What Coach Said, From Dad's Point of View

I have four kids in sports. I've had the opportunity to coach them all at one time or another. But I have actually spent far more time as a parent, watching them coached by others, than I have as their coach.

One of the frustrating things about being the non-coaching parent of a player is that you don't know entirely what the coaches are saying. You suspect that your child is perhaps a better player than he's showing, or that the coaches might be telling him two different things and he's confused. Or maybe they just aren't playing him in the position in which he needs to be play. Or perhaps you suspect your kid isn't quite there where you want him to be yet. Sometimes it is difficult to tell, but that in itself is frustrating.

To reduce my frustration, I try to do three things every time I'm talking to my kid about their participation.

• I always ask my kid, "How did it go out there?"
• I always ask my kid, "What did coach have to say afterwards?"
• I try to remember to always tell my kid "I really enjoyed watching you play."

I picked some of this up from the NAIA. I do enjoy watching my kids compete. And I think it helps them love the game more, and it is my way of thanking them for being involved and playing the game.

Regarding the first question, especially in football or soccer, you might think that I know how things went, because I have some coaching experience. But the truth is, I don't know. I wasn't out there. I didn't experience the game the way they did. My arm didn't get whacked by that helmet, the ball didn't skid away from me because of a bad bounce. I don't know how hard things were, when things were going badly.

I also want to know their mindset, and an open-ended question like "How did it go out there?" gives them opportunity to expand on any topic they want to discuss. I think it helps that I have a genuine interest in the nuts and bolts of what they experienced, but even if they want to talk about the officiating, or their opponent, or the weather, or the field - whatever - they're the star of that conversation.

But this post is really about that second thing I always ask. Doesn't every parent want to know the thoughts of the coach? And why is that? For me, about half the time I want to reinforce what coach said, and the other half of the time I want to modulate it or improve it.

But nowadays, in my advanced age and medium-depth wisdom, I try not to do either. When I ask my athlete what coach had to say, I'm trying to make sure that they've listened, and that they know from my asking that I think whatever coach had to say is an important part of the equation. But my response to whatever it was that coach had to say is non-committal. Or, at least I try to keep it that way in front of my kid.

I really do try to avoid editorializing, criticizing, or even applauding the opinions of the coaches. If I undermine what coach says, or if my kid can only wait until I've approved what coach said before they can accept it, that hurts his development. He can't be as successful as he might otherwise become trying to serve three masters - coach, dad, and himself.

For a parent, letting go of what coach said - being non-committal, when you just KNOW that the coaching they're getting isn't what you'd do - is quite difficult. But it's the right thing to do.

I did a little math, and determined that I now have accumulated 105 youth, high school, or collegiate parent-of-the-athlete seasons, with three more in progress at this moment. My children have had almost 70 different adults that coached or assisted coaching them. In all that time, among all those coaches, I've had a grand total of one coach for two seasons that I thought MAYBE did more harm than good.

That's not to say I haven't had issues with coaches, or questioned whether they were doing it the way I would do it - that's pretty much a daily occurrence in my little brain. What I'm saying is, in the biggest equation - relatively good, or relatively bad - my wife and I have been blessed by the adults that have coached our kids.

As you engage your kids about their athletic experiences, I understand you'll want to know what we coaches had to say about things. And in your shoes, I do the same thing. But this fall my two college kids won't be where I can ask them what coach had to say, and consequently I can't be any sort of barrier, buffer, filter, or lens for them. But I think they'll be ready.