Sportsrube wrote:
I don't think the issue is with AD's, it is with parents who don't care what the AD says and they keep bitching and yakking within the community that finally the coach has had enough and quits. Or you have a parent who "coaches" a traveling team and has some success so they think they are the 2nd coming of Phil Jackson and are a better coach because they "win". The vast majority of problems with JH/HS sports are some of the parents.
That's a very good point. There are some communities that have very toxic situations with parents. Friends of mine who coach have told me stories about what they hear from parents. Blows my mind. It happens in every town at some level, but a lot of it is people griping from a barstool or making snide comments in the crowd. Once it becomes a call to action, that's a problem. The travel team take is spot on. And what's funny about is this: Billy's dad doesn't just take the 8th grade team to the grand am and they start to look like the Showtime Lakers. Billy's dad hand-picks 2-3 of the strongest 8th graders, they link up with 2-3 strong players from another town, and then they add 2-3 strong players from another town.
So now, you've got 8-9 players, all studs from different teams, you slap the word elite on their shorts, they go out and destroy everybody, and everyone is happy. With that many good players and the perfect amount to sub, nobody has issues with playing time, the coach looks like a genius because he's only working with stud players, so all they "practice" are set plays.
He doesn't have 13 players of various skill levels to develop.
3 of which never played basketball before but they wanted to try it.
Another 3-4 who can't dribble with their left hand and can't dribble with their head up.
3 more are okay players, but you have to constantly work with them on their shot from, ball rotation on the shot, and fundamentals of their feet.
Then you have the 2-3 players that are your strongest. The ones that play most of the year. They've gone to camps, they go to your open gyms, their parents bring them up to the gym weekly to get some shots up. You've got to work with them too so they can get to the next level.
And on top of that you've got to run 30+ practices with all of them, find a way for them all to get on the floor, try to be competitive, and deal with 26+ parents/step parents that all have different personalities and philosophies on the game. The ignorance of some parents boggles my mind. And in their defense, there are times when the JH coach at a school is a fill-in hire because they have no one in these small towns willing to do it. So it's not always on parents, but there are plenty of them that have scared off good coaches from continuing to do it, because it's not worth the headache.