True story coming up, I swear. Last weekend was a busy one for my volleyball team. We had a practice on Saturday, a home doubleheader on Sunday and an away game on Monday night that was pretty far away. I only have 11 girls and you need 6 to start. Without 6, you have to forfeit. Since Monday's game was so far away (about a 45 minute drive in traffic) I wanted to find out who was coming so I could persuade the others to come if I didn't have 6. I've been asking for YES/NO replies along the way since the season started. For one other game, I only had 5 YES replies, sent an email asking for more, then went to 6, then 7, then 6, then 7 and finally 8. Parents are hilarious....and nuts. Anyway, I sent an email out on Friday to the team parents saying exactly this: "I need your help on our upcoming schedule. I do not need to know if you are coming to practice on Saturday. What I do need to know is if you are planning to attend the matches on Sunday and especially Monday. If we need to forfeit I want to do it before 5 families make the drive." My Blackberry buzzed not 5 minutes later with my first response which read "Sally will be at practice on Saturday." Sigh.
4 comments:
Wait until...
You have confirmed your lineup and a parent (representing 2 of your kids) says contrary to what they told you at practice, they can't make the match on Saturday... 15 minutes before you're leaving for the match!
You instruct a kid on what he/she needs to do in the match to compliment his/her teammates, ie. be successful, and the child replies "my dad told me he doesn't want me to do that."
You're in the playoffs (so everybody is there) and you try to put your best players on the court. And parents pull you aside to ask why Johnny didn't get to play this week.
Do they watch the matches? Do they see that their kid is playing whenever there's an opportunity to get better but he's still a somewhat of a liability to team success?
Damn, failure comes hard to these yuppie parents. Must not ever have got their asses whooped at anything as a child... not even Monopoly!
It does the kids a disservice with all this overprotection. They develop no coping skills. What happens when Johnny gets downsized out of his six- figure job when he's 40? He has no concept of how to deal with failure and he either jumps off a bridge, kills his family and then himself, or ends up highly medicated and on a shrink's couch for the rest of his days.
Ain't that America though?
I havent had a parent yet say anything besides "good game coach". however, what I do have are parents who are talking to the person sitting beside them as their kid is hitting their limit (5) serve. I have moms or dads who haven't seen one game yet. I have a mom who wants to know if I have 6 so her kid doesn't "really" have to come. When my kid signs up for something, that's it, she's going. Summer swim is as brutal schedule as you can have. Practice 5 mornings in a row...early. Meets on Tuesday and Thursday nights after already practicing that morning...invitationals on weekends...sometimes both days. She missed 1 practice the entire season. What I'm noticing, is that the kids themselves on the bench ask about starting...not the parents. Why can't I start? I haven't started one game, coach. Well, maybe because you miss 50% of the practices so you don't always know where to be or what to do or your skills just aren't as good as the starting six. I tell them, starting is something you earn, we don't rotate starting. I want to scream "ok genius, look out on the floor and tell me who you're better than" but of course I don't. i would cringe if my daughter ever asked a coach that question. in my day, to my recollection (that sounds so old) you wouldnt DARE ask a coach if you could start, that you never get to start. There is a difference in two that I can think of that do this. One is young and talented but just not as good as the other 6 starters. She is passionate about playing and hates to come out. She is very coachable and I like her. She asks because she's a competitor. The other rarely comes to practice, acts disinterested on the bench, misses half of all balls hit at her and will ask the second she comes out when she's going in again. I respect the one. The other if I can be honest....annoys the shit out of me. I am old enough and wise enough though to realize this is a good test for me to be a better coach and learn how to help make her more interested or at the very least how to better deal with it and gain patience.
Dog - haven't experienced this myself, but some of my friends who are also hiring managers have...moms who have called to find our why their recent college grad didn't get the job or the internship!
I did, however, once have an employee's wife call me to tell me how stressed out her husband was since his manager Susie left (and now all of Susie's employees report to me). She started telling me how he had gone to his dr, who gave him meds so he could sleep and for his heart, etc. I was appalled!!! And quite angry that this was even happening to me. I politely said that I didn't think it was appropriate for me to talk to her about his work situation, that it was only up for discussion between he and I and our HR dept. The next day, the guy came into my office and smiled and said "Oh, my wife said you were SO nice to her on the phone yesterday!" I told him that it was inappropriate for her to call me and that if she called again, I would immediately transfer her to HR. Weird. He didn't last too long into the layoffs that were going around at the time...
I've run across the "missing the point of my e-mail" part in a lot of situations. Howard is a good one for not answering the important questions.
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