Crazy coaches and parents have long been HB fodder, how about grammas and grampas that blow into town like a texas twister and wreak havoc on a softball family.
The background: I've got two dd's, a 12u and 10u, on their first travel teams this year. Grandpa coached dw back in the softball stone age before travel existed and still knows everything about the sport. He showed up last summer and hijacked my older dd's all-star team but that coach was a friend from the neighborhood who knew him and welcomed him to help out. Gramps had the time of his life, the kids loved him and to give him some credit most likely brought something to that team they wouldn't have otherwise had.
He was chomping at the bit to come see the dd's play travel (mainly the older one) and I made it clear to dw that I expected her to sit on him since I would be too busy as an assistant coach with my younger dd's 10u team in the same org. Dw knows her dad has a hard time recognizing his boundaries but thinks I'm too hard on him so I reluctantly let him come with me to a practice thinking I could keep tabs on him by putting him to work with me on the 10u practice. Wrong, he wandered over to the 12u field the second I wasn't looking.
The Halloween tourney went well, both teams advanced to the semifinals and gramps got to see dd pitch a shutout against a very good team to get us there. When the coach sent an email summary of the tourney to everyone I just had to know how bad it was for him and replied inquiring. He sent a quick, "I'm glad you noticed, give me a call when you can" reply. I thought, "oh crap, he actually wants to talk" instead of just sending a short reply indicating he was a manageable pain in the a$$.
The phone call went fine, he mostly told me how great he thought dd was doing but he did talk about gramps offer to help the team's power hitter with her swing among other offers of his coaching brilliance. We had a good laugh about a lot of it and he said he's dealt with similar situations in the past but to let him know when he's coming next spring so he'd be prepared for it.
Anyone else have a similar situation and how did you game plan for it?
Dusty