I got really upset yesterday with a teacher/coach for a grade 6 girls volleyball team. Lets call him Mr. Prick.
Anyway, some background. My daughter is part of a kick ass volleyball team. They have never lost a game and trounce their opponents. They practice twice a week and work hard. They play hard and are extremely vocal. A lot of credit goes to the woman principal and coach, a hard driving fun loving East European immigrant. They usually play 2 official games followed by 2 additional games. Like I said, they don’t lose. I cheer loudly for all good returns and successful serves for either side.
Several weeks ago, when Mr. Pricks team was at “our” school to play, I was asked to ref. Mr. Prick requested that scores not be posted during the game, but monitored by the ref. I took it that he was one of those “scores are irrelevant” and “its how you play the game” people. I took an immediate dislike to him.
But if I was going to ref, I was going to control the game, so I blew that whistle loud, and bellowed the score every second play. TWENTY-ONE SERVING SEVEN!!! (games go to 25)
At one point, Mr. Prick overruled a call of mine. My ruling was in his teams favour, but I didn’t determine that the ball actually went dead by hitting the roof. I asked him if he was challenging the refs decision with a big smile on my face. He didn’t get it. Some message to give to the kids.
Now all that doesn’t deserve a rant but what happened yesterday had me seething. We were at Mr Prick’ school and he asked our coach if they could mix up the players and “just play for fun”. Our coach thought that was unfair and shitty but said she would consult with the girls. They agreed to play the first game as a team and mix up afterwards. Well I got there just after the first game, and I tell you, there was no spark there at all. It looked like all the girls were putting in time. My daughter rolled her eyes everytime she looked in my direction. Mr. Prick had a big smile on his face like everyone was having a good time. Coach rolled her eyes as we approached after the 'games" and explained it all to me. She was particular disgusted with Mr Pricks false praise of individual performance. A girl would make a half-hearted attempt for the ball and was rewarded with “nice try”. That is lying to me and confusing.
Our girls were robbed of the fruits of their work. His girls are robbed by having such a fuckup for a coach. And I was robbed as a spectator from watching my favourite team in action.
Why not? You sound a bit overcome by the “Let’s kick ass and screw em” attitude that is increasingly prevalent in kids sports.
In fact, you kind of remind me of the attitude of many “Little League” parents who totally freak out over a fucking game.
How old are these kids? 12?
In your OP you made repeated refs to how your team kicks ass.
Perhaps “Mr Prick” doesn’t feel that 12 yr old girls need such a “We are badass, fuck you” attitude.
I can’t imagine parents getting so wound up over a fucking game.
Oh, and Gawd ferbid a coach of CHILDREN praising someone whether they deserved it or not.
Klaatu, you’re over reacting. I’m dead set against unsportsmanlike conduct. I cheer loudly for good play and never I repeat never scold for bad play. But I tell you, to watch a bunch of clean cut 12 year old girls work and play hard together and enjoy their success is fantastic for a parent. To watch a listless group of girls appearing to even wonder what they’re doing on the court is sad. And praising children when they don’t deserve it is close to abusive. And keep in mind, it isn’t skill I’m talking about, its effort.
My daughter is also on a kick ass soccer team. The girls work hard and play hard as well, and have a fantastic coach. And they have fun. But you know what? They’re in the cellar. They don’t have the height of their competitors, and most don’t have the experience. But they get better every week. They practice twice a week. Their coach arranges for TEAM BUILDING activities which includes fund raising and social events.
I enjoy watching this team very much. Coaches of both my daughters teams have mentioned that my bellowing cheers are appreciated.
And I get wound up about my children’s sports, because it’s the best way that I know to distract from a lot of negative influences during the teenage years. If they lose interest, that wouldn’t be good.
I believe he feels that losing is too demoralizing for his girls. If my daughter was on his team, I’d seriously consider pulling her out. He’s the cause of the demoralization.
“And praising children when they don’t deserve it is close to abusive”
This boggles my mind. You just don’t get it. You sound like a stage mother.
So in your mind, you must not praise any of the girls unless they “deserve” it. What qualifies that? A good dig? a killer serve?
What about the little girl who sits on the end of the bench?
She might not play much, but she “deserves” to be on the team.
From your comments, it sounds like she doesn’t “deserve” shit.
Sorry, but it seems to me you are so caught up in the competitive bullshit you are overlooking the fact that these are kids.
Maybe the coach knew that his team would be beaten badly and didn’t want to ruin the fun for his girls. So why did you want to make sure they were humiliated?
The second time the coach knew that your team would want to rub the score in their faces and that might be the reason why he wanted to play mixed. And if you didn’t want to play mixed you should have said no and not blame him afterwards.
He overruled your call? Can people do that in volleyball? That’s crazy.
As for your op, is it possible he’s just got quite a bad team, who need some morale building and experience?
We were playing a friendly match against a team at roller hockey a few weeks back. Now my team are all ice hockey players, and ice players tend to be more experienced and generally fitter than the pure inline variety. Within 5 minutes it became apparent we were slaughtering them, so we called a halt and did exactly what your coach suggested - mixed the teams up and restarted the game. It just made it a fairer game, and hopefully made for good experience for the other team (they sure seemed happy enough, and we all had a good game.)
Why not discuss the situation with the coach? Maybe that would help you understand why certain decisions were made.
Speaking of questions… I am confused about your role here. Are you from another school? Are you an official? “Our school”… is that your daughter’s school?
Our state does not sanction competition between schools until students are in the 7th grade. There could be a few special circumstances, like a field day or something. I think this is good policy. Being a coach, I have become too caught up in the competitiveness of my own heart / psyche. My ego has at times, driven my decisions and behavior. I think there is a place for both competitve and cooperative activities. There are important lessons to be learned from each. Balance is crucial.
In addition, you may want to address the attitude, or lack of enthusiasm you saw from your daughter. I think it could be detrimental to your daughter’s development to let her think that someone else is responsible for creating her attitude and enthusiasm. Maybe this is a perfect opportunity to talk about being personally responsible for emotions. I think we are all pretty quick to excuse ourselves from being responsible for emotions and attitudes.
Yesterday, I talked to my team about committment and effort. Obviously, I am responsible for creating a “right” set of conditions where these qualities can be displayed. However, the players are primarily responsible for making the most fundamental contribution in this area. I have found that if both players and coach tend to this issue with an attitude of individual responsibility, great things happen.
Good luck for the remainder of the season. I hope you can establish a good relationship with your daughter’s coach. I think parents have a great opportunity to demonstrate respect and appreciation for teachers and coaches. In the long run, this example will prove to be much more significant than any winning game or season.
jacksen9, reread the OP. grienspace has no problem at all with his daughter’s coach.
I have to agree with him about false praise to children. The other coach wasn’t praising an earnest attempt that fell through; he was praising a half-assed play. The girl in question knew damn well that she made a half-assed, lackluster try, and false praise for a half-assed play has the effect of telling her that she can’t believe a word that coach says.
Wait, I don’t get this. What’s inherently wrong with playing “just for fun”? Why are the kids suddenly unmotivated? I’m sorry, grienspace, but the way I read what you wrote, it sounds like you should have a beef with your coach. You say that your coach thought playing for fun was “unfair and shitty.” Well, looks like she convinced the players that her opinion was correct, since the girls wound up just “putting in time” instead of enjoying the game. That’s a shame, because it seems like the coach could have used this as an opportunity to teach some sportsmanship and turn it into something fun. Instead she chose to de-motivate her players because…why? I’m having a hard time coming up with a positive reason here.
To be clear, you’re taking your coaches word about his behavior, right? I understand that you know your coach and trust her word, but pardon me if I remain skeptical. At the very least, it seems apparent that your coach has trouble motivating her players; who is she to criticize another coach’s tactics?
Nah. It sounds like “Mr. Prick” really is a prick. He challenges a call in his favor because the ball wasn’t declared dead, and then complains that everyone should just play for fun?
It might have been a little jerkish to announce the score like that, but believe me, those kids knew who was winning and who was losing.
I’m glad you cheer for your daughter, grienspace. I know too many parents who think it is their duty to scream at the kids or the coach.
(FTR, Sauron is right - the ball is dead if it hits the ceiling.)
Reread the OP, Jacksen. Grienspace is doing the “dad thing” by volunteering to help out as a referee for his daugher’s volleyball games. Most school districts rely utterly on parents to do this, as they can’t afford to pay somebody just to stand there and ref.
No, it sounded to me like he was there at the game, watching, and discussed this later with his daughter’s coach. They played the first game as their regular teams and then “mixed it up” for the second game. He missed the first game but got there in time for the second, Mixed Up, game, during which he observed that the girls weren’t having a good time.
I can’t believe the people in this thread who JUST DON’T GET what really happened when Mr. Prick decided to mix it up “for fun”.
I have a 7th grade daughter, too, who was on the cross-country team this year. For kids of any age, and especially for pre-teen girls, it’s all about The Group. La Principessa is so totally focused on what The Group thinks of her that it ain’t funny. The clothes she wears, the radio station she listens to, the band instrument she plays–whatever it is, she always, always, always, has to measure it against The Group. Normally this means just the other 7th grade girls in her set, but she has other Groups, like her Church Group and her Band Group, which comprise kids of both genders and a span of junior high and high school ages.
And when she went out for Middle School cross-country this fall, she was ecstatic. She was in a new Group–she loves belonging to a Group, and for those six weeks she measured everything having to do with cross-country against what The Cross-Country Group would think. Her shirt-sleeve scrunchies, her rehydrating beverage, her socks, everything.
So the concept of The Group is all-important to 7th grade girls, and what the clueless Mr. Prick did, in his quest for Fun, was break up The Group, for both sets of girls. Suddenly they weren’t allowed to demonstrate solidarity with their own volleyball Group by playing volleyball together. Suddenly they were all being required to demonstrate solidarity by playing volleyball with–not against–a Group of–
**FUCKING **
STRANGERS!!
They were all, in effect, being asked to form a New Volleyball Group at the drop of a hat, comprised of half their own Group members, and half members from the other, rival, Group. Mr. Prick suddenly changed all the parameters of the social interaction known as a “Middle school girls volleyball game” without warning, and it wasn’t fair. No wonder there were sulky looks and a lot of eye-rolling. They were “putting in time” during that second game because they were being forced to play volleyball on a team that was half aliens. It had nothing to do with the coach’s inability to motivate them. I doubt whether the most charismatic gung-ho girls volleyball coach in the world could have gotten those girls to be happy about the situation. They were there to compete, dammit, with their own Group, against the Other Group, not make nicey-nice with them.
Suppose it were a Pop Warner football game, and the coach of the Washington Wolverines said to the coach of the Harrison Hyenas, “Hey, let’s play the first quarter as regular teams, but then for the second quarter, let’s mix it up, for fun.” Would that sound like “fun”? Would you expect the kids to play with smiles on their faces?
I trust that you all now Get It.
Not only is it not Daddy’s job, in this instance, to give his daughter a po-faced sermon on “taking responsibility for her own emotions”, but also it is quite definitely Daddy’s job to explain to his daughter how some people are just assholes, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Also, Grienspace, I hope that next time Mr. Prick wants to “have fun”, you back up your daughter’s coach, because she was bang on the money. She didn’t think it would be Fun at all, and she was 100% correct.
And if the reason he suggested it was because his team sucks and he didn’t want them to lose, then all the more reason why you should make them play you. Losing is a learning experience, too, and it’s a big part of a coach’s job to teach his kids how to handle losing.
La Principessa never ran anything faster than a 20-minute two-mile this fall. She always came chugging around the bend and over the finish line long after everyone else had packed up and was heading for the parking lot. But Coach always stood there waiting patiently, with a smile on his face, clipboard in hand. “Good race,” he’d tell her, and she’d climb in the car, happy to Belong.
It’s all about Belonging, not about Winning or Losing.
P.S. You don’t say “nice try” to volleyball players. Either they get the shot, in which case you say, “good shot”, or they don’t, in which case you say nothing, tactfully. Do you say “nice try” to kickers who miss the field goal? I don’t think so.
I know the ball is dead when it hits the ceiling, My daughters team made that point quite clear. But I didn’t see it and made the call. I had no choice but to stick with my call. But when the opposing coach over ruled me, (I might be the ref, but I had no allusions about the appropriate response on my part) and ordered his team to give the ball back, I felt that he was providing the wrong message to his kids. I grew up being taught respecting the refs decision as final.
As for just playing for fun, let me say that I know all about just playing for fum. A group of us parents have a riot Monday nights. We don’t keep score, the ball is not dead when it hits the ceiling, and we can tap it an unlimited number of times. We do keep a score for the last 5 minutes.
But if I practised twice a week, waiting for the day when I could put on the team uniform and take the bus to play for my team, only to have that taken away so that I can watch this person next to me just stand there when the ball gets to him, a complete stranger mind you, forgive me for thinking that I might want to be somewhere else.
One thing was absolutely clear to me that day. None of the kids were enjoying themselves.
On volleyball scoring:
I no longer know what is official as I’ve been told the rules have changed over the years. In this school district every serve will result in a point one way or the other, to 25 and must win by two
Re: Gary Kumquat
That’s what most adults would do when they want to play a “fun” game. But then you guys didn’t practice hard for this game either did you.
On Preview:
You sure as hell are right on the money DDG
This is the only part of your situation I have a problem with. Apparently you were told by your daughter’s team and the coach of the other team that the ball hit the ceiling, and yet you wouldn’t reverse your call. The only sort of message that sends to the kids and others is that you have a stiff neck and can’t be wrong.
It sounds like your daughter’s team can’t have fun unless they can kick some ass. Perhaps “Mr. Prick” was smiling because he actually thought his team would be learning something from a team that was so good. It’s too bad he was wrong.
If my daughter were to play a sport, I’d hope she’d have a coach like “Mr. Prick”.
I would imagine they practice twice a week whether they’re playing the district champs or the School for Clumsy Children with Poor Hand-Eye Coordination and Slow Reflexes.
The kids still got to put on their team uniform and take the bus, didn’t they? On the way home, I’m sure they had all sorts of fun bitching about the coach who asked them to to sully themselves by playing side-by-side with crappy players who they [gasp]didn’t even know.
**
You mean the opposing team didn’t enjoy getting trounced by an “extremely vocal” team, and then playing with them? Would either team have enjoyed another lop-sided game? Should “Mr. Prick” have apologized and begged forgiveness for wasting the other team’s brilliance on his crappy team?
