News: In parents vs. coach, White Bear Lake kids lose

[Patrick Szalapski]

This from Startribune.com. I umpired a little of the Twin Cities area Mickey Mantle this year. So sad.

P-Sz
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In parents vs. coach, White Bear Lake kids lose
Curt Brown, Star Tribune
Published July 31, 2003

The White Bear Lake manager says the parents of his 15-year-old baseball players are control freaks who scream instructions to their sons.

The parents counter that the coaches are autocratic and have failed to use the proper strategies, from defending against double steals to requiring pregame infield practice.

After a successful season that culminated in White Bear Lake winning the Mickey Mantle state championship, things came to a head.

The parents drafted a letter, outlining how the coaches "must make a commitment . . . to maximize the opportunity to win," if the team was to continue its season at a national competition.

The coaches shrugged off what they considered an inappropriate list of conditions.

The resulting standoff, which cost the team its trip to the national finals in Oklahoma this weekend, comes as no surprise to experts in the world of youth sports.
White Bear Lake's state champions stay home.
Provided By Luke Anderson

"One of the most significant problems we face in youth sports today is the extent to which families immerse themselves and become so involved that it blurs the separate and different roles of parents and coaches," said Richard Weinberg, a professor at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota.

Weinberg, who leads youth sports seminars, says kids suffer whether overzealous parents second-guess their coaches or meddle in the classroom.

"When parents start tinkering and bring their cut-throat, competitive attitudes from the workplace," he said, "the kids get mixed messages when they just want to have a good time."

Whoa, says Luke Anderson of Vadnais Heights, whose son, Jared, played third base and pitched for the team.

Luke Anderson said school sports have athletic directors standing between coaches and parents to monitor how well things are going. But in summer baseball leagues, where parents fork out hefty fees and travel expenses, he said, parents have to advocate for their kids' best interests.

"I think it's reasonable to expect a certain standard of coaching," Anderson said. "I'm not asking for the sky and the moon, but how they're going to play influences whether people want to drive 800 miles and pay $1,000 to watch them get out-strategized."

Team manager Joe Janitschke, 59, is a retired White Bear Lake police officer who has coached teenage baseball for 42 years. He said dads like Anderson, who coached the kids as they grew and progressed, have trouble letting go.

"Guys who coached these kids for years have a tendency to tell everybody what to do," he said. "They tell everybody when to swing, when not to swing, how to position themselves in the field. They are control freaks and they've been interfering all season long."

When the team lost its first game at the state tournament in Monticello, parents' season-long frustration mounted.

"We're great big White Bear Lake and we were playing marginal teams we should have beat straight out with the 10-run rule," said John Buresh, the team's travel director. "The coaches had created some distrust among the parents and they were calling me."

Some parents didn't want to travel to Norman, Okla., just to lose two games and come home. Some wanted to know whether their kids would play or simply sit on the bench. Buresh drafted a one-page letter to express those concerns.

The nine-paragraph letter thanked the coaches and outlined commitments that families, players and coaches needed to make before the team would accept the Oklahoma invitation.

The "coaches must make a commitment to use all the 'tools in the toolbox' to maximize the opportunity to win," the letter said, listing such things as pinch runners and the use of signs for suicide squeeze bunts.

It also mentioned "putting the 'best nine' out in the field at all times."

Janitschke bristled.

"It was like: Accede to their demands or requests or they'll pull their child out," he said.

Buresh said seven of the 15 families ultimately decided to skip the tournament. Some had scheduled vacations. Some didn't want to spend the money. And others just wanted a response from the coaches, which they never got.

"We wanted some straight yes-or-no answers and they danced around, so we asked our son," said Becky Lunda, a mother of one of the players. "I have no animosity or bad thoughts and I think the coaches did a great job to get this far, but they couldn't say one way or another whether all the kids would get a chance to play."

Janitschke said that a year from now, the parents will look back and regret their decision to make a statement about the coaching at the expense of their children.

Jared Anderson, the third baseman and pitcher, only shrugged.

"I'm pretty bummed," he said. "We were all pretty excited, but a lot of the parents had their views about the coaches and not all of those were very good ones."

[GarthB]

Unfortunately the only difference between the parents in that article and the parents that accompany over half the teams I see is that they got publicity. This is not a unique or new problem.

Two years ago I was working a 16U Select Travel Team Tournament when a father went into the dugout and started punching out the coach because he wasn't playing the dad's son.

This year the police had to be called when an ejected coach decided to challenge the opposing team's fans on his way off the field. He stood at the gate shouting that he would kick the sh!t out of each one as they left.

I've had parents scream obscenities at players on the opposing team. And I don't have time to get into the abuse I've seen heaped on officials.

Far too many parents, coaches and even players are acting out in anger. I have attempted to get the local youth leagues to require all coaches and parents to attend both a rules clinic and a behaviorial seminar. After this past season in which coach ejections and parent outburst were at an all time high, I have won over some converts on the boards of directors. I'll let you know how the vote goes in October.

[DownTownTonyBrown]

Best of success to you Garth. It is definitely needed.

[David B]

One of the reasons that I have scaled back the last couple of years to only doing HS/College ball is because there are paid coaches and there is also security provided at every contest.

The summer leagues are getting further out of control and now with the $elect Teams (pay the money and you can play) its will only get worse.

We as umpires see it more than anyone since we are a third party.

Some have suggested select is the way to go, but I think that it will lose momentum simply because the parents want their money's worth.

9-12 year old kids are not capable of consistently providing entertainment for their parents $$$.

Thanks
David

[brian43]

Originally posted by David B
One of the reasons that I have scaled back the last couple of years to only doing HS/College ball is because there are paid coaches and there is also security provided at every contest.

The summer leagues are getting further out of control and now with the $elect Teams (pay the money and you can play) its will only get worse.

We as umpires see it more than anyone since we are a third party.

Some have suggested select is the way to go, but I think that it will lose momentum simply because the parents want their money's worth.

9-12 year old kids are not capable of consistently providing entertainment for their parents $$$.

Thanks
David

since im only 19, the 14-16 travel and select teams are all i can do (no HS yet, in college and not much time during school) and the parents disgust me. most of the teams have nothing to do with talent, simply that they have money and they can pay to drive 100 miles to play a game and get smoked. my brother is currently on a 14 yr. old AAU team that is half talent and half rich kids that flashed the bills to get on the team. the worst thing is, the coach (who is paid) plays the kids that pay over the kids that earned it. many times this ends up with the parents of the good kids verbally bashing the talentless rich kids out loud so everyone hears it. arguments happen, people yell, rich kids parents say stupid stuff that has nothing to do with anything, its all a bunch of garbage if you ask me.

**sorry if i offended anyone on here with the "rich kid/parent" comments, only some people are like that and im talking specifically about them and not anyone here.

as an umpire i havent been abused too bad, just a few parents who think some of the fields i work at are "MY" fields and I take care of them. one guy said if "I" dont put a fence up in the outfield (no fence, trees like 500 ft away) he wont let his kid play in next years tournament. the team got smoked, but they had nice jerseys and their own helmets with numbers and all the newest bats which of course means they are good, so they thought since they have money...i should have money to put up a fence for some random field i worked 3 games at.

1/2 the travel and select teams out there are not worth their own time. they should stay in their home town and play the in-house league. they think they need "exposure"...to who? no MLB/college scouts are watching any kids under 16. once they are seniors in HS then i can see getting on a travel/select team to get "exposure" but this is getting so rediculous its not even funny how stupid some people are.

[Bfair]

Jim, I can also speak as a player.
At age 14 I was lucky enough to be a member of a Babe Ruth team that won the Illinois state championship. I don't recall "select" or "travel" teams back then, merely neighborhood kids who played ball together with the all-stars representing their town vs. other towns.

As kids, we didn't see the money aspect, but we were well aware of "the coach's kid" syndrome. Despite that, we were a team. We were excited with our wins within state leading to a state title, and just the opportunity to play other state champions---and to now represent our entire state, not just our community. While there are many memories of what occurred on the field, there are many more memories of what occurred off the field. The friendships developed in eating, sleeping, and traveling together---and in trying to break the curfew rules together. Still our goal was singular---to represent Illinois as best we could. As players, we knew the stronger from the weaker players and who the key players were to get us that far. We had confidence the coach would attempt to play the weaker players whenever possible. We also knew that our goal at that stage was to win. That was a team goal.

Perhaps times have changed, but it seems that the parents initiated something here that ulitmately cost their kids far more than just a couple of baseball games.


Just my opinion,

Freix

[TriggerMN]

Living in the state of Minnesota, I can say first hand that the fans and parents of White Bear Lake have been among the poorest in the state for the past 10 or 15 years. This comes as no surprise to me.