Letting coaches coach

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Letting coaches coach

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On of the questions that a lot of people have is how to deal with parents at sporting events that are out of control. And, that is a huge problem nowadays. All the parents wanna coach from the stands and all the parents wanna yell at the opposing team and the referees and what not. As a coach, one of the things that I did to calm that down was to go to all the parents before the season started and ask the parents individually if they trusted me as a former high school, in college, and semi-pro baseball player, that they trusted me to coach their child. And, they all said that they did. And, I said, "Okay. I'm gonna hold you to that commitment then, because when the game starts, I'm gonna insist that you let me coach your kid and you'll not coach from the stands. Will you promise to do that?" Yes, they will promise to do that. And, when they do and do it, I would call them out on a little bit because lots of times, they can't control themselves. They're well intended, I'm sure. But, they learned to do that. Because the irony of the whole thing is now I'm a dad sitting in the stands with my son playing high school baseball. In the first few games, I got very excited and I'm yelling instructions and I'm doing these things. And, at the end of the game, my son came up to me and said, "You humiliated me during that game. Did you know that?" I said, "No, I didn't. What did I do?" You were yelling out all kinds of instructions. I already have a coach and you're not it anymore. Let it go." I thought, "Wow, what a message." So, since that time, that's something I've learned the hard way, is to be a parent now, to after being a coach, you have to let it go and let the coaches do their job. Don't humiliate your kid.

Watch Geoff Wells's video on Letting coaches coach...

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Geoff Wells

Dad, Lawyer & Coach

Geoff Wells is a law partner at Greene Broillet & Wheeler in Santa Monica California. He is a graduate of the University of Washington class of 1981, and was a pitcher on the baseball team. He then went on to graduate from Pepperdine University School of Law in 1985. He has been a youth and travel ball baseball coach since 2003. He is married to Janet Ray and has two children, Morgan and Garrett.

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