"Hover" Parents

First I laughed, then I cried.

Also, if any coach is asked a question about the parents...no matter what the situation, this is the response you give. Every time.

‘‘I don’t have big problems with our parents,’’ Landmark Christian coach Kenny Dallas said. “In fact, I think our parents are probably the strength of our school.’’

Honestly, the parents are only going to bother you as much as you let them. If you're doing your best job, treating the kids with respect and being fair then none of the parents have a viable gripe. Anything else that comes down the pipeline is just pathetic and funnier than h-ll, at least IMO.

If the administration is buying in the parents' b.s., then it's time to move on.

This is a valid point, I think. I certainly think that anytime that you receive criticism you should reflect on whether there's something to it. Just because somebody's an a$$hole doesn't mean that he's wrong.

That is a good point but it all relative to the particular gripe. If a parent is upset because I've done something unprofessional (swearing at the players, berating them, etc..) then I'm going to listen and apologize profusely.

However, I don't listen to parents outside of that because of the WAY they gripe. If we're struggling on defense, I don't here complaints about how poorly we tackled, shed or covered, it's all about how dumb we are for not playing a ____ defense. The same thing on offense; it's never about the fundamentals, it's about the scheme. Or it's about their kid; we struggle because Johnny isn't starting.

If a parent approached me and lit into me about how poorly we tackle/shed/block (etc), I would most certainly listen.

Our program uses a weekly "Coach's Corner" meeting with parents to help build a strong relationship between our staff and our parents. While it does not eliminate all of the crazies, it does win a lot of positive support between the parents and players.

During the course of a game, parents will always think that we are idiots on any given play, but this is the natural course of human emotions while watching a sporting event. I have found that hosting a weekly meeting - open to all - has created less hover parents. The Coach's Corner meeting is not very well attended, but simply knowing that they have the possibility to spend an hour with our HC and some assistants will defuse the perception that we want to be isolated (or are afraid) of parents.

CC works like this. Every Tuesday night, about an hour after the end of scheduled practice, we open up a large classroom for Coach's Corner. I send out a weekly invite to our email database reminding parents of the opportunity to attend. We open with a brief statement about the previous week's performance, and then we proceed to show about 20-25 minutes of film from our previous game. We point out the outstanding things we did, as well as things that we did poorly. At the conclusion of showing our previous game film, we will talk about our focus points of development (correcting our weak areas) that we are targeting during practice. Then we move on to talk about our upcoming opponent. After a short overview, we show about one half from one of the scout films we received. At the end, we open it up for question and answer.

In six years of hosting a CC each week, I have never had a rude question. We've had some direct questions, but it's good to get those out in the open. CC provides an outlet for the parents who have the "hover" need inside of them, but it has never been a forum for discontent or argumentative comments. I have never had a parent suggest a different scheme or personnel changes, etc. In fact, when the one or two crazies do raise up and try to spread discontent among the parents, they are often shot down before it ever gets back to us. We have advocates sitting in the stands.

I had one crazy this year come after me for anything he could think of - including sending a "reply all" email to our whole database criticizing me after our worst loss of the season. Instead of gaining any support, 22 parents replied to him more harshly than I would be allowed, and supported our coaching staff. I think that a large reason for this support was the transparency and opportunity for parents to feel that they could connect with us on a weekly basis.

One more thing that is a negative of football, there are 25 seconds between every play for a parent to dissect what you just did. That doesn't happen in basketball. Maybe if we all went to the hurry up no huddle it would cut down on that.

I do have to admit that the parents around here have been very supportive of our efforts to revive the program. I thought that they were going to be far more difficult; we haven't had any issues at all. And, that's surprising given how poorly we did this year.

Honestly, there's a lot of ways to CYA if you choose to work in a program with difficult parents. If you go along with all of the things that are described above and the parents are still a pain, take it to the next level.

1. It's always a good idea to get film of practice for a lot of reasons. Some of them are obvious but there are other advantages that coaches forget about. If a parent issue gets to the point where you need to meet with them, just toss in the film from practice (just make sure the player isn't there).

"Here's Johnny on practice film and here are the two dozen reasons why he doesn't play."

2. Have the entire staff sit in on the parent meeting (again, without the player). Have each coach provide their two cents (positive and negative) with respect to the situation. Show mom and dad that there's 4-5 coaches that deal with their son on the practice field every day. It'll either give them a healthy dose of reality or make them uncomfortable enough to keep their traps shut.


These are kind of "Nuke 'Em" solutions but they're really effective when you've got those parents that just won't go away.

I like the idea of the coaches corner. Seems like a great way to get the parents to see what goes in to running a program. Do you still hear grumbling from the locals even after the meetings?

We had a kid play for the first time one year, big lazy kid, no effort at practice. During our first game, the kids mom is screaming from the grandstands "Put 72 in, he's the best player you got!" "Why isn't 72 in?!" The HC coach finally calls the kid over and tells him to go tell his mom that as soon as he puts in some effort and quits being lazy at practice he can play. The kid goes to stands and word for word tells his mom that. She hesitates a few seconds and just says, "OK" , and goes and sets down. We never heard from her again.

Agree totally. I think you have to have the athlete present. You can be honest in evaluating the player's ability and attitude without it turning personal or negative. Plus this helps eliminate the "communication lapses" which is often the source of the problem anyway.

I think any meeting must include the player- it's his playing time not mom's or dad's so why should he not be there? I require the player to be present for any meeting- there are no off the record, I don't want him to know meetings concerning his playing time, whether he starts etc. I also show all emails from parents concerning that to their son- I want to know is this truly an issue with the player or is it just a parent being a pain in the butt. 90% of the time the kid is fine, they understand why they don't start or why they are used in a certain way- if the kid has no problem then why waste time with a parent. I don't need the dad to be in agreement just the player. Whether it's right or wrong my belief is the parents are not part of our team- they can be part of the program but team issues, such as playing time or scheme are none of their business. Now program issues- wanting to have input on homecoming or senior night or the awards banquet etc then they are free to offer their input.

I have seen many more obnoxious parents than coaches.

That said, I was part of getting a really useless coach removed a few years ago. My kids didn't even play that sport -- I just saw too much of his act ruining the situation.