Baseball coach to parents who gripe: Stop coddling kids

It was with a mixture of bewilderment and nausea that I recently read an article about a controversy at Celebration High School and its 2017 spring baseball season.

A sports writer at this newspaper reported that Celebration, after struggling with some losing seasons, got a new coach and a few new players who transferred from other schools. As it turns out, the new players were pretty talented. Some of the returning players at Celebration lost playing time and, as far as I know, perhaps starting positions on the team.

Parents complained, and there was speculation that the coach had violated Florida High School Athletic Association policy with respect to recruiting new players.

This led to an investigation and the resignation of the coach — even though the probe found that the coach had not violated any policies. All he did, apparently, was commit the cardinal sin of benching inferior players for superior ones.

I should mention that I am the head baseball coach at Legacy High School. Legacy has fielded a baseball team for the past two years. In 2016, we won seven games and lost 18. This year we finished 9-16 — two losing seasons in a row for this school where most of the players have not played organized baseball since they were 12.

This season one of our returning team members — a senior — was beaten out by a freshman for a starting infield position.

This senior responded to his demotion by showing genuine leadership on and off the field. He was a calming influence during games when younger players were struggling, and he took whatever playing time that came his way in a manner that exemplified dignity, maturity and a selflessness that was admired by everyone on the team. In short, he acted like an adult.

I was aided by the fact that his parents never said one word about his demotion, reduced playing time or anything else, for that matter. They were always supportive, made no excuses for him and did not allow him to become a “victim” of his coach’s decision.

By contrast, one dad at Celebration was quoted in the Sentinel article that he was going to take his two boys and go home after the new coach allowed the new players to have more playing time. How sad. I can only imagine how this is going to play out for his sons as they go on to college and the “real world.” I can see it now: The mean professor gives them a grade they don’t “deserve,” so they quit school and go home. The harsh boss denies them a raise or promotion, so they quit their job and go home. Their heartless wife expects them to help with dirty diapers, and they walk away from their duties as husbands and fathers.

I have a suggestion for the parents at Celebration — or any other school — where their precious child has been put on the bench in favor of a better player: Shut up and deal with it. I tell my players every spring that I am not interested in anything their parents think about my lineup card. The players who put in the most effort, have the best attitudes and are the most productive play. The others play less — and sometimes not at all.

My players are told that playing high-school baseball is a privilege, not a right, and that they will discover as young men that the world is not fair, and that Mommy and Daddy cannot — and should not — always rush in to save them from that reality.

As a result, our players at Legacy are getting better at baseball and at the long walk toward manhood.

This may not mean that they have a winning record next year, or the year after that. What it should mean is that when they leave high school, they are better prepared to meet the challenges that are going to be in front of them for the rest of their lives.

The time has come to stop coddling our kids by threatening to quit and go home. Instead we should tell our kids that if they want to be a starter, or get accepted into a great college, or be promoted in their job some day, they have to be better than the next best competitor.