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One of the hardest things to deal with if you coach basketball, are the parents. Parents can sometimes be a pain in the butt. Now don’t get me wrong. There are great parents, also. I find if you are coaching boys, the parents seem to be much tougher to deal with. First off, some have illusions of grandeur as far as their sons playing basketball in the NBA. They assume you as a basketball coach are the only thing either keeping them from making it or you are the one who is going to cause them to make it.
It isn’t as big a problem with girls and big dreams. I assume that is because the opportunities for girls aren’t as widely available for women. There is always college basketball and of course the WNBA, but it just doesn’t have the same urgent feel to it as the guys. Every parent thinks their child is the best, as they should. The ones who are the problem are the ones who have an unrealistic expectation of their child’s ability.
I have a rule, with parents, and that is I will discuss anything except playing time. Little Johnny could have played 90% of the minutes, but if someone else played a half minute more than some parents aren’t impressed.
Then, there are the parents who coach from the stands. We appreciate you cheering; just leave the coaching to the people running the team. You have no idea what we have discussed with your child. We have possibly asked them to shoot more, shoot less, pass more or pass less. Unless you were in the team meeting prior to the game, you really have no idea what we wanted. I remember one game we were playing a team with essentially one great player and a few other not so great players. This one guy was killing us. Finally, I took one of my best defenders aside and said, “Where he goes, you go. I don’t care if he goes to the bathroom. You go with him”. The kid’s parents were annoyed yelling in the stands for him to play more offense. We won the game, and the kid he was covering only scored 4 points from that moment on. He had a huge impact in winning the game for us, but all his parents noticed was he didn’t score very many points.
There are different versions of the meddling parent. The parent that puts their child ahead of the team, the parent that counts their kids points or has the kid keeping track, the parent who tries to coach the other team members in addition to their own, the parent who tries to tell you what basketball offence or defence you should be playing.
If it sounds like I dislike all parents, it really isn’t the case. As I said earlier, there are great parents, also. The best parents come to you at the start of the season and ask what they can do to best serve the team. We really couldn’t have a team without the parents who support us. Whether providing drives, helping at the door or lending their support when we host tournaments.
Maybe it’s just coincidence, but the parents that help and the parents that meddle are rarely the same ones……
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