College coaches, how often do you interact with "snowplow sports parents"?

All true, but it doesn't help that many college coaches can't even compose a clear email. Case in point: a D1 coach who this past year contacted a few of my athletes per his cross-county program.

I mean, Jesus H. Christ. Just read the damn email before you send it.

Spare the rod and...

Discipline and character building is out of the window in this era of "safe spaces". Read the threads about coaches being fired for "emotional abuse"...FFS.

Easy Peasy wrote:

[quote]third party wrote:

I agree with this sentiment, except if the coach is incompetent. That's one major thing I think that has changed over the last 10 years: people are able to access information much more easily. I think back to my high school coach and the training he did. I had absolutely no idea how awful it was until I was in my 20s and started researching a lot more about proper training methods.

Please find me a coach in the US High School or College system who has coached more than a couple years that has not been called "incompetent" by at least one of their athletes/parents - a very rare animal indeed. College is worse than HS for this as the athlete likely has had some success previously and most just do not see that same improvement curve for reasons that have very little to do with the competency of the coach.

Sure there are incompetent coaches out there, but they generally don't last very long. Far more likely is that a kid finds a program that is either a bad match for what they respond to, get caught up in college life, or just have reached what their body allows them to do. All of these other reasons get called out as the fault of an incompetent coach.

In short - if you assume incompetence, you are probably wrong most of the time.

College experience totally different from HS. HS was dominated by snowplow parents, ingratiating themselves with coaches by “volunteering to manage” the team for their kid. Said snowplow parents took over the HS team facebook page from the coaches and posted content and even sent out emails with post meet wrap up. College I have not met 1 other parent and have never spoken in person or via email with the coach. Its just not that teams culture thank goodness.

Former Sub 14:00 wrote: Since they have all kinds of information at their fingertips they are both very skeptical and more arrogant about what they think they know.

This is true of kids and parents. The Internet has created two generations of parents and kids who think they have everything they need to know at their own fingertips. Parents don't trust coaches or doctors and the kids think whatever they want because all it takes is one internet video to reassure their confirmation bias.

The real problem with the parents from a coaching perspective, though, is that they have their own kid's best interests in mind and not the team's. When a parent gets up in arms it's because they want their kid to have more time in the spotlight. They care about their own kidding make the big break that will lead to a professional career and if that means other kids on the team missing opportunities they are 100% okay with that. Your job as a coach is to manage this for a team result, too, and so you can't get everything athlete every opportunity because they are only so many races, positions, starters, etc. I think in many cases the parents are in tune enough to actually know what would be best for their own kids, but it's just not what is best for the team. Their son who is a receiver may need playing time to build a stat sheet and some video clips, but if he's third string the coach has no good reason to play him. If your kid is the 9th runner on the team, then your kid might not be asked to attend the invitational that weekend.

Running there is no bench no subs results are objectively measured. Different completely than a wide receiver on the bench parent wondering about playing time.

How often does Rojo interact with anyone in person?

The rise of snowplow parents has less to do with technology and more to do with the ABJECT FEAR of being sued most colleges reside in. In our over litigious society a person with the right amount of money and influence can indict a ham saandwich, let alone an entire department, whose grand purpose is free marketing for the much larger institution that inhabits it. Athletic departments will not use money to go to court for anything involving ANY athletics coach. Football included. Scared coaches + Scared institution = doormat for shitty parents and their demon spawn drowning in entitlement. That does not mean EVERY lawsuit brought against a coach is wrong, clearly some of these assholes need to go/ never needed to be hired in the first place. BUT these places, especially a division I school will turn into a doormat for any parent who smells the weakness. Violet Beauregard from willy wonka is an exact example, cept willy wasnt having his s***

Thank you!!!!! I'm a high school teacher. This morning (we have two days left, students are gone) we were talking about this and how we are not turning out young people prepared to deal with being adults.

We wondered how they dealt with college (or how college dealt with them).

It's a sad situation.

Official team social media posts with write up of meets and photos are a great way to give parents a glimpse of their kid's college experience without being too intrusive or violating FERPA laws. It's hard after 4 years of going to meets almost every week during the season to going to maybe one meet year.

Also, more and more upper/middle-class kids are only children these days, so it's not like parents have other kids to focus on.

parent perspective wrote:

The other side of this situation is the high level of manipulation and emotional misconduct directed towards a minor child by adults in a position of authority. My personal experience is many college coaches do not have the child's best interest as a priority and seek to minimize parental involvement in an effort to better control the teenager's decisions. Not an honorable, ethical or moral code of behavior for many coaches.

College coaches work with young adults. Unless someone is enrolling early or I guess during the recruiting process (which the parents should be involved ) they aren't coaching children.

Miles, you are ignorant to invalidate my personal experiences within the PAC 12. Your experiences may differ but my experiences are valid. My child began being recruited at age 13 and a pattern of manipulative behavior emerged over the ensuing 4 years that revealed many coaches don't put the child's best interest first. Coaching salaries can be a few hundred thousand dollars a year and scholarship values for elite athletes with National Team experience range between $100,000 to $300,000 per year. Your altruistic comments do not reflect the realities for top athletes. Perhaps you've not had these experience but parents shouldn't be naive if their child is a top athlete. There are valid situations where parental involvement is prudent to protect the best interests and financial well being of a minor child.

Peter Coe was very involved in Sebastian's athletic career. Worked out well for him. Of course he knew what he was doing.

I coached my daughters soccer team. when she was 10 yrs old. I had one mom always coaching during the game. So I asked her to come to practice, the girls may respond to a mom. I never saw her again! Her daughter was a great player went on to get a scholarship. She was such a pleasure to coach. Mom was a bit much. Dad kept to himself just cheered for the team.

Positive Contribution wrote:

Peter Coe was very involved in Sebastian's athletic career. Worked out well for him. Of course he knew what he was doing.

Was Peter interfering or questioning Seb's HS or college coach while coaching the young Seb?

Oof, you're right. I'm ignorant. You're type-casting an entire career field based on a few coaches at the D1 level but im ignorant. Anecdotal fallacies are like the first fallacy you learn about in English class btw.

Also, unless your child is Jordan Hassay or Grace Ping, I have a few issues with your claim that coaches "began recruiting [your child] at the age of 13":

1.This is a serious NCAA violation and those things are taken WAY more seriously at the D1 level than say D3. If your at like a NWC conference school, no ones probably gunna notice. But if you're Andy f-ing Powell, people are gunna notice so they just don't really do it.

2. It's unlikely from a recruiting standpoint that D1 coaches would waste their time recruiting an actual child - especially a female runner - because puberty can change a runner so much and any number of things can happen between 13 and 18.

3. Its not at all similar to talking to a 17-18 year old adult who is going off to live on their own in 5-6 months. Someone who is barely able to see Avengers: Endgame on their own is not the same as someone who can legally own cigarettes and handguns. Not at ALL antiquated equals.

Speaking as someone who has been a sports dad for over a decade, I'm confident that I have never been a helicopter parent...much less a snowplow parent. However, I can definitely understand why it happens. Although I firmly believe that athletes need to work through their own problems and learn how to communicate with coaches on their own, the truth is that they are more or less subordinates with no power whatsoever in the relationship. Sometimes parents feel the need to intervene when it becomes obvious that a coach is clueless, unethical, playing favorites and generally not doing their job correctly.

As I said, my personal feeling is that the players need to approach the coaches and learn how to communicate and work through adversity, but it's natural for a parent to want to intervene when they clearly see their kid is being screwed over by an idiot.

what comes first wrote:

As a college coach, about 1 in 10 recruits that I talk to can actually carry on a conversation. The rest can only effectively communicate through text or email - they can't form full sentences in regular conversations.

Personally I'm more worried about the kids helplessness than I am about their parents. If the parents had faith in their children, they wouldn't have to snowplow.

You're just a bad coach...

I am a referee assessor (evaluator) at the college soccer level. One day, I'm sitting in the stands, top row, just waiting for the game to start. The visiting team's parents had congregated in this section. Ugh. A big dad comes and sits down right next to me. We are the only ones sitting in the whole row. He is so close that my open folder is over his thigh. I mean, personal space, man, but I wasn't going to move for him. A guy in a sweat suit comes up and sits down on the other side of me. The sweat suit has the logo of another college. He looks and me and instantly figures out who I am and why I'm there. We acknowledge each other in a sentence or so, and turn to the game.

Meanwhile, the dad is starting to tell all of the other parents how much he knows about the sport, just establishing male dominance. Later, the referee makes a decision on a very minor thing (throw-in direction) in front of the area where we're sitting that goes against the visiting team. The dad starts in about how these referee never get any feedback, not like yahda, yahda, yahda. The coach next to me leans over and says, "He has no idea who you are, does he?" I replied, "Nope!" The coach does a fist pump and says, "Awesome!" I'm guessing that he's had a snowplow parent or two to deal with.

When I went to college, my parents didn't move me in. They put me on the plane and I flew to a city where I'd never been before. I think they visited once in four years. I only went home for Thanksgiving, Christmas/New Year's and spring break. When my kids went to college, I didn't move them either. The oldest and the youngest were going three time zones away. The middle child was going to go to college in Europe. That ended up not working out for her (long story), but she got herself back home by herself, and went off to a different school only about 500 miles away, again, by herself. If you're old enough to join the military, you ought to be self reliant enough to go places alone.