Armchair Diagnose This Coach...

[JumpyTheFrog]

Situation: Practices were 3.5 hours long and the boys were roughly ages 8-11. The team had about 14 boys on it. All three examples are from about the last three months.

Example 1: One boy does something dumb that involved running in front of someone on another team sprinting during their practice. The entire team was punished and made to do about 1/4 mile of frog jumps. (Of course this teams them extremely sore for 2-3 days after, making the next practice extra hard to get through.)

Example 2: While working on a new technique, one boy falls. The coach couldn't move out of the way fast enough and accidentally got kicked in the head. He punished the entire team by making them do an extra hour of conditioning (things like sprints, pushups, pullups, etc.).

Example 3: I tell the coach I want DS keep his water near him because he needs it to help with coughing fits at the end of practice. (They were only allowed to get water about 1-2 times per practice, although the official team handbook said they could keep water with them.) He says that's fine, but then another day, when I can't hear, tells DS that he can only take an extra drink if he "absolutely needs it" and has been "working really hard." This makes DS, who is generally an easy-going people-pleaser, afraid to get water when needed.

 

DS is no longer on this team, so he won't be subjected to any more of this. I'm curiously to see if people here label this behavior in the same manner as DH did.

 

[WildflowerMom]

Do you really want to know what I'd label that coach as?   😉

 

Glad y'all are away from him.  

[JumpyTheFrog]

Just now, WildflowerMom said:

Do you really want to know what I'd label that coach as?   😉

 

Yes, I really do want to hear. DS was kicked off the team a few weeks ago, so hearing other people say it sounds like it was an unhealthy situation helps me feel less angry and more relieved to be done with that team.

[CTVKath]

If it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it probably is a duck. Sounds very abusive to me.

ETA: Ok so "abuse" is probably a trigger word and I probably shouldn't have used it. Punitive, unrealistic and downright cruel is what it really sounds like to me.

Edited April 19, 2021 by CTVKath

[MEmama]

Sounds to me like everything is wrong with him.

Suffice to say we wouldn’t have waited to be kicked off. No way would I have allowed DS to put up with that kind of abuse. (To be clear, that’s not a judgement on you—I’m saying the coach sounds horrible).

[Drama Llama]

The word that comes to my mind starts with A and ends with hole.  I guess there might or might not be a clinical diagnosis, because people with and without diagnoses can be cruel and power trippy, but that's not the first thing I think of here. 

You did the right thing in getting your child away from him.  

[fairfarmhand]

Diagnosis:

Egotistical

Unrealistic

Jerk

 

There. Does that make you feel better? 🙂

I would not allow my kids to play for someone like this. 

[WildflowerMom]

18 minutes ago, JumpyTheFrog said:

Yes, I really do want to hear. DS was kicked off the team a few weeks ago, so hearing other people say it sounds like it was an unhealthy situation helps me feel less angry and more relieved to be done with that team.

That was a very unhealthy situation.  You did the right thing.    I would say the coach has anger issues and takes it out on minor children.  
Official label: as*hole.  

[JumpyTheFrog]

19 minutes ago, MEmama said:

Suffice to say we wouldn’t have waited to be kicked off. 

Well, example two happened a week or two after we left. DS had a former teammate over to play this weekend and the boy told him about it. Example three happened during the last two weeks of being on the team. He had this coach for almost two years (minus time during lockdown), but it was one of those things where the situation got worse over time. It wasn't always quite like this.

[JumpyTheFrog]

DH thinks the coach was passive-aggressive. He would talk to parents calmly, like he was reasonable. Then DS would come home and tell me about what he actually said or did. I could see much of what he did because I was almost always there, but of course I couldn't hear what he was saying much of the time.

[happi duck]

I think it's completely unhealthy and the coach is a jerk.  However, I know that for some people that is exactly what they want in a "coach".  I wouldn't participate but, sadly, I wouldn't expect others to object.

[Kassia]

The coach is a jerk and I am very happy your poor ds doesn't have to deal with him anymore.  People like that shouldn't be allowed to be around kids.  😞  

[sassenach]

Diagnosis: toxic, power tripping jackass who is confusing abuse with healthy discipline. 

[fraidycat]

Diagnosis: Control freak A-hole on a power trip. Ridiculous. Egotistical. Dangerous.

[sassenach]

1 hour ago, JumpyTheFrog said:

Well, example two happened a week or two after we left. DS had a former teammate over to play this weekend and the boy told him about it. Example three happened during the last two weeks of being on the team. He had this coach for almost two years (minus time during lockdown), but it was one of those things where the situation got worse over time. It wasn't always quite like this.

We had a situation like this where a coach that had worked with my son for 5 years took a turn into really over the top behavior in the name of discipline. The situation drifted over time and went from "I think we may have a problem" to crossing the line over the course of about 2 months. (end result was dh had to go to administration and the guy got fired). Don't beat yourself up about it.

Edited April 19, 2021 by sassenach

[Carol in Cal.]

Glad he is out of there.  

[RootAnn]

Sounds like the coach needs to get kicked off the team.

[klmama]

How awful.  I'm glad your ds is no longer on that team.  If he still wants to play, I hope you can find him a team with a coach that understands developmentally-appropriate discipline and puts the needs of the players ahead of his own ego.

[mommyoffive]

Glad you are out of there.  3.5 hour practice for an 8 year old?  That seems nuts to me.  

An extra hour of practice for a mistake?   Crazy.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Abusive.

Having had a child in gymnastics, though, example #1 was potentially very dangerous, depending on what the other team was doing at the time. 

[JumpyTheFrog]

7 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

Having had a child in gymnastics, though, example #1 was potentially very dangerous, depending on what the other team was doing at the time. 

Apparently the boy ran in front of one of the girls as she was doing her vault run. This could be really bad (or not, depending on how far into it she was), but it still doesn't require punishing the whole team for it. The punishment was 20 vault runs of frog jumps, which I calculate to be at least 1/4 mile.

[Jean in Newcastle]

2 minutes ago, JumpyTheFrog said:

Apparently the boy ran in front of one of the girls as she was doing her vault run. This could be really bad (or not, depending on how far into it she was), but it still doesn't require punishing the whole team for it. The punishment was 20 vault runs of frog jumps, which I calculate to be at least 1/4 mile.

Oh I definitely agree.  The "punishment didn't fit the crime" and was definitely abusive. 

[Farrar]

That's not passive aggressive. He's just an abusive jerk, like others have said. He's doing some managing and manipulating by knowing how to behave with adults and then thinking it's okay to act this way with kids, but that doesn't make it passive aggressive. He's just being literally aggressive to the children.

I cannot imagine leaving my kid on a team with this man in any position of power, especially at that age.

[City Mouse]

Yes, that is abusive.

 

[gardenmom5]

I think he has no business around minors, let alone 8 year olds.

I'd love to see him do everything he made the little boys do . . . . 

 

[JumpyTheFrog]

It's good for me to hear this. DS was in a highly demanding sport where the expectations are so much higher than for most sports for boys his age that it is easy for parents to lose perspective about where the line is between a tough coach and abusive.

[gardenmom5]

5 hours ago, JumpyTheFrog said:

  It wasn't always quite like this.

If he wasn't always this bad, I'd assume he's developed an anger problem and needs to take a long break from coaching any kids team (or anything else with kids.)

5 hours ago, JumpyTheFrog said:

DH thinks the coach was passive-aggressive. He would talk to parents calmly, like he was reasonable. Then DS would come home and tell me about what he actually said or did. I could see much of what he did because I was almost always there, but of course I couldn't hear what he was saying much of the time.

I wouldn't consider this passive aggressive. - unless he's having a problem with a particular parent, is polite to the parents face - and punishes that parent's child.  I would consider him to have an anger problem that is causing him to vastly overreact.  Sounds like he needs to stop working with kids.

[Ausmumof3]

I kind of agree that this is the kind of thing many parents want in a sports coach sadly.  Although I’ve never done a sport that required three hour practice sessions which seems like too much in itself for an eight year old.  

[gardenmom5]

10 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I kind of agree that this is the kind of thing many parents want in a sports coach sadly.  Although I’ve never done a sport that required three hour practice sessions which seems like too much in itself for an eight year old.  

When 1ds was five, he was in soccer.  One of the *dad's* really pushed his son.  This kid was very well muscled, only later did I realize just how hard the parent was pushing him.  he wasn't more than five or six!, and he was being pushed like a high schooler who is dependent upon a sports scholarship!

[Farrar]

29 minutes ago, JumpyTheFrog said:

It's good for me to hear this. DS was in a highly demanding sport where the expectations are so much higher than for most sports for boys his age that it is easy for parents to lose perspective about where the line is between a tough coach and abusive.

I feel this.

BalletBoy was in a studio where - it was nowhere near like this - but it was very unhealthy. It took me a long time to understand that the behavior of the teachers wasn't just "the cutthroat world of ballet" but was genuinely not appropriate. It can be difficult when we get in the midst of something. You asked for an outside perspective. You did the right thing and will protect your kid.

[73349]

That's somebody who needs to do some thinking about the difference between upper elementary school activities and army boot camp, to put it gently. I 100% would not let my kid stay at a practice an extra hour for punishment drills when it had already been over 3 hours.
For kids' sports, including conditioning as well as rules and plays, I would say that if you can't teach it in 2 hours at a time (ideally spaced fairly close together, such as 2-3 times a week), you probably can't teach it at all.

[JumpyTheFrog]

2 hours ago, gardenmom5 said:

I wouldn't consider this passive aggressive. - unless he's having a problem with a particular parent, is polite to the parents face - and punishes that parent's child. 

I think he must have disliked me. He'd talk to other parents next to me and usually ignore me. DS wasn't one of the favorites. He'd talk to parents of the favorites for 10-30 minutes, even sometimes during practice.

 

2 hours ago, Farrar said:

BalletBoy was in a studio where - it was nowhere near like this - but it was very unhealthy. It took me a long time to understand that the behavior of the teachers wasn't just "the cutthroat world of ballet" but was genuinely not appropriate. 

Although I have no experience in the dance world, I have the impression that dance is one of the sports where other parents might be able to relate.  Certain sports are have different expectations for hours, commitment level, etc than average team sports, especially before the teenage years.

[Farrar]

37 minutes ago, JumpyTheFrog said:

I think he must have disliked me. He'd talk to other parents next to me and usually ignore me. DS wasn't one of the favorites. He'd talk to parents of the favorites for 10-30 minutes, even sometimes during practice.

 

Although I have no experience in the dance world, I have the impression that dance is one of the sports where other parents might be able to relate.  Certain sports are have different expectations for hours, commitment level, etc than average team sports, especially before the teenage years.

Good teachers and coaches value and work with all the kids. Obviously, some kids stand out and some kids aren't right for the competition level of every team or class... but again, this was something I had to learn by seeing my kid languish and get proverbially kicked around to realize is true. He's at a higher level, with seriously famous teachers who spend their energies on every student now. And some students don't advance and need hard truths... but they never don't advance because they didn't get the attention of the teachers. I just think... that was hard for me to understand for awhile. So that sounds like it's yet another potential layer to this.