middle school drama wrote:
I'm coaching a middle school track team in a wealthy area of Silicon Valley and one of the mom's keeps emailing me and the athletic director about me not teaching proper "breathing technique" to the distance runners. I was a high jumper/hurlder in college so I thought I had adequate knowledge to coach a middle school team. What the heck is she talking about? My old coach says she must be an avid runners world reader and laughed and said good luck.
People love acronyms, so just tell her you are a huge advocate of the DSB Technique For Adolescent Athletes.
It's sure to work because she sounds like the type who would rather sell her kid to Isis than let on that she's unfamiliar with a term (even a completely nonexistent one), and will immediately drop the issue. If, however, she does prod you as to what DSB is, look at her with disgust and tell her that you encourage your athletes' parents to do their own research to familiarize themselves with the sport.
She'll undoubtedly spend the next 48 hours neglecting her family in an effort to learn all she can about this new technique. When she finds nothing, she'll never bring it up again. If you feel like having some fun at her expense, you could ask her if she had a chance to research it. You can then try mightily to not laugh uncontrollably as she tries to have an intelligent conversation on a made up technique.
FWIW, DSB means "Don't Stop Breathing". So technically, you wouldn't even be lying. After all, what good coach would even think about backing DSB's chief ideological rival, the "Stop Breathing" approach.
This mom sounds like a real piece of work, you may as well have some fun at her expense while ensuring she'll get off your back.