Future 12U "Father of the Year"?

[Lunatic Fringe]

This guy reminds me of some guys I have seen at the old ball yard

Warning, This is satire. If you are not sure what satire is, ask Spazsdad.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/abusiv ... pir,27192/

[NORCALGOLD]

Awesome, Reminds me of allot of 10U & 12U parents. The way they treat and force their future collegians All Americans into Year round TB and its 5 days a week of practicing and lessons. Every weekend games and more games or a good 5 hour Saturday practice. No sleep over’s or Birthday parties ect, ect. They want to believe that an abundance of practice and deprivation will get them to the next level. Forget about talent.
Oh ya I love when they say “my little Suzie loves it; I ask her if she wants to play or quit every week it’s up to her". While all 6 foot 250 pounds (that's the mom) of you stand over her telling her she made a commitment.

[Battle]

Awesome, Reminds me of allot of 10U & 12U parents. The way they treat and force their future collegians All Americans into Year round TB and its 5 days a week of practicing and lessons. Every weekend games and more games or a good 5 hour Saturday practice. No sleep over’s or Birthday parties ect, ect. They want to believe that an abundance of practice and deprivation will get them to the next level. Forget about talent.
Oh ya I love when they say “my little Suzie loves it; I ask her if she wants to play or quit every week it’s up to her". While all 6 foot 250 pounds (that's the mom) of you stand over her telling her she made a commitment.

So let me get this straight...You know a lot of kids that are verbally and [potentially] physically abused by a drunken, egocentric, narcissistic, psycho father who's primary goal is to inflict an astronomical amount of psychological abuse to catalyze some futile fantasy that stardom will materialize out of the enormous depression absorbed by his off spring yet you do nothing? Got it!

Or maybe, you have a desire to promote your extremist view of burnout and overuse, using this story? Hmmm, which one could it be?

[ontheblack]

I know 6 kids that have quit in the last 12 months because of parents with all or some of the characteristics you described.

Deliberate, primary goal - no. Unintended consequence of being a clueless, self absorbed ahole - yes.

[DonnieS]

I had two friends, they both had daughters my kids ages. They both lived within 3 miles of my family, attended the same school, one family the same church, the other family another church close by. One of the guys was a very nice guy, gave his daughter a lot of things, she was very athletic looking, very pretty young girl. I ran into him and his wife - some time back, he said 'Where did you get the idea to get your daughter so into sports - she always seems so happy and cheerful - and so respectful to me' I said, I dont know, I coached my son when was young - they came to the practices, one in a baby backpack, they said they wanted to play too - so I got them involved and it took off from there.' I said - how is your kid doing - he said 'We dont know for sure, she got into some things, we arent sure what - got pregnant - we hope she comes home soon. I wish we had thought about doing what you guys did.'
The other dad was not a nice guy, he was pretty sarcastic and made little chicken shit quips about us being on the run all the time going one way and another with our girls - tournaments, practices. He made comments about 'going overboard with sports - spending our vacations in places that had to do with softball - etc. etc.' His kid played sports, but lost interest after a while, because he rarely every came to any games much less practice, she (the kid) told me, "Can you talk to my dad about how much fun yall have doing this stuff" - I got a message from his wife sometime back, their daughter, this one was in my kids sunday school class, disappeared , they got a message from someone who saw her in Mexico with a baby. They were able to contact her and talked her into coming home and they are helping her with her baby now. They are trying to get into a program to help her recover from substance abuse issues.

And so we worry about over use injuries - burn out , D3 / Juco, D2/ what ? etc. - dont those parents wish.

[DonnieS]

The guy in the OP - is truly sick. A great ending to that story would be the kid commiting patricide and getting off on time spent. The worst I have ever seen - actually didnt see - was there but busy elsewhere was a kid getting spanked by her parents because she had a bad day pitching - and cost them what they called 'a national championship' (hilarious in its own self - there were 8 teams - 7 from our state, and one from a neighboring state) . The young lady has grown in to what I think is a beautiful young lady - she won a softball scholarship to a school 400 miles from her parents - is an strong , very defiant young lady.

The parents behavior was talked about by many people in our area for a long time.

[Battle]

I know 6 kids that have quit in the last 12 months because of parents with all or some of the characteristics you described.

Deliberate, primary goal - no. Unintended consequence of being a clueless, self absorbed ahole - yes.

If what you say is true, then these kids have bigger problems than the fact that they started TB at 10U. I would give you an example of the contrary to that but I don't think I can count that high. Six kids is too many but don't sacrifice the majority for the few. How many kids can you quote that if not for softball at an early age, would have fallen into a life of trouble? You know the numbers that quit but it is impossible to predict the numbers that benefited. Isn't it?

[DonnieS]

Battle, as you know, it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort to do what we do with our kids. I think a lot of people look for excuses to slack off - 'my gosh, I dont want to push her " , and coming up with bizarre stories like the op to justify not putting out the effort. Down here, the big thing is hunting, fishing as well, but getting onto a deer lease down here, takes just about every weekend from mid july (got to get the blinds ready, checking feeders, clearing senderos, etc etc.) through January. I know a lot of dads, including one of the guys I talked about in my previous post , that did that. I also thankfully know some dads, one of my closest friends, also happens to be my brother in law, that walked away from a lifetime of hunting tradition, to spend these few years he has with his daughter.

My feeling is that - in my case - the fish will still be there in 4-5 years when they are done - but my girls wont be, some damn hairy legged boy will have them by then. But I will have the memories and the pictures.

[DCubed]

My feeling is that - in my case - the fish will still be there in 4-5 years when they are done - but my girls wont be, some damn hairy legged boy will have them by then. But I will have the memories and the pictures.

Made me real life flinch!

I wouldn't trade the last couple of years spent going through all this with my DD for anything. (and as many more as she's willing to keep it up). It is time well spent.

[AlwaysImprove]

I have seen softball work great for some and not so great for others.

For the most part when it did not work out, the kid was already headed for the ditch. Usually a combination of unrealistic expectations, bad direction, and a number of things that happened in the parenting cycle way young. Softball typically put off going into the ditch by 2 or 3 years. I have seen good coaches even turn some kids around, and keep them from hitting the ditch.

Yeah, I have seen the over the top parent, demanding that suzy get it done, when suzy just did not have it. Surely that is not good for the kid. But I suspect that was already going on at home on a lot of different levels and softball did not make that any worse.

For me, kids are going to go do crazy crap. I did crazy crap. You think they are not, you are paying less attention than our parents did. A lot of the difference between a win and a fail, are can you get the kid to try the really crazy stuff, the drugs, the sex when they are a bit older than the national average of 13 years old. And if they do try the crazy stuff at the younger age, can you get them to learn from it and wait until they are older.