[Nathans_Dad]

Hey guys, just need to vent and hear some advice from someone else who has been or is there now.

I am assistant coaching my son's 7 year old little league team. This is his first year of coach pitch, I also coached (or helped coach) two of his three tee ball seasons. I am honestly very happy with Nathan's progress, he has become one of the top 4 hitters on the team and is doing better with his fielding and throwing. We play catch or work on hitting at least 3 times a week plus practice once a week and games. Anyhow, my son's performance isn't the topic of the post.

I am starting to get frustrated with some of the boys on the team. We have 12 kids on the team and easily 6 of them still cannot hit the ball in a game. Now, I don't have an issue if a kid is trying his best and struggling, I'll stay late after practice or whatever to work with him. My frustration is coming from the fact that the boys that are struggling are the same boys who never pay attention in practice and who's parents don't work with them at all at home. I get very tired of telling the same 3-4 boys to pay attention every play in a game. I don't get upset if someone doesn't make a play but it frustrates the hell out of me when a kid is not paying attention the whole game and then a ball gets hit right by them into the outfield and they never look up from the nice dirt mound they have created!

Honestly a lot of the frustration is also because the team has yet to win a game. I think they are 0-7 or some such. Today we lost to a team that was only fielding 5 kids! 9 on 5 and we STILL lost. We can't play defense because there are only 5-6 kids who pay attention and can actually throw or catch and the head coach insists on a strict rotation of positions every inning. It's painful to see a lineup with two kids who cannot field, throw or catch playing pitcher and first base in the same inning. We have trouble scoring runs because half the team strikes out every time.

I understand that the long term goal of youth sports is to have fun and learn some basics of a sport, I get that. I try to keep that in mind and keep things in perspective. It's tough when the kids are getting frustrated with the losing and I'm sure the parents are getting tired of losing every game too. Before this season we lost a good player off the team because his parents wanted to move him to a team with better kids on it. It doesn't help that the local little league association allows coaches to stack their teams by taking good kids off of multiple tee ball teams and making one "super team" for coach pitch. We have faced some teams where 11 out of the 12 kids can hit the ball every time up. Of course then the other teams get left with the random pool draw kids, many of which have never played before.

To be clear, I NEVER yell at a child or express my frustration...I am all smiles during every game and practice. The only child I even tell what he did wrong on a play is my own son. It's just getting tough to put on the smiley face for every practice and watch the same kids play in the dirt instead of watching and then do the same every week at the game and hurt the other kids who are trying.

Ok, rant off. Thanks, I feel better.