A Letter to Coaches and Parents
Dear Youth Baseball Parents and Coaches,
Imagine with me for a minute. You’re 14 years old, in the 8th grade. You’ve been around sports your whole life and have become a pretty decent two-sport athlete for your age. For the past couple years you’ve tried to figure out a way to earn some money in the summer. You’ve been cutting lawns for neighbors, and now this year you’re old enough to begin umpiring baseball games. You love baseball, and so you plan to attend the training meeting for the local league’s umpires.
This is the situation my youngest son is in as he looks ahead to the next few months. He is eager to get to work, but if I’m honest, I’ve got some reservations about him becoming an umpire. Years ago, each of my three older boys gave umpiring a try. These sons of mine are smart, reliable kids who have a solid background in sports. They were as qualified as any teenager was going to be to do the job, and yet, after a season or two each of them decided he’d had enough. Their experiences were nearly identical – after a couple years of having parents and coaches yelling at them, each of the three was ready to step away permanently.
My question is this: will my fourth son’s experience be any different? Has the treatment of officials at youth games over the past four years changed for the better? I don’t think it has, not from what I’ve seen. There’s a whole lot we could say about that, the way officials are harassed at games played by our children. Just yesterday I got an email from the National Federation for High School Athletics about a consortium that has been assembled to strategize about the national shortage of officials, as over 50,000 have quit over the past three years. I emailed the NFHS and told them there was no need for a consortium, and that the only needed solution is for schools and youth organizations to adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward the berating of officials. Nothing else will fix this problem. But I’m done talking about the way we treat officials in general. That’s not the point of this letter.
The point of this letter is to help you, the parents and coaches of those young children playing baseball, to realize that my 14-year-old umpire is also being placed in your care. He is not a grown man. He is not an experienced umpire. I’m fairly certain that over the course of a season he’s going to get a few tough calls wrong because he’s human. I’m also fairly certain that he’ll get some close ones right, but you won’t agree because you’re human too. So how about we make a deal…when the call is questionable, you keep your voice down? Parents, imagine if I came to the game, watched your 9-year-old strike out, and began yelling at him about what a terrible job he did at the plate. A stranger with no connection to that child, and I decide that it’s OK for me to verbally let him have it. You’d be outraged, and rightly so. That behavior is objectively unacceptable. Well, it’s not that different for those parents who choose to get loud with a teenager working in his first season as an umpire.
Coaches, you have a different role and a different opportunity. In a situation when my son makes a call you disagree with or know is incorrect, you have a chance to show him how an adult who’s been trusted to help young people grow and develop handles a dispute. Please don’t put my child in a spot where he is required to stand up to you as a peer. He’s in middle school, and a middle schooler is not qualified or equipped to do that. When he makes a mistake – talk to him about it after the game, or if absolutely necessary, between innings. Help him. Coach him. That’s your role. That’s part of the privilege of being called Coach. And if the team parents are in need of a reminder of their role and how they should treat the children on the field, you’re well within your rights to provide that reminder as well. You owe it to the kids, players and umpires alike.
I understand that there’s a certain percentage of people, hopefully a small one, who will take issue with these ideas about the treatment of teen umpires. They’ll talk about how kids nowadays are “soft” or “being coddled” and hearken back to some notion of how for decades this is how things have been. They’ll talk about the need for umpires to grow “thicker skin” and bring up the ways that being loudly called out can build character. This point of view is tragic. Where else in our society is it possibly OK for a stranger to berate a child for the job they are learning how to do? Absolutely nowhere. And it’s absolutely unacceptable at a ballgame as well. These games should be characterized by joy. When adults are harassing other people’s children, joy is absent.
So, as we begin this 2023 baseball season, let’s remember that the children on the field are our collective responsibility – not only the players, but the umpires as well.
Letter From a Youth Baseball Coach:
Today I heard a comment made about me behind my back. I started to turn around and look, but then decided better of it and kept my eyes on the field. My wife hears things like this more often than I do, because many of you don’t know who she is. She tells me what you say. I have received angry emails, full of “suggestions,” about who should be playing where and how I… lost that day’s game for the kids. I thought I’d write an open letter to all of you parents, even though I might never send it. I’ll start it this way: “I am a volunteer.”
I’m the one who answered the call when the league said they didn’t have enough coaches. I understand that you were too busy. I have some news for you. I’m not retired. I’m busy too. I have other children and a job, just like you do. Not only do I not get paid to do this – it costs me money. I see you walk up to the game 15 minutes after it started, still dressed for work. Do you know I’ve already been here over an hour? Imagine if you had to leave work early nearly every day. I’ve never seen you at a practice. I’m sure you’re plugging away at the office. But I’m out here, on the field, trying my best to teach these children how to play a sport they love, while my bank account suffers.
I know. I make mistakes. In fact, maybe I’m not even that great of a coach. But I treat the kids fairly and with respect. I am pretty sure they like coming to my practices and games, and without me or someone like me, there’d be no team for them to play on. I’m part of this community too and it’s no picnic being out here on this stage like this. It’s a lot easier back there with the other parents where no one is second-guessing you.
And I also know you think I give my son or daughter unfair advantages. I try not to. In fact, have you ever considered that maybe I’m harder on him than on the others? I’m sure he hears plenty of criticism at school from classmates, who hear it from you at home, about what a lame coach I am. And if, even unconsciously, my kids are getting a slight advantage because I know them better and trust their abilities, is that the worst thing in the world, considering the sacrifice I’m making? Trust me, I want to win too. And if your son or daughter could guarantee we’d do that, I’d give them the chance.
After this game is over, I’ll be the last one to leave. I have to break down the field, put away all the equipment and make sure everyone has had a parent arrive to pick them up. There have been evenings when my son and I waited with a player until after dark before someone came to get them. Many nights I’m sure you’ve already had dinner and are relaxing on the couch by the time I finally kick the mud off my shoes and climb into my car, which hasn’t been washed or vacuumed for weeks. Why bother cleaning it during the season? Do you know how nice it would be if, just once, after a game one of you offered to carry the heavy gear bag to my car or help straighten up the field?
If I sound angry, I’m not. I do this because I love it and I love being around the kids. There are plenty of rewards and I remind myself that while you’re at the office working, your kid is saying something that makes us all laugh or brings a tear to my eye. The positives outweigh the negatives. I just wish sometimes those who don’t choose to volunteer their time would leave the coaching to the few of us who do.
Dear Youth Coaches Everywhere,
First, before I say anything else, let me say this: Thank you. Thank you for your time, for your energy, for your heart, and for your patience. It’s one thing to have the energy as a parent to sign your child(ren) up for sports, and an entirely different thing altogether to volunteer your time to actually coach those children while the rest of us sit back and watch. Very few people willingly subject themselves to the rowdiness, the craziness, and the ups and downs that come with coaching a group of kids, but you do, and that alone deserves massive praise.
Now that we have a few years and quite a few different coaches under our belts, it’s become increasingly obvious what a BIG job you have. Organized sports are a place where kids learn and grow so much. They learn to win, and they learn to lose. They learn what it feels like to be significantly more talented than another team, they learn what it feels like to pale in comparison to another team, and they learn how to humble themselves in the process.
As the coach, these children look up to you. Whether you eagerly signed up to coach or were “voluntold” to your position (my friends’ way of describing the art of volunteering someone else for something), you have taken on a job that holds great power. You have the power to build up or tear down and the power to teach kids how to play together or against each other. You have the power to create good sports or sore losers. You have the power to instill a love of the game and build a foundation of fun and enjoyment. You have the power to make it fun and the power to take the fun away. This power is truly endless, and when you realize the scope of your influence, you will realize that your job is way more significant than you ever imagined.
I know you may feel like you are just there to manage the chaos and keep the children from getting hurt, but there are a lot of eyes on you. There are eyes watching when things get rough. They see the way you respond to aggressive players and poor calls. When you begin to yell and let a few curse words slip, they store that away in their subconscious and see it as an acceptable way to respond to adversity. When you coach your players through it instead, giving them tips on how to handle a crummy situation and look beyond the adversity, they tuck that little lesson away too. These little eyes see the way you handle successful games too. They see you shake the coach’s hand, thank the umpire/referee for his or her service, and compliment the other players on a game well played. They see you bench players for making a mistake, they see you focus your efforts on the best players, and they notice when you play the kids who struggle the most and encourage them as they fumble through the game. The way you talk and the way you act will extend far beyond the fences of the field.
In today’s day and age, youth sports have gotten more and more competitive at younger and younger ages. I’ve watched coaches bench players as young as six years old for making a mistake, and I’ve seen coaches drive up the score into double digits just because they could. I totally understand the inherent desire to win, but I beg you to consider the possibility that there is so much more to youth sports than the final score. Consider the possibility this is when kids decide whether they are athletic or not (even though many kids don’t find their niche sport until they are in junior high). When you start and bench the same seven year olds at every game, they realize you have already decided who is good and who is not. Not only do they begin to internalize that winning is the most important thing, but they also potentially miss out on the fun, the camaraderie, and the true joy of being part of a team.
My son did not begin to play baseball until he was eight, which is considered a “late start” by many, and he looked a bit like a wobbly baby giraffe those first practices and games. However, he had a coach who believed in creating athletes, not just improving those who exhibit natural talent, and by the end of the season, you would have never known it was my son’s first. Every player, even the ones who looked like they did not care a lick about being on the field, received equal playing time and equal coaching. His coach cared more about teaching the game, building confidence, and allowing his players to have fun more than he did about winning, and the smiles on ALL of their faces were enough to make me realize what an incredible coach he was.
So, coaches, as you can see, you are a big a deal. You have taken on a huge task — one that most of us won’t even consider — and your influence is far-reaching. What you are doing out there on that field isn’t about the trophy, it isn’t about being the best team, and it honestly isn’t even about the sport. Your job is about one thing and one thing only: the children. Do your job well, and all of those other things will take care of themselves.
With much gratitude and respect,
A Little League Mom