? LL lets managers challenge any call but balls and strikes. Our local rules limit challenges to pulled foot and dropped ball only.
Challenges are made during the game. No video or pics used. After game correspondence of videos and pics are of missed calls by umpires. Not challenging calls, just letting me know that an umpire missed a call. Incorrect calls are part of the game, but some refuse to let it go.
Background story on the coaches from the private school: Our city doesn’t have a traditional little league program so at 3rd grade kids either need to do travel or they are permitted in the neighboring town’s little league. My son isn’t playing this year but I coached in the league last year. I have a friend coaching there this year and they do a evaluation/try-out and a draft at this age group. A number of kids didn’t show up for the eval period so he asked me to look over the list of draft eligible players that didn’t show up. I pointed out a few I knew from other sports and highlighted one that they should definitely draft. One of the teams in the league has coaches from our local private school that were really douchey last year (see quoted). The kid I highlighted goes to their school so they expected to be able to get him late. The private school draft strategy was heavy on trying to make a team of their players. But in the 10th round they drafted someone from a different school. My friend drafted the good kid from their school that didn’t go to evals with the next pick. These assholes start complaining to him about drafting a kid from their school and trying to swap 10th round picks. My friend said he will trade them if it’s that important to them. However, then the private school coaches decided they want 2 more picks in addition to the swap because they were taking on a kid that wasn’t evaluated. Somehow trade talk lasted 2 days because they wouldn’t drop wanting a trade. Eventually they relented and traded the kid’s best friend (that doesn’t go to their school) from their team to my friend’s team. Sorry for the long story…tl;dr private school coaches are douches.
So we don't do all stars at this age (7U) but our city does offer a bonus "all star lite" league starting in May for anyone who wants to sign up. They basically gather all the kids that want to play and do an eval midseason then rank the kids and put them on different teams based off skill (AAA-the true all stars, AA and A). My boy has had a good year. He hits the ball almost every at bat and has made a few outs in the field. he's really come a hell of a long way from 5U where he didn't even want to be out there. Now he freakin' loves it and is basically obsessed but still has a ways to go. He got picked for A. Which wasn't a surprise to anyone including him. i thought he would be bummed but he knows enough of the kids on his team that he knows he will have fun. Last night he made a great play where he threw a runner out at home from third base. He was so pumped up and after the game he told me "if they had seen that play i would have made AA!" apparently this has led to some drama in the older ranks as the teams are now starting to change year to year. Kids who started off in AAA are dropping and it's causing some Drama. Not sure how you avoid it. I just told my son he needed to play better if he wants to make a better team and he's good with it. but some people can't help but live vicariously through their kid's lives. I used to completely roll my eyes at that (and i still do to an extent) but the older he gets the more i understand and empathize with the psycho sports parents. It's an easy hole to find yourself sucked into.
Not a parent myself, but as a teacher and coach I’ve seen enough to understand that the “good” parents are the ones who support and advocate for the kids through the child’s direction, rather than their own. That’s how you avoid the trap. Psycho parent pushes the kid to do training, extracurriculars, etc. regardless of their wishes and stated desires, while good parents push and encourage that work to fulfill it. Both sets of kids may balk at the time and effort required for training, but it’s a much better argument to say “if you want this accolade, you need to do this work” instead of “you need to do this so you can become this.” Subtle but very important distinction.
There will be a lot of movement over time. Just thinking back to my childhood, I played on the All-star teams in elementary and played through HS. But the players around me changed a lot. At least half the players on our all star teams didn’t play in to HS and half the kids I played with in HS weren’t on those all star teams. The best player in my grade, who was the only one to get a D1 scholarship, was left off our all-star teams in 4th-6th grade. To me, the most important thing at this age is that they are enjoying it because that is what will eventually make them put the time in. I cared a lot as a kid about what team I was on but now I’m more of the mind that team placement doesn’t really matter until after kids hit puberty and you have a better idea of what they are going to be.
Our league puts all the kids who didn't go to evaluations into a hat and gives them at random when coaches ask for a "hat pick" each team is allowed 2 trades and all trading is finished 10 minutes after the draft. Seems to have limited this type of behavior.
Flag football starts this weekend with Val’s and drafts so I’m sure I’ll have some new stories. The biggest question right now is do I draft El Tiburon kid so he can be the parent asshole on my team
My son's flag football team was losing 25-0 with like a minute left in the game tonight. He intercepted the other team's extra point attempt on their last TD and ran it back for a safety and threw up the Tyreek Hill dueces to the 1 kid chasing him Down 4 scores
Gotta admit that’s a baller way to ruin their shutout. Best part is it was worth the 2 points for the deuces he threw up.
My son has all the confidence in the world, but he'll most definitely be going pro in something other than sports. He sure loves being the center of attention though.
My 9 year old made the “travel” team for his year in our league. Not a humblebrag at all. It’s just weekend tournaments around the metro area. I can now officially retire from youth sports coaching and reenter civilian life in the stands. I was done after this spring season anyways, but now I can justify it since he’s moved on. I would like to thank my sponsors (Variant Brewing and Old Grandad BiB) for sticking with me these last few years. I would also like to thank the 25% of normal adults/parents that understand their kid’s performance on the athletic field isn’t life or death. Yes, we want to win and we want Little Johnny to do well, but it’s probably your fault if he doesn’t. Don’t blame me or him.
I was at my nephew’s first year coach pitch game and some of the parents were getting hot arguing about safe/out calls. Meanwhile the left-center fielder is doing rolling front flips during ABs.
On a more topical thread note… There was a legit FAFO event this past weekend on the 10U softball field. Apparently a coach was nose to nose with an ump (after getting thrown out) telling him to meet in the parking lot after the game and to keep his gear on so he has some protection. I’m trying to get the video because it’s out there.
I think it’s more that he’s on video doing this stuff and I assume there will be repercussions. At the least I’d hope he gets banned from any kind of participation.
Our baseball and softball season will really start to get busy this coming weekend, I haven’t seen too much of it around my area but once we get to the Mississippi River area and Des Moines area the “living through their kids” dads show up more often and makes for some good entertainment. Hopefully I don’t get too many stories but will pass along any good ones.
I coach my son’s kindergarten soccer team. Last weekend we played a team and lost like 15-1. The other team had a boy who absolutely dominated. Despite having enough kids to sub, he didn’t sit out once. He also played forward the entire game, and I’m pretty sure he scored every goal for them. After scoring one of their last goals, his coach was yelling “oh ya we are having fun now” as her team ran back to get ready to ram another one down our throat.
1 more weekend of soccer for the season. Can't wait for it to be over. It's been a pretty disappointing and frustrating experience considering this league is supposed to be a developmental feeder for competitive travel. We've been playing since October and yesterday was the first time the coach showed up on time for warm-ups all season. I'm guessing him not showing up until halftime the week before and half of our team opting out of next season probably prompted the league manager to finally talk to him about it.
Unfortunately I think my 10 year old may never want to play soccer again even though he is pretty good at it and used to really enjoy it. After a really bad experience last season with a terrible coach, I volunteered to be an assistant coach with his old coach (who I have become 'dad' friends with, with our boys being classmates and all) League basically told us they thought we were trying to stack a team and wouldn't allow it. This is a city parks department League that is begging for coaches every year. New coach doesn't speak English, has an assistant coach translating everything 4 games into this season, amazingly the two coaches sons have played every single minute, never came out. After the second game my little man started asking me why, and asking me why they (the coaches) just constantly yell to "pass it to _____".... Being one of the two coaches sons. I had thought I had felt that way watching/hearing from across the field. But I know I am biased. But it really bugged me when little man started saying it. This last Saturday, I had to be out of town but my wife tells me this happened. The translating coach kept yelling at little man to stay in his position. I take that with a grain of salt of course, not being there myself. What got me was he apparently, during a substitution while little man was coming out, told him loud enough for wife to hear from across the field, something like "you are sitting out because you can't stay in position " Then minutes later, little man is sitting in the grass on the sideline (there is no bench) and the coach turned to little man and said (loud enough for people across the field to hear) something like "get up, are you not a part of this team?" I 'know' one of the HS kids that was one of the refs for the game, so I'm gunna try and reach out to him to see if he noticed any of this from Saturday... But if what my wife says is true, I'm having a hard time with my normal thought to basically tell little man something like " we signed up for soccer so we are going to play the whole season" I've already been to that point with him last week of practice, he tells me he doesn't like soccer any more and doesn't want to play.
Is the behavior of Los Entrenadores in regards to the calling out and directing all play to their sons exclusive to your kid, or have other parents mentioned it as well? If so, and this would definitely be an extreme option, you may consider coordinating with them and talking to the league heads about it. 10-year-old rec ball is not meant to be a showcase for a single kid, it’s a developmental league for all of them. I’m also more than a little suspicious about the “no hablo Inglés” part.
Sorry to hear that your son is having a rough experience this season. Having a coach blatantly favor their kid is extremely frustrating as a player (the most frustrating thing when I played baseball) and parent. But these 2 points are kind of standard coaching, no? I've had my kid taken out/corrected for both of these things and I didn't see the problem at the time
They are, but my guess is there’s been little to no direction for the players in regards to correct etiquette and technique from the coaches, hence bigred77 frustrations.
Correction of a 10 year old shouldn’t be loud enough to hear across the field unless you’re talking about something legitimately dangerous
Trust me, I totally get that type of frustration. Youth sports is supposed to be fun, but also about teaching the most basic fundamentals and etiquette. Being condescending (while not my preference) when they should know better is one thing, but it's just bad coaching if they were never taught in the first place.
coaching two t-ball teams this year (boys & girls) is really testing my sanity. my son's team got killed last game (we don't keep score or even record outs, but just the vibe of the game was enough). normally we would go base to base pretty much regardless of where the ball is hit, but this team had a kid that was probably about 12 years old coaching first base and he just kept telling their kids to run around the bases. we teach the kids to throw to first no matter what so they'd be throwing to first base and the kid would already be on the 2b. ground balls to the pitcher were becoming "home runs". I know the dad coaching the other team a little bit and I wasn't going to say anything to the kid coaching first base obviously, but it was so frustrating. at the end of the day, we're not keeping score so who cares but most of these kids are 4-5 years old and are still deciding if they even like baseball and they can tell when they're not doing well.
We played a (7U) flag football team last fall where they were short players so got to pick up a random kid so their team could still be eligible to play. The "random kid" was a total phenom. at least 6 inches taller than everyone. was probably too old. completely dominated and this mother fucker gave the kid the ball every play all game. he was running wild and they beat us pretty good. I was dumbfounded. If that were my team I would have said something to the coach.
these stories are so frustrating and entirely on the parents. Especially at that age, all it takes is one kids who is "advanced" to turn a game from close to a complete slaughter. There's nothing wrong with letting the kids get a couple goals to feel good and then putting him back on defense and telling him he can only pass the rest of the game.
I’ll post the story later, but it was my turn to be the asshole parent this weekend. My 12 year old son and I may have been the first father-son tandem to get red carded together in tournament history.
Oldest was playing in a tennis tournament this weekend. My kid aced his serve to win the match on last point and the dad of the losing kid tried to call a foot fault on my kid. Wild stuff being that only an official can call that and parents aren’t allowed to do that while kids are on the court. He then tried to come explain rules to me when I simply said “please don’t interact or talk to my son”. I took the high road and said “The kids played a good match, good luck to your son rest of the way and walked away”
I’ll preface this by saying this has been the absolute worst soccer season I’ve been involved in as either a player (from my kid days) or a parent. And that includes a year in high school where we lost every single game we played. I’m pretty angry with the club for lots of reasons not relevant to the story, other than the kids and parents on the team have been a simmering pressure cooker for months now: We had an out of town tournament. Get to the fields early and watch the early game between two of the teams in our bracket. The winning team had a kid whose entire strategy was to run into the opponent’s penalty box and dive to try to get a PK. It worked once in the first game. After we had yet another dreadful loss in our early game — which my son was livid about because a few of his teammates are useless — we come back for game two in the afternoon against the diving kid’s team. My son is a center back and the diver is the other team’s striker. Early in the game, the driver (who is a very fast kid) gets 5 separate one-on-one breakaways against our keeper on well served long balls from his teammates, and badly misses every shot. So the diver is getting frustrated. Next breakaway, the right back stops the diver in the box. Diver starts pulling the defender’s shirt and then throws himself down on the ground inside the box. Ref calls for the PK and they score. The diver is laughing with his teammates. I get the ref’s attention and warn him to keep an eye on the kid because this is all he does. Kid gets another long ball served down the side and dives a second time, but outside the box. Our kid gets a yellow card. Yell at the ref again to watch the diving. Couple of plays later, the diver gets a fast break on another long ball. My son catches up to him in the box and messes up the shot angle. Diver shanks the ball and takes two more steps before throwing himself down. Ref calls my son for a foul, grants a PK and gives my son a yellow card. I about lose my mind. They score on a PK and the diver starts doing the shush thing to my son right in front of the ref. No warning or card. Few minutes later the other team does the long ball thing again. This time the diver outruns my son but as he slows down to get the ball, my son full on football tackles his ass and drives him into the ground. It was outside the box, but the kid landed inside so the ref calls another PK. This one was absolutely a card worthy foul but my son sure as shit made the kid regret the shushing. As the ref is carding my son, the diver runs up behind and throws a sucker punch that missed. The ref gives him only a warning but no card, until I jump out of my seat and start tearing him a new asshole about the way he’s calling the game. I guilt him into giving the diver a yellow. On the next restart, with my son now out of the game, our striker passes it to our right wing who immediately gets tackled from behind very dirty right in front of the ref. He doesn’t card the player, so now I lose my mind and ask the ref if his little brother plays for the other team. He gets pissed and tells me he doesn’t need my help, to which I reply he apparently does because he has no fucking idea how to referee a game. Then he kicks me out and refuses to restart the game until I get to the parking lot. I told him that was fine with me because I’d seen my fill of shitty refereeing for the day. And giving away three PKs to the other team already sealed our fate anyway.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a parent removed from a youth sports match in which I sided with the parent at all.
We had a ref like that for a game a few weeks ago, although not nearly as bad as what it sounds like you dealt with. This is our 1st year of competitive soccer and it's been wild how dangerous play is inconsistently called. The team we played a few weeks ago had a kid that would literally jump at and double spike our players' feet/ankles whenever he was challenging the kid with the ball. It happened 4 or 5 times with him finally getting called on it and carded towards the end of the game after we were down 2 players due to how dirty the other team was playing. They had another kid that full on Randy Orton punted our starting goalie in the head running full speed while he was laying on top of the ball. It'd be one thing if they were similarly sized, but our goalie weighs maybe 65lbs soaking wet (u-9) while the punter was probably 5'5" 150lbs. That kid was only made to sit the rest of the 1st half. Was very happy when that game ended. Some of our parents got extremely chippy with the ref afterwards to the point that the program director had to intervene. I feel like most of the parents have been over this season ever since that game.
Worst part of the year with soccer tryouts coming up. Nothing like politics, parents complaining, and high pressure you have to commit right when you get an offer tactics. All while every club has to hold tryouts at the same time.