Gentlemen,
While I did not the situation in question live or on a video replay, from what I have read of the situation I have formed the following opinions:
1. I believe the umpires acted appropriately in taking no action regarding the incident.
2. I would be happy to have the player on a team I was coaching.
3. I would not care to have the coach on the coaching staff of a team I was coaching.
While I would agree that the player's choice of language was inappropriate, I like the caring evident in his comment. It struck me as evidence that the player truly cared about winning and suggested to me that he felt his team should be capable of producing the one run they needed. In my experience, players with passion for the game tend to be the best players, and that passion is something that cannot be taught. On the other hand, a player can be taught to control his mouth.
One of the things I like about sports is that they provide the opportunity to perform under pressure; often the stress of a situation in a game can cause those participating to perform below their capabilities. But, with practice and preparation and repetition, most people who work at it can learn to perform at their very best under very stressful situations. As a youth coach, I feel that is one of the most important things that my players can learn from participating in sports.
I am a firm believer in the premise that my players learn much more from what I do than from what I say. What this coach taught his players was that it's OK to "lose it" in a stressful situation. My impression was that he was so upset with how the broadcast remark would reflect on HIM, that he unthinkingly lashed out at the player. And wasted the opportunity to teach all his players a good lesson about "grace under pressure".
Now, I can certainly understand the momentary urge to inflict violence upon one's players - with me, it's usually the urge to strangle one of them rather than slap them. But, I've always managed to refrain from acting on the urge, and, with time, it usually passes. If I ever found myself unable to resist the urge to strike a player, I would simply stop coaching. Because I would not be fit to coach.
I also regularly drop "F bombs" while I'm coaching - but I'm the only one who hears them, because they're usually not said out loud, or, occasionally muttered under my breath while I'm in the 3B coaching box.
As in, "Swing the F*&$#ng bat, Billy - he's been calling that a strike all day!"
Which, in the "for public consumption" version comes out along the lines of, "If you see that pitch again, just dump it into Right Field, Billy.", said with the most encouraging tone I'm able to muster.
I think it's a little unrealistic to think kids that age (most of them are 13) don't use that language and, given the context, I thought the coach WAY overreacted. Not that the kid didn't deserve a reprimand, mind you. Not sure what his "MPR status" was, but I'm thinking pulling him out of the game to think about what is and isn't appropriate language would have been more in order.
So, I'd take the kid, lose the coach, & be impressed with the umpires for not getting involved where they weren't really needed.
JMO.
JM
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