Diary of a coach’s wife
This may be the only forum that I can actually talk about some of the things that go on in life and ball, so here goes.
Husband has been a coach since my oldest son was 5, he’s now 22. We have 4 kids and they have all been coached by dad, not exclusively but for large parts of their years on the field. We are closing out year 17 and I am tired and suspect that he is also tired.
He loves developing young athletes and has not taken a dime as a coach although he absolutely could charge for lessons or take on a paid position. He says that he does it to keep the high level of development for our kids, which is so respectable and I cannot express how much ball has shaped and improved our kids’ lives.
This is where I guess things are turning for me personally. Parents on our teams have very high expectations of him (understandably so) but take zero ownership and little contribution as part of a volunteer organization. We went to a big out of state tournament and some of the families that stayed together came back with requests to talk with coach, 4 parents have had hour plus meetings which really go over the same couple of topics. I personally think one of the dads is rallying these parents about minor grievances and telling parents to take it to the coach.
When I say minor grievances, the things being discussed are coaches on field interactions with umps (coach will discuss with umps but it never gets heated, has only ever had one warning), playing time which kids never sit more than a couple of innings and we full roster bat, and positions their kid plays. Also heavy concern about who is being cut and who is being brought in for the next season.
Oh and this whole thing is multiplied by two bc he coaches my daughter also. But for the most part those parents have been good.
My frustration lies with my husband just getting tables flipped on him bc of a parent that has decided to hold court but has zero responsibility for what this behavior actually does. There is such little appreciation or even recognition for the amount of time and effort he puts in to the season. It means so much to him when the players grow up and recount the impact he made on their lives.
I was so close to starting a daily tally of hours spent by our family on team related activities to show how much time we give up to do this for people that don’t seem to get it. I don’t want to come off as petty, but transparent bc I think there is a lot of willful ignorance about this topic.
I’m really rambling but as the wife of a coach, I’ll just start by saying thank you for all that you do for athletes, seen or unseen.
So here’s to day one of my private coach’s wife diary.