As parents we can remember fondly of all the great things our sons have accomplished on the playing field and feel qualified to watch games and determine that our child is a better player then another kid but the other kid is playing. This is the classic case of everybody loves the back up quarterback except in these cases the back up is our sons.

What nobody gets to see is how they preform in practice? how hard they work in the weight room, how coachable they are, do they show up on time for meetings and practices and how they look on films. These are the things coaches see that we do not. It is easy to sit in the stands on Saturday afternoon and watch the game and decide the coach doesn't know what he is doing but they should always no better then us. [/quote]


You're missing the point - the perception issue is separate. The point is that there are cases where an underperforming player does get to play while a better option sits on the bench. It's not prevalent, but to pretend it never happens is untrue.[/quote]

understand your point but who better to decide who plays than the coaching staff that see and evaluate everything - players play, coaches coach and parents complain
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On the whole, generally, yes, the coach is in charge, so they do make the decisions. And there will be complaints for all kinds or reasons, right or wrong. But, like anywhere else, coaches are far from infallible. This thread started when someone made the statement in absolute terms that "only the best players play", that there are never cases where lesser players play over better players - well that is not always the case, and my illustrative example was just one of those cases. I should have also added that in my example, the coach acknowledged later on to his assistant coaches that he made a mistake in playing the highly recruited player over other players for so long.