I have been coaching my sons team for 2 years in baskeball and baseball. I have a hard time getting parents to understand fundamentals vs winning. I give every kids a chance to play all positions, after the game parents will come up to me to give a strategy to win the next game. I cheer for both team in baseball the parents will call me soft for not standing up for a bad call, I hate to take the effort away from the kid who just gave his all to make a good play. To keep it short where not winning the parents are mad as hell, the kids are happy full of energy. I have one parent who is a professional athlete and tells me what a incredible job I'm doing and he is the only reason the other kids stay on my team. Just show the parents we could win in baseball we played a undefeated team. I fixed the batting order from best hitter to worst hitter then I put 9 players on the field and 5 in the dugout never rotated a player. We won big time 14 to 5 the parents where full of joy and the kids that I played in the infield where happy, the kids in the outfield where digging in the dirt most of the time and chase butterflies. The kids in the dugout where hot complaining and ready to go home. We won but I thought it was the most boring game ever and the other teams coach went crazy half his kids where crying. How do I deal with the parents that only want to win, where talking about 6 to 8 yr old kids

It's a continual process of educating the parents that fundamentals are the key to success and it takes time.

It's not one thing. Just liking coaches kids, it's a process to educate parents. Coaching youth basketball is a marathon, not a sprint. Same goes with getting some parents on board. And some parents still will never get it. That's just how it is.

At the beginning of the season, it can help to set expectations. Send out a parent letter and have a meeting at beginning of the season... can be brief before the first practice or something. Let them know what you will focus on. And that developing playing is more important than winning at this age. Give them examples.

Bottom line is the teams with the best players win. So my strategy is to always focus on player development and that is a LONG TERM strategy. Parents need to know that our of the gates.

I wish I could give you a magic bullet to solve this. Just continue the communication, save articles to send parents, and so on.

Coach,

Did you have a preseason meeting to talk about this?

I have found that an initial meeting before the start of even practicing can sometimes get the point across. You need to be prepared for it.

In the meeting you should:

State the goal: where you want all the kids to end up.
State the path: This is how I'm going to get your kid there.
State what it will look like: Because of this and this, games will be run like this.....

You can also give them some insight into your personal philosophy: I do not coach umpires/refs, I coach kids. I will not yell at referee's, and I would appreciate it if you do not either. It never helps and it sometimes hurts. I don't yell at kids for mistakes. I teach them to correct instead. And the list goes on.

Getting this stated at the very beginning of the season at a parent meeting can help clear some of the pathways and alleviate any potential surprise that parents may have.

There will ALWAYS be parents who JUST....DON'T....GET....IT. Like Jeff said, no magic bullet to solve that problem. Stick to your beliefs, stick to your philosophy, and be grounded in the certainty that you are doing things the right way. When they are successful ballplayers later in life, you can point to them and know you had a hand in their success, and you can measure your success in the numbers of kids that make it, and the numbers of kids who leave your program with a love of the game.

Sincerely,

Brian Sass

Not much to add that already hasn't been said by Jeff and Brian. As we moved down the youth sports road, like-minded parents stayed (and came on our team through word of mouth) and the parents who were all about winning found other teams. Looking back, I can say the kids who moved on needed to move on. They were exceptional athletes and probably needed more of a challenge. No harm, no foul.

As coach Rob says, "all the good advice has already been given". As for me, I coach Professional athletes and have had only two confrontations with parents. At that time, I simply said, "Ill make you a promise, I wont come to your office and tell you how to do your job, if you don't come to mine and tell me how to do mine. Now I realize it would be difficult with your age group parents to say that, but that was my way of dealing with it. and to let you know that parents come in all levels from amateur to pro, they are there to test your metal. Coach Mac