned. He played, but his heart wasn't in it. And when they went 10-33 in an absolutely brutal season, that pretty much ended any desire to play in college that he might have had. Some D-3 schools recruited him pretty hard, but he was already thinking about life after baseball, and those schools didn't have what he needed. Hard to fault him for that. Still, I wonder what might have been if we'd stayed in South Carolina, where he was known.
Good conversations, guys. I enjoy stuff like this more than talking football.
As for football, I'm going to reserve judgment on Dillon Mitchell until we see him progress as a player. If he's lazy, if he's got off-the-field issues, those things will show themselves soon enough. My hope is that he's another in the line of Diggs-Thielen guys who are overlooked at draft time but end up being great players.
