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06-09-2015, 09:58 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-11-2015, 07:50 PM by
Mick.)
I've had two sons play minor D-1 sports now -- and that's an important distinction -- and I've both seen and dealt with whack-job helicopter parents and players whose estimation of their own abilities -- particularly when they're no longer big fish/little pond like they were in high school -- leads to some highly questionable mindsets and decisions.Â
When I played ball, my father (who was recruited by C.al for basketball by Pete Newell) never spoke to any of our coaches -- ever. He did tell us to listen to the coaches. But he never intervened, and my sister -- who was a legit D1 basketball recruit that I'd seen score 25 points in a 27-26 win in high school -- could actually have used some intervening. She and I had some truly bad coaches including at least two who would be fired had they done what they did this century instead of last century.
Those days are over. Parents closely manage their kids' careers if at all possible. There's a lot at stake, including scholarships, partial scholarships, an academic pass on getting into some very good schools...and it's exacerbated by the clubs and competitive sports run by coaches and club directors who both encourage and shrink from the helicopter parents.
It's bad enough for the big sports, where there are lots of coaches and lots of people surrounding a program. Football and basketball are under a very close eye. And if it's a sport where there are comparatively few athletes or the play is very objective (like golf), it's harder to mount a mutiny. But for smaller programs, where the coach is not just coaching and recruiting, but has administrative duties, and has very few assistants (who are typically part time and underpaid) and is forced to use trainers and other University employees to complement existing staff and there are a lot of players on the team (meaning fewer interpersonal contacts) competing for few actual playing spots, well...
It is easy to create a mutiny. First, you need leaders. Two sympathetic parents will do. Then, you need followers. Ten pliant athletes who aren't getting enough playing time, or are jealous of attention, or don't like the coaches, or have problem personalities of their own, or their daddy's high up in another program -- just as an example, not relevant here -- and it's easy to find 12 people to hide dissatisfaction from a coach and conspire to get that coach torpedoed. Third, you need a long-time successful coach who thinks he's bulletproof. Young or less established coaches may spend more time getting to know recruits, may spread playing time around more, but candidly...well placed coaches usually are kings, if not tyrants. What they say goes, and they don't spend a lot of time soul searching. And to their faces, both parents and players kiss their collective rear ends, hoping against hope for more playing time. So they don't see what's behind the curtain as much as some other coaches might, particularly if they've been very successful for a very long time.Â
So the coach is vulnerable. There's no money in the sport, so the University doesn't care about upside, there's no real fame, but there is a P/R downside which
the University absolutely cannot have. The players and parents are not only motivated, they understand this whole setup. They absolutely know they can't go to the coach, coaches are vindictive or could be vindictive and they don't want to risk it. Better to ambush the A.D., particularly if he or she is not world class. They construct multiple arguments, then they lie in wait for the perfect opportunity, hoping for a panic move by the University. Sure, it will leave the team in a shambles, but it will benefit their child which is the very essence of the helicopter parent and the player who does not give sxxt one about the team.
And the opportunity comes. Boy, does it ever.
And the expected happens, of course. The University is highly motivated to both acknowledge the issue and sweep it under the rug, quickly. So Caesar turns his thumb down. Instead of hiring an independent law firm to perform an investigation, the University hires the firm of a University board member, a general purpose firm with massive dependence on a continuing revenue stream from the University. One can just imagine the conversation that went on: "We need an 'independent' review, make it quick, don't look too close." No one really knows what happened, but regardless, an independent firm is not hired. So the employee gets fired and the coach is fired based upon the roar of the crowd of parents. Caesar is pleased.
But, blowback is a beyotch. And the short term decision results in, perhaps, some unintended consequences, to wit:
- Six other coaches (at least) turn down the opportunity. Won't even discuss it. They see a long-term, successful coach railroaded by a player/parent mutiny and boy, Rittman sure looks like them. So why would they step into a situation where the inmates run the asylum, the AD lives in fear, the long term employees get fired? Who would do that? Certainly not a good coach.
- Well, you have to go to the minors, the schools where they play the same sports by the same rules, but at nowhere near the same level. And they're convenient, if they fail at Stanford, they go back to the minors and coach football there, or if Stanford needs a new softball coach, they find the one they can justify to their fans and other stakeholders.
- So that coach turns out to be massively overmatched, failing to achieve even Teevens-level success, more like Wlat Haris level success. Oops.
- The team itself is riven with dissension, because half the team was involved...but half wasn't. And some of the younger ones found out that -- surprise, surprise -- some of the mutineers ascribed opinions to them that, well...maybe weren't spot on, shall we say. But they weren't interviewed during the "investigation."
- Predictably, the minor league coach clamps down on the discipline. By golly, the players will do what she says and like it, by gum. Or they will get disciplined. But...the discipline isn't handed out evenly. By a strange coincidence, the mutineers receive lesser punishments, while those not involved in the mutiny get crushed. What a great message. Because the coach is a smart coach from a smart Ivy school, and even she can see the writing on the wall, the writing that says "you are leader in name only...the true leaders are the parents and players to whom the AD is now beholden. Cross them at your peril."
- And drip, drip, drip...players end up resigning. They hate it so much, they leave the finest University in the world, the University that is the best 40 year decision available. That's how badly they want to leave that team, that coach, that AD and that University. Across the Bay, the women's softball roster has 20 players and a 39-18 record; Mike White, our very good friend in Oregon has 21 players and a 46-6 record and Stanford, the school that I love, has 16 players and a 17-37 record -- 2-22 in league.
- And now, competing coaches have a very entertaining story to tell recruits, and when they sense a sxxthead parent lies behind a player, they tell that parent "You should consider Stanford, because I think your daughter will be very happy there."Â thereby ensuring more recruits that fit the mutineer profile.
Just...sad.
Audaces fortuna iuvat
