Parent Communication and Player's playing time

If the Parent is is unhappy, and wants to talk about Playing Time.

Won't discuss it with parent...I am here to assist them in building their boy into a man who can stand on his own. Part of that process is their need to approach me and hear what the issues are...

Makes no sense to discuss it with the parent simply for the reason that they wouldn't want another parent influencing my decision on another player's time over their son's...it's just not appropriate...

From my parent meeting talk:
1) Playing time is not negotiable.

2) Have you watched your son in practice?

3) Have you asked your son about who is playing ahead of him?
Can he tell you why he is behind those kids?

4) I don't know about your son's past glories and they don't matter.
My staff and I coach what we see, not the past.

5) Your son may find his playing time limited by 4 things:
a) He may not know what to do.
b) He may not be able to physically do what he needs to do.
c) He may insist on staying in a position where he is 5th string.
d) His behavior and or grades may need improvement.

6) I tell you these things now and it may seem cruel, but I will ask you later when you complain about your son's playing time.

7) If your only argument is based on "fairness", we don't have much to talk about. What you mean by "fair" is give you what you want.

8) If you are confused, see number 1 above.

I was talking to a coach a few years ago about playing time and he had a simple philosophy;
If you are upset about playing time then you and your parents can come in and we can have a meeting with the player ahead of you and his parents and you can explain why you should be playing in front of him. The coach said he has never had a meeting in 29 years over playing time.

We talk about this in the first week of school before the first game in our parent meeting.

-requierments to play: attend all practices, maintain marks, show effort

-Process:
-we try to play everyone not equaly but we will try and give you a shot in each game it maybe on specials or 1 series on O or D
-if you want to play more than you need to be better than the guy in front of you ie: know your stuff, execute better and be more physical in PRACTICE

We also tell parents this is our way of getting your kids on the field the alternative is playing the best 24 players and that is it but we have 50 players this means we will look for times to get kids in. There might be times when he doesn't get in and this is due to the matchup he faces on the other side of the ball ie: bigger more experienced kid.

We don't discuss playing time in season. If your son has an issue he needs to come to us and talk to us we will work with him. So far we have had 4 kids come talk to us and be fine with the reasons we gave them.

I think as long as you are open up front at the start of the season before the situation occurs you are good. Once you a parent feels your "wronged" their kid it is hard to flip that.

At our parent meeting before the season, I let them know this:

Things that we will discuss with them:
1) changes in your child's behavior
2) how to make your child better

Things we will not discuss:
1) scheme
2) playing time
3) someone else's child

Last year I didn't mention this at the parent's meeting, and I had a few parents talk to me about playing time....this year we have the same parents, and have had no discussions of playing time. Life has been pretty easy, except for the fact that we have had a lot of injuries.

I am continually amazed by the parents inability to accept solutions to these issues.

We had a father a few years back who was just livid that his kid wasn't seeing more turns at WR. I guess all of the dropped balls weren't enough of a clue.. But, he was very athletic and I told his dad that I wanted him to come and play some CB or safety for the defense. I can't believe the amount of sh-t that came my way afterward.

"My boy is a WR! He's being looked at by the MSU and UM! He isn't going to play defense!"

I got one:

A freshman dad comes up to me (JV), and TELLS us we need another lineman (we were short on linemen), because his son isn't being played enough at the freshman level.

Hmm. He's not starting for the freshmen, so why would his chances be better on JV? His kid is also probably the laziest lineman on the freshmen team. I coached him for two years and I have yet to see him do an actual pushup or warm-up. Some parents are just delusional.

This is just a pet peeve of mine: What does height and weight have to do with it? Our FB this year was maybe 5'6 or 5'7 but he was a freakin' tank. Our freshmen had a LB this year who wasn't even 5', but he had the heart of a lion, and nothing could shake his confidence/toughness. The kid I coached at QB for the past two years has been the slowest player on the team forever, but his arm and brain make up for it. I was 5'2 and weighed 130lbs in HS, and my best "ball-running" skill was just running people over. I would never tell someone they aren't starting because of something they CANNOT physically control (except weight I guess). I would never determine a starter on those factors either. Our biggest varsity player: 6'7, 310 lbs. Perfect lineman build, great athleticism and potential, but he was soft and his form was terrible.

If you're going to discuss playing time with parents, be ready with film.

You'd be amazed at how much these kinds of issues drop off after a few parents are forced to sit through Lil Johnny's lowlight film.

We had a set of parents that were awful about their kid's playing time. He was the kind of kid bluedevil4 described; a big physical OL/DL specimen that wasn't coachable, didn't work in the off season and played very poorly because of it. His parents b-tched non-stop about his playing time until we finally pulled them into a meeting with the kid and showed them film of their kid phucking up in practice, games and in scrimmages.

One clip showed him getting his a-- kicked by a 5'10'' 170lb NT four plays in a row; three of them for sacks.

I tell my parents that I have no problem talking to them about anything, schemes, why I ran what I did, and the reason for that is if I don't know why I am doing what I am doing then there is a problem with me. I tell them they may not like the reason I do what I do but at least there is a reason and a plan.

As far as playing time, this is the only thing that I will not talk to JUST the parent about. The parent needs to ask their kid, if the kid doesn't know why he isn't playing as much as he thinks he should be playing then the kid and a parent need to come talk to me and I will be brutally honest without comparing the kid with others on the team. This way I don't have the "coach hates" me excuse for why he isn't playing. I've never had a parent come in to discuss this in three years.

No, obviously performance on the field trumps anything you do in the weight room/mat room/40 time etc. What we try to do is turn every aspect of our offseason program into a competition. We post these rankings everywhere so that the kids can see them. If you're not first we drill our kids daily on the fact that you're job is to outwork the people ranked higher than you so that your rank is higher than their rank the next time we test.We put our kids into teams of 8 - 10 during offseason. Each team is given points for various things - attendance, no discipline referrals, no tardies, extra hustle, etc. We also give them points based on their rank when we test. I would like to continue, but I think I'm getting away from the original question. If you would like some more info. pm me with any questions you may have.

I'm not the most articulate guy, as evident by my writing skills. Here's what I was trying to say:
I will show the results of our kids offseason tests to a parent(s). My goal is to show a parent that Joey is a better athlete than their little Johhny, therefore Joey is starting over your little Johhny.

blue devil,
I don't lie to parents, players, or coaches. You stated in an earlier post that you've had short kids that were good players for you. I agree, we all have at some point in our career had great players that were short, small, or weak. You said you were 5'2 and ran people over, that's great.
We don't pick starters or any other position based solely on height/weight/ etc. Any coach worth his whistle knows that desire, grit, playing physical, etc. go along way in determining whether a kid is a "player" or not. Let me give you a scenario we were in a couple of years ago that hopefully will help you understand. We graduated a great running back. The biggest question we had going into the offseason was who was going to be his replacement. We had two kids to choose from. We called both kids in at the beginning of the offseason and told them that the best player would play, and that their job from that moment until the first game of the next season was to make themselves the best football player they could possibly be. We gave them equal reps during the spring and during 7 on 7 during the summer. We gave them equal reps during two a days and during our two scrimmages. After our second scrimmage we met as a staff and decided who was going to be our starter. No suprise, the kid we picked was the best running back of the two, and he was also .1 of a second faster in the 40 and shuttle run. He was an inch taller, 15 pounds heavier, and was stronger in the weight room. Obviously, the kid who wasn't named the starter had a mom and dad that were very upset to say the least. We met with the parents and had both kids height, weight, 40 time, weight maxes, etc. written on the board. However, we didn't have either players name next to their test results. We asked the mother and father, one at a time, which kid they would pick out of these two players on the board. No suprise, they both picked the player with the better test results. We simply told them they had picked the same player to start as we had. End of meeting.
Blue devil, I think you would agree, everything else being equal you would want the biggest, strongest, fastest players you've got on the field. A few years ago we had a qb sign with a major D I program, the offensive coordinator at the school he signed with told us that our qb's height ( 6 foot 7 inches) is what set him apart from the other players they were recruiting . So you see, size does matter. Yes, if you've got a big kid that's soft, or doesn't like contact or hard work then you play someone else. But if you've got two kids that are battling it out for a position and one is big, tall, fast and strong and the other is short, weak, slow and fat I think you'll start the better athlete. If you still want to play the short, weak, slow kids....well.... it's a realignment year in Texas and we'll be looking for a few non district games, maybe you'd be interested in playing a little bitty 2 A school from the Lone Star State.