šŸ“” An open letter to 'those' parents of high school athletes

Out of my 28 years in education, I coached for 13 of those, with 5 being a head varsity baseball coach. I always had a parent meeting before the season started to explain our rules, procedures, etc. Now before that first season, the guy I was replacing told me that baseball would be the hardest. He explained that every daddy had likely played baseball at some level (little league, HS) and they probably coached little Johnny at the park and little Johnny was an all star and he either led off or hit clean up and either played shortstop or pitched.
Well 4 games in to my first year and I have my first run in with ā€œthat parent!ā€ He comes up fuming and demands to talk about ā€œplaying timeā€ and why I didn’t play his son. I tried to diffuse the situation and politely asked who he was and who his child was. He didn’t bother to come to that meeting. He was screaming and yelling and I calmly told him to go home and sleep on it and if he still wanted to talk, to call the school office and set up a meeting. Again he demanded answers NOW! I then told him that someone’s feelings were going to get hurt and I promised that those feelings wouldn’t be mine. I grabbed the scorebook and opened it to game 1 and proceeded to show him his son’s stat lines for the first 3 games. 0-9 9 Ks and 7 chances with 7 errors. I then looked at him and asked if he had anymore questions. He dropped his head, tucked his tail and walked away. His son later walked up and apologized. After 5 seasons as the HC, I resigned. That was 1995 and it has only gotten worse!!!
 
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