As a total off-topic aside on the Rick Mirer/Duane Reed et. al., coaching Pop Warner, I find ex-pro athletes around the youth sports largely to be over-rated. Now I like it, and I would certainly tell my buds back home that “so-and-so” is my kid’s coach for instance, because it’s a wow factor….but I also know it doesn’t translate to instant success. Well, at least in the sport I spend a good deal of time coaching, going up against ex MLBers, or career minor leaguers is really no big deal. Largely the children are not all that much more gifted than us regular joes, and in general I don’t see that much in terms of their advanced knowledge that can be passed on to a bunch of 12 year old kids.
Now I’ll see parents practically whore themselves to hire certain batting coaches because of his past, but I have a whole lot of parents convinced that I can teach their 12 year old kid better than the ex-pro can. That’s because I can back it up of course but I get others who just automatically assume paying 3 times the rate for “so-and-so” will advance their child more. They have a ton of disposable income, what do I care…
With Pop Warner maybe it’s different but I don’t know. I have a friend I know who played college football who resisted letting his kid play PW. This year he gave in, signed up his kid and showed up at practice announcing, “hey guys I was a RB and special teams guy in college, and know LB pretty well if you need some help” to which he was told “it’s ok dad we got it.” He was a bit surprised to say the least. My point here is not all “dads” are smart either, there must be some happy medium between the more experienced and the dad’s like me who were very close in HS, but had one thing holding us back (too white, too slow whatever). In my case I was not much of a hitter but quite skilled otherwise, so I spent a good deal of time figuring out what I did wrong so that my kids don’t do the same.
One other strange thing about the ex-pros is the wild difference in perspective. Phil Nevin for instance got himself kicked out of a 9-10 LL All-Star game district final. He was Uber-intense that day (and I’ve been there)… Other dads like Trevor Hoffman seem content to lay low, encourage ALL kids to have fun and keep things pretty much in perspective. Two years ago we played RSF all-stars which had 4 ex-MLBers on the team, and they seemed fairly laid back, whereas my older son played for well known pro who is known for really riding umpires and hard to play against because he can’t set aside his competitive nature.
Some look at this as making it as fun as possible for as many kids as possible and others can’t turn off that competitive spigot… I suggest parents find a coach that fits which direction they want to go.
