While there are lots of good youth sports coaches, sadly, there are still way too many coaches in this country who are failing to teach and model ethical behavior or, worse, physically, emotionally, and psychologically abusing children [1] in their care, playing favorites and placing winning ahead of having fun and skill development.
Some coaches are well-meaning, but may not have the skills, temperament or personality to be good coaches. They are easy to spot.
Less easy to identify are the coaches who appear to know what they are doing but are still bad coaches. In particular, there are three kinds of coaches to watch out for:
Watch out for coaches who:
Some coaches, especially at the elite level, are coaching for personal or financial gain and will do just about anything to win and get ahead.
In particular, be in the lookout for coaches who use charm and flattery to make unrealistic claims about your child's talent. They are usually the coaches who lead your child (and you) to harbor unrealistic dreams that there is a scholarship or Olympic gold medal with his or her name on it if only he:
Be on the lookout for coaches who:
The best way to protect your child from a bad coach is, of course, not to let him play for such a coach in the first place.
Do whatever you think is reasonably necessary to find out about the coach before the season starts when, hopefully, there is still time to find him a place on another team:
Adapted from the book, Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers In Youth Sports [3] (HarperCollins 2006) by Brooke de Lench, founder and Editor-in-Chief of MomsTeam.com, and Executive Director of MomsTEAM Institute.
Links:
[1] https://www.momsteam.com/node/414
[2] https://www.momsteam.com/node/266
[3] http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=Home Team Advantage&x=16&y=21
[4] https://www.momsteam.com/team-parents/coaching/general/ten-signs-of-a-good-youth-sports-coach