Originally Posted by Anonymous
I played high school football and lacrosse as well as college lacrosse and I have the opposite opinion of high school coaches as the above poster, I think they are too soft on the kids and to friendly and accommodating to the parents. High School sports have become too much about participating and not enough about winning. Kids that are not good should be cut, kids that are failing should be cut and coaches should have little to no contact with parents. If a kid is being picked on by a group of kids in the hall that is bullying if a coach gets in a kids face in practice or in a game yelling and cursing he is not bullying he is coaching and making the kid a better player and the team better. By your definition Herb Brooks was a bully by mine he was a winner and while his players may not have loved him, they respected him.


As the OP in this aspect of the discussion; I agree with your sentiments entirely.

The part that is the elephant in the room is exactly based on respect or the lack there of and how we as parents can certainly discern the difference between hard nose coaching and mental abuse. I would site several examples in support of this from a personal experience but that would minimize the anonymity of the OP and potentially cause greater difficulties for my child. Therefor, I am complicit in propagating this dilemma.

I am not familiar with the coach you named an as such cannot offer an opinion.

Suffice it to say that there are in fact coaches at the club and Jr high and HS level that need to have their performances and potential for unfit conduct and treatment of players reviewed.

We all can name one or two coaches that fall into serious socially unacceptable behavior categories that we would not have our kid play for if given a chance.

High school lacrosse needs to be more about the team winning and not the individual stats, about county championships not college commitments and growing as a person not having mommy and daddy making sure their kid is handled with kid gloves.

Kids need to respect the game and respect the coach and the coach needs to respect the game and respect the kids, unfortunately most of these kids do not learn how to respect a coach and in turn do not earn the respect of the coach.

I don't want to be friends with my sons high school coach, I want him to make my son a better player and win, I will teach him about life.