<p>You know that scene in Remember the Titans, where Denzel Washington is forcing his football team through a ridiculously brutal workout, and his assistant says, Coach, theres a fine line between tough and crazy, and youre flirting with it? I would love to know where CC parents think that line is. Ive actually always wondered about the issue, but recently friends of ours asked whether we recommend someone specific, and Im trying to decide how to answer.</p>
<p>I dont think that classroom teachers stray over the line as often as athletic coaches, band directors, dance/music teachers, or other EC mentors do, though Im sure some can. My father swore that his seventh grade teacher, Sister Virgilius, used to bang kids heads against the blackboard when they didnt know an answer, which would have been over the top even in 1950. I think most parents today would consider any kind of physical punishment from a coach/teacher to be off-limits. </p>
<p>I remember a story from Dick Buttons autobiography (if anyone doesnt know him, he was the first US Olympic champ in mens figure skating and is also the most entertaining sportscaster ever). As a young skater, he apparently wasnt remembering to point his foot in practice, even after multiple reminders from his coach. Until the coach skated up to him and stomped the offending foot with his own skate, after which Button always remembered! He told this story approvingly and even fondly, IIRC. To me, this is too much to Dick Button, it was what he needed to become the best figure skater in the world, and therefore fine.</p>
<p>Verbal toughness and/or abuse is what more kids experience and how can a parent tell which is which? I dont think a kid learns much from constant praise, but when does a teacher cross the line and become abusive? (Of course, some parents consider any negative feedback from a teacher to be abusive.) Your opinions and anecdotes are much appreciated!</p>
<p>Different parents (and communities) have different levels of tolerance for this. My kids go to a smallish (75/graduating class) liberal-arts type private school. The kids are in LOTS of activities (most play multiple sports, are in competitive speech, debate, plays/musicals, choirs/bands/orchestras, quiz bowl, etc.). And they are working their tails off academically. We want our kids to do well, but typically don’t expect them (esp. the sports teams) to win their conference because our kids have a lot of other activities in their lives. Middle of the pack is okay with most parents at our school. Coaches who come in often struggle with that mindset. </p>
<p>A few years ago the school got a new volleyball coach (my D’s favorite sport). She was (and still is, unfortunately) fanatical. D was a varsity captain for 2 years, but this woman turned her off to the sport so much that D has not touched a volleyball since leaving high school (and avoids the coach as much as possible, younger D is playing for her now). The athletic director has had a lot of complaints from parents, but so far she has kept her position. </p>
<p>I think it is worse at many bigger schools where there is always someone waiting in the wings to take your spot… the balance of power is totally in the coaches favor, as the kids don’t want to lose their playing time. I’d like to see high school administrators take a survey every year of how the students and parents feel about how extracurricular programs are being run – I think they would find a lot more dissatisfaction and trouble spots than they hear about directly.</p>
<p>I used the same measure that I would use for any care-taker or educator, or for myself, for that matter. Criticism of behavior should focus on just that - the behavior - and not on the child’s character, prospects in life, appearance, or any other irrelevant and hurtful factor.</p>
<p>Both my kids got very involved in their sports from an early age and remained involved in them until conflicts with hs ec’s forced them to make a choice. Part of that was due to the coaching. Especially when your kids are young you want them to have a coach whose values reflect yours. The coach is a surrogate parent and the kid is spending a lot of time with him/her, so you want to make sure that the parenting that is occurring meets with your approval. My kids had excellent coaching models before they got to hs, so they knew when a coach was out of line. Fortunately they had excellent coaches in hs also, so it wasn’t very often an issue.</p>
<p>I would guess standards have changed since I was a kid. Things we accepted back then are unacceptable now. I remember one and only one student athlete who quit the HS football team because he wouldn’t scream “KILL!” along with the other kids during a drill as ordered by the coach. And I don’t think he was even a Quaker.</p>
<p>Son’s teammate had friends from out of town come to a football game. The mom went to stand in the shade where she was within hearing distance of the coach talking to the team during half time. The team had gone over there with the coach saying, “Gentlemen, over here”, and the mom commented favorably on the “gentlemen” address.</p>
<p>In a few minutes, she was saucer eyed as she came towards us. “He used the F word,” she said, “and not just once”. </p>
<p>Another mom and I laughed and said, “Yup. And then they probably said the Hail Mary after that”.</p>
<p>Typical for a high school coach even at a Catholic school or maybe especially at a Catholic school.</p>
<p>A friend of mine’s HS daughter had mandatory basketball practice every weekday during the summer from 6am - 2pm. They were allowed to drink water but not eat during that time. If they didn’t throw up during practice, they weren’t working hard enough.</p>
<p>I never understood why she allowed that to go on.</p>
<p>Thanks for your responses, folks! I always suspected that athletic coaches weren’t much different from ballet teachers . I’m still trying to decide whether my daughters’ dance instructor was over the line (or, more precisely, exactly how far over the line she was). I agree with MarinMom that, when children are young, it’s especially important for coaches to exhibit the same respect for others that children see modeled at home. I think it gets more complicated when the child becomes an adolescent and wants to be on the best team or at the best dance school, or to study under the best violin teacher; it’s hard to know when the parent should step in if the child insists she can handle whatever the teacher is putting out there. And, of course, it’s helpful to know how to handle criticism that seems unfair or too harsh, because not everyone in our children’s lives will be a kindly mentor. Just a tricky situation all around.</p>
<p>Two high school players collapsed during practice this last year; one died 3 days later at the hospital (never regained conciousness). Bizarrely, many parents at the high school in question still don’t think the coach was over the line in denying the players water during practice…</p>
<p>My D had a very tough coach in basketball. My line was : if it was merely insanely hard -not my place to step in, it was her choice to stay or not. If it was abusive- the choice became mine alone.</p>
<p>I took karate from age 6-8. The instructor used to have us warm up by running around the block barefoot on the sidewalk. One day I stepped on a pile of broken glass, and had to be taken to the doctor to get it taken out of my foot. When my mom found out that this had happened because little kids were being forced to run barefoot on a dirty, debris-covered sidewalk…all I know is that after that, our warmup routine changed. ;)</p>
<p>For me, the standards change depending on the age of the athletes and the level at which they are competing (I’d let a coach who is training Junior Olympians get away with more than a coach who is training a summer-league neighborhood team), but there are some things that are always over the line.</p>
<p>Sometimes a coach may be a fine coach, but just not well-suited to the environment. When I was a freshman at MIT(yes, where I was is a relevant detail), I did lightweight women’s crew. The coach was new and had previously coached some top-ranked teams, and was one of the winningest coaches in the sport. I have no doubt that he’s a fine coach - he must have been to be so successful - but he wasn’t a good fit for the team. He did not understand that this was an institution where among his athletes and their professors, schoolwork obligations were going to trump athletic obligations, and where people simply didn’t have enough time to train at the level that he was used to, because they had too much studying to do. He always seemed very frustrated with the team, and lot of people quit on his watch.</p>
<p>I agree with curmudgeon!
I think the sign of a good coach is one who figures out what motivates each individual athlete. Screaming, in-your-face style may work with some but not others. I am surprised that it is accepted that middle and high school coaches can blister athletes with flaming language that would get the athletes suspended if used on campus! Guess that’s just the rule follower in me. ;)</p>
<p>I agree with Curmudgeon as well. Though I will also add that if the situation is such that it is bothering the child, I would discuss the situation with him, and allow an out if it appears to be the right thing to do. I can’t be specific about this because each kid/parent/family has its own boundaries on what should be sacrosanct. </p>
<p>I rarely get involved, but last year, my son did not get a part of the “spirit pack” uniform that was distributed. The coach blew him off rudely each time he tried to mention it. One e-mail from me very quickly took care of the problem.</p>
<p>I don’t buy this one sorry. That school would get into quite a bit of trouble in most states for violating summer contact rules. TN in your name for Tennessee? Here’s what they have to say about it…</p>
<p>Basketball gets 15 days to practice during the summer. If what you said is actually true, then I urge you to report it.</p>
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<p>You don’t provide nearly enough information for this to have anything but bias written all over it. My understanding of this case is that while the coach might have been somewhat negligent, the doctors found this kid did not die from dehydration. They believe that he died of heat stroke likely caused by a specific medication the athlete was currently taking.</p>
<p>An offshoot of this topic is a coach that is not right for the environment. Jessiehl talked of this with the incongruity between the MIT academic environment and the athletic coach’s regimen. My D2s high school vb coach is similar. Both the academic and athletic environment at her school are high. But for the majority of the team (95%), academics is most important. Students excel academically and generally believe that is their way into the best college for them. The vb coach was probably hired for his ability, his career highlights, his winning coaching history. But the kids, while they want to win, practice hard and are dedicated, really believe that vb is secondary to academics. The coach pits players against each other, vying for spots at a school that has a no-cut policy. Someone is always crying after practice. Success for the coach is all kids on scholarship at some Div 1 school. He does not have any value for any other type of college. And he lets the kids know this by downplaying their academic pursuits. I’m so glad to be done with him.</p>
<p>Maybe three weeks of the wicked practices with the coach but many more weeks of what they call captain’s practice?</p>
<p>They could call extra weeks without a coach “captain’s practice” and say it was lead by the students themselves and completely optional. </p>
<p>And all of the students could know that based on past year’s experience, those practices were “mandatory” for anyone wanted a position on the team.</p>
<p>On my football team, the coaching is disciplined, but I don’t think disciplined enough. part of the thing was that we had such a small team that we could barely afford to bench or kick off misbehaving (and often most talented) players. I’m not sure there would be much else to do with such players. They had no humility, were concerned entirely with their own ego, took nothing seriously, and were never used to being told ‘no.’<br>
Our coaches never forced us to put the team above academics (that being said, I think I was among the few people on the team who would, not because I was disloyal, but because nobody cared about school). A lot of those guys would never go to college if they weren’t going to play football. Our coaches recognised that and tried to make sure people were in an academic position to do so.</p>
<p>Sometimes you need a coach who swears at you and talks like a drill sergeant. But what makes a good coach is that he/she does this with the goal of helping the athletes and the team of people, not to further their own careers or for the sake of the team as an institution.</p>
<p>^ that’s likely what they do. Either that, or they have kids to really intense conditioning, but don’t let them actually shoot hoops under a coach’s direction.</p>
<p>As MidwestMom2Kids_ and IBfootballer mentioned, it is not necessarily called “practice.” There is conditioning, open gym, camps, strategy sessions,… I don’t really know all the names. But the bottom line was ‘be there M-F if you want to play in the fall.’ There’s no point in reporting it because the coaches know how to shave everything very close but still legal.</p>
<p>I know when my son started playing football in 9th grade, I couldn’t believe how these coaches yelled at the kids and some of the language was unbelievable…I know in middle school, they would have gotten into trouble…They worked them so hard, too… I live in Florida and football conditioning in summer is crazy, but there is no choice. I kept thinking how great it would be if ALL of the kids just sat down and refused to do anything until they were treated better. However, my son loved it. I think it made him feel like he was truly in high school and expected not to cry over someone making him “feel bad”. I’ve even sa one coach grab a kid by the shirt and drag him to a corner to ream him out…That coach is still one of the most popular coaches on the team and I don’t think ANY of the kids have any problems with the coaching styel… They all love it!..Go figure!</p>
. I’m still trying to decide whether my daughters’ dance instructor was over the line (or, more precisely, exactly how far over the line she was). I agree with MarinMom that, when children are young, it’s especially important for coaches to exhibit the same respect for others that children see modeled at home. I think it gets more complicated when the child becomes an adolescent and wants to be on the best team or at the best dance school, or to study under the best violin teacher; it’s hard to know when the parent should step in if the child insists she can handle whatever the teacher is putting out there. And, of course, it’s helpful to know how to handle criticism that seems unfair or too harsh, because not everyone in our children’s lives will be a kindly mentor. Just a tricky situation all around.</p>