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Good speech

What's on your mind?

by Tyler Durden » Wed Aug 20, 2014 6:16 pm

Hurricane wrote:Wait! What? An adult acting like an adult who cares about his players?

You mean the coach didn't scream at his young players during the game and deride them after they struck out or made an error or mental mistake? What's this world coming to?

I thought adults who are "supposedly" good "name" coaches are suppose to lie to their players; scream at them during the game; and then after the game WHILE they are shaking hands with the other team continue the rant on how they embarrassed him as a coach.

What's wrong with that New England LL coach? He needs to take lessons from some of the fineest 14-U/16-U TB organizations in Southern California I guess. :D


Keep bangin that drum.
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by Hurricane » Wed Aug 20, 2014 11:19 pm

Tyler Durden wrote:Keep bangin that drum.


I don't need to - it bangs itself. Each year there are many newbies that enter TB softball and they need to hear the reality. And each year, the drum keeps banging away - with or without my posts.

Please don't kill the messenger.
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by Hurricane » Wed Aug 20, 2014 11:25 pm

Spazsdad wrote:
Tyler Durden wrote:
Keep bangin that drum.

Hell hath no fury.....
It's amazing the impact people will allow others to have on them.


Well, not the parents, anyway. The impact is on the children. The 13-14 year old girls whose lives are influenced by others they want to impress.

Don't ever forget we are talking about preadolescents.

Coaches whether they like it or not are the parents when the parents are not there. I think they forget that sometimes.

I'm just trying to make sure we realize that coaches have obligations, too.
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by jonriv » Thu Aug 21, 2014 3:55 am

I am up in Rhode Island and the news is about the big homecoming of the team and the coach's speech. Seems like a nice and genuine person.

I know people on this site like to push for "hard" coaches, but a coach does not have to be abusive and belittle their players to be hard. My DD has had several coaches that ran intense practices and pushed them, but never harassed or demeaned the girls-especially in public. The military example (ie Full Metal Jacket) That kind of abuse was gone even when I went through basic(even the Army realized it was counter-productive)- did they push us, yeah. Was there yelling, of course. Once outside the training environment(basic, airborne schools etc) it was non-existent. True leaders lead- they don't need to scream

One of my best coaches was in High School football(Bill Tierney, Hall of Fame lacrosse coach at the University of Denver) He was never verbally abusive- he had a stare that would melt ice!

The Rhode Island coach could have used his speech to point out mistakes or woulda, coulda , shoulda, but instead he chose to use it as a chance to celebrate and lift his players. We could use more coaches like him.
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by Tyler Durden » Thu Aug 21, 2014 7:10 am

jonriv wrote: My DD has had several coaches that ran intense practices and pushed them, but never harassed or demeaned the girls-especially in public. The military example (ie Full Metal Jacket) That kind of abuse was gone even when I went through basic(even the Army realized it was counter-productive)- did they push us, yeah. Was there yelling, of course. Once outside the training environment(basic, airborne schools etc) it was non-existent. True leaders lead- they don't need to scream



JonBovi, you are getting soft in your old age ;)

But seriously, I must disagree. Where you think that the DI is Full Metal Jacket was being abusive, I would characterize his efforts as being Life-Saving. Obviously, not a style that is appropriate for coaching youth sports. But certainly appropriate in USMC Boot Camp for turning naive Boys into dangerous Men.
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by jonriv » Thu Aug 21, 2014 7:20 am

Tyler Durden wrote:
jonriv wrote: My DD has had several coaches that ran intense practices and pushed them, but never harassed or demeaned the girls-especially in public. The military example (ie Full Metal Jacket) That kind of abuse was gone even when I went through basic(even the Army realized it was counter-productive)- did they push us, yeah. Was there yelling, of course. Once outside the training environment(basic, airborne schools etc) it was non-existent. True leaders lead- they don't need to scream



JonBovi, you are getting soft in your old age ;)

But seriously, I must disagree. Where you think that the DI is Full Metal Jacket was being abusive, I would characterize his efforts as being Life-Saving. Obviously, not a style that is appropriate for coaching youth sports. But certainly appropriate in USMC Boot Camp for turning naive Boys into dangerous Men.


Punching a recruit. Pants around ankles sucking thumb........are but a few examples that would land that DI in the Brig nowadays. These kind of actions began to stop once we became an all-volunteer force. Training was still hard. I went to Airborne School in 1986 and the "Black Hats" were not allowed to use profanity(bringing such memorable quotes as "This room looks like dog poopie") Did not prevent us from doing 500 pushups a day or running 5-6 miles. We also knew when we messed up. You can be stern, hard and a disciplinarian without being abusive, The individual in your face kind of stuff that was used to make troops hard has gone by the wayside. Perhaps it was needed in a conscript Army, but deemed counter-productive now
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by Tyler Durden » Thu Aug 21, 2014 8:22 am

jonriv wrote:
Tyler Durden wrote:
jonriv wrote: My DD has had several coaches that ran intense practices and pushed them, but never harassed or demeaned the girls-especially in public. The military example (ie Full Metal Jacket) That kind of abuse was gone even when I went through basic(even the Army realized it was counter-productive)- did they push us, yeah. Was there yelling, of course. Once outside the training environment(basic, airborne schools etc) it was non-existent. True leaders lead- they don't need to scream



JonBovi, you are getting soft in your old age ;)

But seriously, I must disagree. Where you think that the DI is Full Metal Jacket was being abusive, I would characterize his efforts as being Life-Saving. Obviously, not a style that is appropriate for coaching youth sports. But certainly appropriate in USMC Boot Camp for turning naive Boys into dangerous Men.


Punching a recruit. Pants around ankles sucking thumb........are but a few examples that would land that DI in the Brig nowadays. These kind of actions began to stop once we became an all-volunteer force. Training was still hard. I went to Airborne School in 1986 and the "Black Hats" were not allowed to use profanity(bringing such memorable quotes as "This room looks like dog poopie") Did not prevent us from doing 500 pushups a day or running 5-6 miles. We also knew when we messed up. You can be stern, hard and a disciplinarian without being abusive, The individual in your face kind of stuff that was used to make troops hard has gone by the wayside. Perhaps it was needed in a conscript Army, but deemed counter-productive now


We will have to agree to disagree I suppose. Pushups and running are fine for the physical conditioning, but the mental toughness is a trait that is best taught by ALL means, fair and unfair.
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by jonriv » Thu Aug 21, 2014 8:29 am

Tyler, what kind of military training have you been through?
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by Tyler Durden » Thu Aug 21, 2014 9:32 am

jonriv wrote:Tyler, what kind of military training have you been through?


Corporal USMC 82-87. MCRD for Basic, a 3 part ordeal with the middle part spent traversing the lovely hills of Pendleton and blowing stuff up. Spent some time in Cairo, Madrid, Casablanca, Germany, and Labrador. Operation Brightstar '86. AR-15 Range Coach at Pendleton.
An anecdote for you....My platoon was cutting across a steep muddy hill in Pendleton during basic, 3 a.m. and driving rain. My buddy loses his footing and starts to cartwheel downhill; full backpack, helmet, and rifle go flying. As he is cartwheeling down the hill, 2 of our DI's are running alongside him, screaming at him to arrest his descent and to take cover. I'll never forget that scene. Once he stopped tumbling, they both hit one knee and were screaming at him to locate his weapon. Two of us hauled ass down that hill and found his gear and dragged him back up into formation.
I saw that man out in the Fleet 3 years later. In conversation, he brought up that incident from Basic. He told me that he wished he could find those DI's and thank them for their work. We had a long chat about the mental aspects of USMC Boot Camp. He lamented the fact that the politically correct changes in Basic Training were going to cost some boys their lives.
Anyhoo, it's a complicated world. It has always troubled me that many of our lawmakers and policy makers never served, and worse, some actively avoided service via family connections and bogus academic deflections. I know you served, and I respect your opinion on where you think a line should be drawn in military training.
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by jonriv » Thu Aug 21, 2014 10:04 am

Have many similar stories :D That of course is different than abuse(sometimes it is hard to determine) To expand on the analogy- a coach can be hard on a team, drill them work them hard, punish for lateness, mistakes etc without being abusive.

I am forever grateful to my three drill sergeants(SFC Caderet, SSG Thomas, and SGT Brown) for helping to shape my life. I remember the black hat instructors well. You can train troops hard, disciplined without the sadism

IMO players respond to coaches that care about them, sometimes that care is in the form of discipline.. but care is a KEY element.

As a Platoon leader I trained my soldiers hard, but I always made sure that my NCO's and myself were looking after our troops. I also never asked my soldiers to do something I would not do. (That includes carrying an 81mm mortar bas when I was a Mortar Plt leader.

I personally hate what I call "screamer" coaches that relentlessly berate their players, umpires etc. They are bullies IMO. Give me the stoic leader that praises in public and punishes in private
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