Dumbass teacher/coach !!!

The BBQ Pit
61

I wanted to characterize our coach as she is

  1. woman, not some stereotypical win at all costs MALE coach.
  2. principal, someone who typically has been placed in charge of the nurturing of children with the tools to act appropriately.
  3. East European immigrant. Perhaps unneccessary, but she fascinates me because she’s unstereotypically drop dead gorgeous(for an East European athlete) as well as completely without accent, yet its clear to me that she represents the image I have of East Europeans taking their sports seriously. She has these girls hyped up and having a good time because these girls love her attitude and the attention she gives them. I really think its her heritage that influences her as a coach in middle school volleyball that gave her team such a tremendous advantage. I seem to recall volleyball was much bigger in eastern Europe than in Canada. The other coaches appear to just be babysitting.

Win or lose, aside from teaching skills, a good coach is one who understands how to motivate their players under all circumstances. Accept defeat when defeated yes, but never accept failure without trying you’re best.

62

Global Thermonuclear War. I played it on my W.O.P.R. system back in the mid-80s. After all, the only winning move is not to play.

63

For the record, I agree with those who don’t understand the “mixing the teams” concept. That seems odd to me. Keep the teams together as they were.

However, I think it’s possible for young players to play a game, be competitive, and still have fun. Several years ago I coached a tee-ball team. (Tee-ball, for those who don’t know, is the earliest form of baseball played in my state. It’s for four-, five- and six-year olds. The ball is hit off a tee, rather than pitched.) I didn’t really want to coach, but it kinda got foisted off on me. I’d never coached before.

I stressed fundamentals and having fun. When we played a game against another team, our players would always ask at the end “Did we win?” (Official scores weren’t kept for tee-ball games.) I’d ask them if they had more fun than the other team. If they said “yes,” I said “Then you won.”

However, some parents just had to keep score on their own. (Shocking, right? :)) And they said we won every game but one.

But the best thing, to me, was what a parent said to an acquaintance of mine several months later. Said acquaintance was insulting me a bit, due to some personal problems I was having. The parent said, “All I know about him was he coached my son’s tee-ball team. My son was not the most athletic person on the team, but the coach made him feel important and made sure he played every game when other coaches would have put him on the bench. So I don’t want to listen to you say bad things about him.”

That, to me, was infinitely more gratifying than those parents who congratulated me for coaching a team to all those “wins.”

64

ROFL! Literally!

  1. Woman usually aren’t as competitive as men? I must meet a lot of unusal women.
  2. I don’t know what “nurturing children with the tools to act appropriately” means exactly.
  3. Where’s she from? And have you been there? I went to Slovakia last summer, and met an endless parade of very attractive women. I don’t think I met anyone who was more than passively interested in sports.

It’s been my experience that people on the SDMB don’t assume much, and very rarely stereotype. Your post would have been just as effective (i.e. not very) without the specifics about the coach. After all, we don’t know your gender, and that’s just as relevant (i.e. not at all).

65

(Maeglin, I wasn’t disagreeing with you at all. I’m just suggesting that even if it is established that teamwork or camaraderie would be diminished, that’s still meaningless unless it’s shown that the diminishment is a bad thing.)

Grienspace, I submit that there are important lessons that can be learned with a decreased emphasis on winning. I further and more specifically submit that the joy and thrill of success on the part of a winning team might at times be offset by the humiliation on the part of the losing team.

I’m mostly curious as to why winning supercedes compassion.

66

Oh Gee teach, you marking my paper? Well at least read the whole thread so you won’t look so ignorant. Here’s a clue; you’ll find my gender in there.

67

Decreased emphasis on winning? The situation described in the OP ended any chance of either team winning.

The girl were approximately twelve. Mr. Prick arranged to stop the game and mix the teams. Does anyone think that the girls Mr. Prick coached knew why he was doing that? I believe that allegedly “compassionate” move to stop the game was in fact more humiliating than letting the game continue as it was going.

68

I find it silly to think about a group of 12-year-olds highfiving and cheering each other on. The Eastern European coach brings to mind the old Arby’s commercial with the heavy set models on the the runway all wearing grey jumpsuits: “Evening wear”, “sleepwear” etc. And I think of the training shots from Rocky III where Dolph Lundren is plugged into computers and machines etc while working out. I can’t imagine a group of 12 yo girls being a well-oiled machine like that.

While they certainly seem to get a lot of enjoyment from playing, the “payoff”, as you call it, I imagine most of the fun comes from winning. Does her soccer team have the same level of enthusiasm? They are apparently not quite the same 900 lb gorilla that the volleyball team is.

Your root point seems to me to be, under all the blather about “robbed of the fruits of their work”, that they were really robbed of some wins. And while “Mr Prick” does appear to be a touchy-feely huggie type, you come off as an aggressive, win-hungry asshole, and I wouldn’t want my kids to play for either of you.

69

It’s not about winning Andros, and I’ve never emphasized winning. No one has. It’s about working and performing to the best of your ability, aided by the other team to assess the measure of your success. Winning only means that you’ve just proved that your efforts have been worthwhile, while losing proves that you’ve got more work to do.I’ve pointed out how my daughter is both on a winning team and a losing team. In my opinion, the volleyball coach and the soccer coach are excellent because they’ve both led extremely motivated dedicated and HAPPY players.

With regard to a winning team having compassion I’ll say this. In the old day when a coach only played his best players, it was the rule to play his subs once it was determined the game was in hand. But never were the players urged to slack off. So today in the earlier ages everybody plays. Unless the coach compromises his players, he can not compromise the tenor of the game. So the two choices are tell the players to slack off or tell them to disband and form new groups. In either case as sugaree states, “Of course, said little darlings are old enough to realize when they are being condescended to, instead of being encouraged.” Now that is demoralizing to me, for my team to be forced to give up without a fight. "Hey kids, your coach thinks you’re losers so we are going to mix you up with the better team. “Don’t interpret those blank stares from the “losing” kids as oblivion from the coaches true impression of their potential. Maybe compassionate for Mr. Prick and the PARENTS of the 'losing” kids.

70

Being the father of a few jocks, I’ve coached, assisted, or otherwise been involved with youth sports (soccer mostly, but also volleyball and basketball) for many years. I think there is something that everyone needs to understand. The “just have fun” attitude is (or should be) common in ANY youth sports program, but it will vary depending on the program and the age group. For instance, a recreational soccer program for kids over 12 years old should emphasize having fun, learning the game, the social aspect, etc.

But there are higher level programs that go by various names (Select, Travel, Competitive, etc.) in which winning DOES matter.  The "win" is the gauge by which you judge, among other things, how well the kids are being trained.  So coaches will definitely play to win, and even venture into the "win at all costs" realm.  That attitude is understood by the players and parents when they join (who often pay good money for trainers), and I see little reason to rail against it.  After all, if the kids or parents don't like it, they can go to another team (or go back to recreational play).

So for those of you that condemn such organized sports, I say, “who are you to judge?” I keep in touch with many of the kids (now adults) that underwent such programs and they are fine, upstanding individuals. The competitive sports environment they were subject to is by their own testament, part of what made them good people. I stand by those organizations and the people who volunteer their time to coach and hopefully enrich the lives of the children in their communities.

That said, IMO 6th grade volleyball should be approached as recreational. These are 12 year old kids that signed up to play for various reasons and a good number of those reasons have nothing to do with winning. I don’t think I’d go for the “mixing the teams” bit, but if Mr. Prick didn’t want to have the score yelled out, then what’s the big deal? Why not just keep track of it quietly?

It just seems…perverse that you “blew that whistle loud, and bellowed the score every second play”. As if you gained some sort of pleasure out of anouncing the score and rubbing the collective noses of a bunch of 6th grade girls in it. WTF is that all about?! Quite frankly, it turns my stomach to think about it.

It’s 6th grade volleyball for chrissake. Lighten up!

71

Where exactly did I mark your paper, slick? I’m merely commenting on your odd inclusion of the coach’s gender.

And I noticed DDG using the word “daddy” referring to you. I assumed that he or she probably doesn’t know you in real life, and therefore wouldn’t know your gender. I looked again and I can’t find any confirmation from you.

I don’t know you, and I didn’t read anything from you about your gender. Therefore, I didn’t make any assumptions. That’s ignorant?

72

I’ll ignore the asshole comment. If you’ve paid attention to this thread you would have noticed that the soccer kids are extremely enthusiastic. In fact, because they are a rep team they travel to different communities, sometimes hotel overnight, get involved in fund raising, team sleepovers etc. My daughter is looking forward to the team Christmas party. They haven’t won a game all season. But they keep getting better. Two weeks ago they tied, last week they lost again 3-1. But in the beginning of the season they were losing 8 or 9 nothing several times and the coach said, not to worry, this was team building season. So let me give you a clue, the coach held together this motley crew, motivated them, and STAYED with them through the hard times. I’ve been to every game. When you see a team losing big time and score a goal with minutes left (hint-they have no chance of winning) and scream in ecstacy, maybe then you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

Should we have mixed up these “losers” with the better teams? Let me tell you the only people that think they are losers are some of the parents here and Mr. Prick.

73

If you were from Port Alberni, you’d know that it’s spelled “motley crue” :stuck_out_tongue:

74

There’s one part of the whole deal I just don’t get.

grienspace, if the teammates of your daughter are such ferocious competitors, and their coach has instilled in them proper sporting attitudes, why in the Sam Flippin Hill were they slacking off in the Mix-up game?

Don’t give me any “break up the team, destroy the unity, play poorly” crap, I won’t hear of it. The first rule of sports, in my humble opinion, is “give it everything you got, regardless of circumstance.” So no, the parent at the soccer game has no right to say “tone it down.” Pull the starters, sure, if that’s possible. But asking folks not to play their hearts out so nobody gets stepped on just isn’t right.

That’s what I’m missing in the second game of volleyball - it sounds like when the circumstance shifted, your team’s kids (and maybe their team’s too, but if they really are that bad maybe not) just up and decided to slack it. Mayhaps your coach’s dissapointment at being asked to mix it up rubbed of on her team?

75

I just don’t understand what the naysayers aren’t getting here. Elementry school? By all means, play for fun only with no other goal but to sharpen skills. This is Jr. High School, in a competative league. If you want touchy-feely-run-around-with-flowers-happy-fun-game-time, there are intramural sports. This is a team that trains together with the object of competing with other teams and hopefully winning. Good or bad, the players are expected to give their best together in pursuit of this goal. Mixing teams is telling the players that all they have worked for is pointless. Is that the message you want to send? When the St. Paul’s Crusaders square off against the Boy’s Latin Lakers, both teams want to win. Only one will. Giving your all as a team to ensure that your team wins is the entire point of organized sports.

And just to make it clear for the more PC minded and forestall an arguement: The goal is to compete together and win, not “win at all costs”. There is a very crutial difference.

76

I agree, strictly recreational. There was no emphasis on winning. Mr Prick didn’t want a scorekeeper flashing the numbers. I was told to announce the score intermittently.

Well you had to be there. It was my first game officiating, I didn’t even know what the relative capabilities of each team were. I decided to hype the game for the kids , like I would have wanted whether winning or losing. Hell, I was going to announce the names of each new server until I realized that I didn’t know the names of the opposing team. In any event, I wanted to let the kids know that people were paying attention. My sense was that all the kids enjoyed it. After the game, parents went out of their way to tell me what a good job I did. Some parents I never saw before as well.

77

Let us couple this quote with this from the OP:

Hmmmm, it appears to me that once your team had the opportunity of crushing their opponent taken away, they didn’t “work” or “perform” to the best of their ability, did they? Did anyone suggest to these girls that they should still try to play well? Apparently not. It’s very convenient to claim that this is what you teach, but it seems to me that the girls aren’t learning it very well. This could have been a learning experience, but you were so pissed that you couldn’t bellow out “21-7” that you forgot what you claim to focus on.

78

Aren’t you the tough one. These are 12 year old kids for crying out loud. Blame it on the coach? “Hey you in the red shirt ,#16, good serve.” Yeah right.

KarmaComa, but I live in Campbell River. :slight_smile:

Cheesesteak Forgive the girls for having to go through a grieving process as a result of having the rug pulled out from under them. Keep in mind both teams were dejected. I certainly saw a lot more spark in them the first time around. And somehow I failed as a parent for having not prepared them for this ? Bullshit.

79

File this somewhere. Grienspace is a Daddy. I am a Mommy. I knew he was a Daddy because we have had other conversations on the boards in which it was established that he in fact is a Daddy, and that I am in fact a Mommy.

And if I had referred to him as “Daddy” back on Page 1, and he in fact was actually a Mommy, don’t you think he would have posted, “Um, DDG…?” Because people generally do, on the boards.
And… what WeirdDave said. Thank you, Dave. :smiley:

80

You’ve got to hear yourself here Slacker You say you ASSUMED DDG doesn’t know what she’s talking about and then you claim that you “DIDN’T MAKE ANY ASSUMPTIONS”

Why yes that’s ignorant !