Dealing with 10U Coaches

[SRW]

Originally Posted by Dakota

My standard plate meeting includes the Sportsmanship Speech. In this, after the usual yadda yadda, I say the following, "If either of you coaches have a question about a call or a ruling, I am happy to discuss it, so long as you request TIME, and when granted approach me in polite, professional manner. I am less willing to argue about calls, though. You will get a result if you yell across the field, but it may not be the result you want." This is delivered, not as a lecture, but in a somewhat lighthearted tone, with a smile.

I've found that the coaches of younger teams joke back at this, but get the message. For the few that don't, I can refer them back to the plate meeting as a reminder to calm them down short of ejection, etc.

The lines that usually work for me are similar, with the inclusion of:

a. Coach, don't remove yourself from this game. Your players need you here...
b. Coach, I don't need you in this game to continue, but your players do....
c. Coach, I want to keep you in this game. Now here's what's going to happen...

[justmom]

I was a 10U coach a few years back. The problems I had with other coaches was based on a lack of rules knowledge. Our league had coaches meetings and handed out the ASA rule book, but I don't think some of the coaches bothered to even open the book. A few of the coaches tried to argue the calls, but usually they got over it with minimal "bluster". The only time I questioned an umpire's judgement was when she repeatedly called strikes on my girls when the ball was hitting in front of the plate. I waited until between innings, and asked her why she was calling strikes when the ball wasn't even getting to the plate. She told me my girls were just standing there not even trying to hit the ball. I could understand that; no one wanted a walkfest. So, I asked if it was okay to redraw the batter's box so the kids could stand closer to the pitcher (it had been drawn incorrectly, and stopped at the front edge of the plate). The opposing coach actually agreed, and came over and helped redraw it! I was reluctant to question the umpire at all, but some of my parents were getting a little heated up over everything being called a strike, so I felt I owed it to them to at least ask. By the way, my pitcher was actually throwing a lot of "real" strikes and the umpire wasn't giving her the same "anything hittable" strike zone. The game ended a few innings later because of a lightning storm. The weather was charged up, but at least my parents were calmer!