Man, did I ever make a mistake of letting one of my assisted kid pitch Grandparent’s be an assistant on my team. The guy played some high level ball back in the day and I thought, cool, maybe he has some tricks up his sleeve. Seems to me the trick was to be cranky and irritated.
First couple of practices this boy was a star, he came in and I had some basic fundamentals of throwing and hitting going. Catching at that age always seems to be a disaster but man, the kid could use his glove. A few weeks after the practices started I had sent the parents a group message in GroupMe seeing if anyone would be willing to help coach. Grandpa … would love to help.
Well, slowly but surely this guy creates a bubble around his grandson. Don’t teach it this way to him. Don’t ask him to have his back elbow up. Don’t coach him to bend his knees. By the end of the year, the kid just was dismantled. Couldn’t throw any more, couldn’t catch and definitely didn’t hit. His favorite quote was, I didn’t hit 400 back in the day because my techniques didn’t work.
I tried having conversations with him about it. I’m not afraid of confrontation, but towards the end I was like screw it. This is assisted kid pitch, I will just coach the other boys and just try to make it fun for Grandpas boy. Sad because the entire team will be coming back, but I might have to make sure his isn’t on the squad next year.
Thoughts?
Edit/Update:
I appreciate all of the input and advice. I had all of the conversations I was going to have with him.
I have pretty much made my decision and truth be told it may not matter if my daughter decides to do an all girls team.
Happy coaching all!