A First: A Head Coach's Letter of Apology

[Publius]

I've had a few verbals offered up over the years, too. I "accept" them, but I don't "appreciate" them for a couple of reasons.

First, given the same situation again, 95% of the perps will react the same way again. Second, I don't take it personally anyway. Guys get frustrated during the heat of competition and do things that are mostly out-of-character for them. They can't stay if they do those things, but outside of a few that can be counted on one hand who have demonstrated otherwise, I don't take it as a measure of their character.

The apologies are meaningless to me; I don't think more of players who make them or less of players who don't.

[TussAgee11]

I had to run a kid several years back (he was about 15). He basically made a threatening motion with the bat, like he was going to swing it into me.

Parents dragged him by both arms to me in the parkinglot, and forced an apology out of him.

They then told him to get to their car where they not only thanked me but informed me that the kid had been having some "emotional issues" over the past couple months and they were trying hard to help him overcome them.

That was sort of weird, but sorta put the whole thing into perspective too.