Differing Objectives Cause Parents and Coaches to Clash

While it's fair to say that people in all walks of life are self-absorbed, youth sports parents also fall into that line of thinking.

As one who has covered sports for about a decade, it seems like the relationship between parents and coaches gets frostier with each passing year. For starters, let me make this clear. I enjoy talking to parents and for the most part understand that they want what's best for their son or daughter. I believe most parents, despite the bad rap they collectively get, are good people. It's just the small percentage of the bad ones ruin it for the good ones.

Parents and kids of today, however, are not the only ones that have changed. Coaching has also become more scrutinized. Not that I'm an old man (I'm in my mid-30s) but when I was a kid we didn't dare call a teacher or coach by their first name. Keep in mind, as long as coaches didn't cross the line (i.e. physically abuse players), they pretty much had carte blanche to do things as they saw fit. For the most part anyhow.

Today's coaches in general command respect but it's done more by proving it through knowledge of Xs and Os and carefully explaining things to players and parents rather than the "well we're doing this because I said so" approach. You see, gone are the days of an athlete saying, "I'd run through a brick wall for coach so and so." Nowadays it's, "why are we doing this?" In turn, the coach is left to explain why.

Part of that line of thinking is upbringing and the relationship between parents and coaches having different dynamics.

Coaches are faced with limited budgets but yet they also have desires to not lose ground or stay ahead of their competition whether it's having better facilities or better equipment. Parents are also investing more time and money whether it means sending their youngster to a camp or having them play on a traveling roster.

It also doesn't help that more parents seemingly have an inflated idea of how good their child is and they lose site of the reality that one out of every 100 high school seniors will get a scholarship and one out of every 100,000 will play professionally.

While some parents legitimately know the game and its fundamentals and strategies, they believe that their investment entitles them to claim they know more than they think they know. Of course when it comes time to actually stepping forward to coach the team most parents become cowards.

As a result, parents and coaches have two entirely different perspectives. If their kid is getting a lot of playing time and having fun, great, the parent is happy as a lark. But another kid on the team who is not as good a player might have a parent that believes their kid should be playing but is not. Therefore in that circle the coach is not well-liked.

Many parents forget that coaches have to view their sport as "what decision is best for the entire team." If moving Johnny from fullback to guard is what's best for the team, that's what needs to be done.

Certainly, they want individuals to succeed on the team but the latter has to come first even though parents have their emotional and financial investment in their child.

Parents also lose site of the fact that coaches are working with the players each and every day at practice. It's one thing to see the game but it's quite another to see a player's intangibles or lack thereof in practice. Jimmy might be the most talented player on the team but if he has a poor work ethic and cannot co-exist with his teammates and coaches it puts the coach in a position to make a decision.

The truth of the matter is that the real value is not necessarily individual achievements but team success.