Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Sunday, April 29, 2007
Jeff Brown: Parents drive away too many prep coaches
I have talked to Scott Koepnick in the past, but not recently. I certainly didn’t know that he had had enough. Not of coaching, mind you, but of the constant battle with parents.
The whole story of Koepnick, the West Salem High School boys basketball coach who recently resigned, saddens me. So did the way Larry Noll left his job as Sparta’s head football coach, or Dick Kyes with Onalaska boys basketball, or even Ken Barrett, the longtime Central boys basketball coach.
Each of these men has too much class, too much respect for the coaching profession, to lash out at what I believe is perhaps the biggest threat to the future of high school athletics today — parents.
Meddling, I-know-better-than-the-coach or administration, type of parents.
Why do I seem to know, or think I know, so much about the interference, the pressure, the unreasonable expectations many parents have for their kids today? Because nearly every day of the week, I, too, feel like a coach.
Parents call or e-mail the newspaper on a daily basis and complain about coverage. It usually starts out as a “team” thing, but quickly turns to the perceived lack of coverage for their child. “How could you write a story about Johnny, glorifying him in print, when my son is a better player?”
If I had a dollar for every time I have heard that, I wouldn’t need to buy a lottery ticket to enjoy the spoils that
riches could bring. Here is another one of my favorites: “How do you expect my (son or daughter) to get a college scholarship if you never write about them? That’s your job.”
Hmm, I guess it’s our job as sportswriters to promote your son or daughter at any cost. Sorry, that’s not our job and never has been. We’re a NEWS-paper. We write about what we deem are the most newsworthy events of the day. That doesn’t always help fill your scrapbooks, but that’s not what we are about.
Do we always cover the best events or write about the most deserving athletes? No, but we try to be as fair as possible.
I’ve had off-the-record conversations with many, many coaches over the years, and it’s interesting when we zero in on the worst part of our jobs. It’s almost always the same: Dealing with parents.
And over the years, it has gotten worse and worse.
Parents, in far too many cases, have lost perspective.
Sound a bit harsh? Maybe, but what is happening to high school coaches in this area, and across the country, is far worse. Driving good people — people with the right character to make a difference in your child’s life in the long run — from coaching is disheartening. And it’s wrong.
Don’t get me wrong, all parents do not behave like this. Many support their child for the right reasons. Like the things they learn from being part of a team, the give-and-take necessary for success, and the challenges of dealing with hardship and defeat. I’m sorry, but not everything in life is going to fall your child’s way, so why not let them learn to deal with hardship and defeat in the setting of high school athletics?
One of those hardships is playing time. This is another hot-button area with high school coaches, and with myself. Many parents today spend a tremendous amount of time and money to take their kids to youth tournaments, traveling league games and camps, so that by the time the kid reaches the high school level, the parents have as much or more invested in a particular sport than their child.
Because of that investment, they believe their child is “guaranteed” playing time once at the varsity level. Not hardly. Playing time is earned by busting your butt in practice every minute of every hour of every day. The skills your child may have learned during a camp or tournament or league should help them become better players, but it guarantees nothing in terms of whether they are a starter, a role player, or someone who fills out the bench.
Coaches who spend two and three hours a day with your child at practice, and even more time before and after practice, know what your child deserves. Some kids, regardless of their offseason ventures, are simply more talented athletes than others. Deal with it.
Are all coaches great teachers, great leaders, great possessors of character? No, but many of them are if you back off and give them a chance.
Believe me, I know it’s difficult. I, too, am a parent. I, too, have fallen into the trap of driving my daughters to tournaments all over the state, of encouraging them to enter camps, of trying to get better. But I’ve never told one of my kids’ coaches how to coach, or how much playing time my kid should get, or how off base they are.
And I would never be part of a parent group whose mission is to “oust” a coach.
Until I spend time in their shoes where I would be responsible for coaching an entire team, of trying to achieve team goals, of trying to teach players lifelong lessons, I don’t believe I have that right.
Jeff Brown can be reached at (608) 791-8403, or at jbrown@lacrossetribune.com
All stories copyright 2000 - 2006 La Crosse Tribune and other attributed sources.