Coach in distress

[Mcleodjw]

Hello Coaches,
Please be kind. I need to vent.
I was just wondering if any of you have had a parent step, unexpectedly, in as coach?
How did you react?
Today, I was running a little late. When I got to practice, a parent had stepped into my shoes and coaching my kids in several wrong PV methods.
I appreciate volunteers. I really do.
As my athletes were doing their 2, 4, 6 step "pole runs", he was yelling, "Bend your pole, bend it!"
But when he showed the kids how to load the pole up before take off, I had to step in.
Trying my best to be polite, I explained to him that I wasn't teaching the kids to do that. Loading the pole before taking off is dangerous.
He looked at me with a very straight face and become very quiet and handed the pole to me and left.
I want parents to get involved. Pole vaulting has been making a slow recovery in Mid-Michigan and I hated to squash his enthusiasm.

Thanks for the ear.

John

[KirkB]

I don't know why you feel that you're "in distress". Probably for the same reason you asked us to "please be kind". You're just not a Type A "in your face" type of a coach, and that's very cool. Soft-sell works!

Sounds like you did and said the right thing! Trust yourself.

Trust that you made the right decision to what MAY have turned out worse than it did. I think you got a good outcome by your actions!

The only thing I would add is to encourage him to help - provided he follow your coaching strategy. That removes the negativity of you "scolding" him, and turns a negative into a postive.

You could even tactfully encourage him to get certified as a PV coach, and that would be even better!

Kirk Bryde

[altius]

Or get him to but BTB2 and the dvd!!!!!!!!

[grandevaulter]

I directly make it clear to parents and instant experts that multiple opinions have no place here.

[Mcleodjw]

Thanks for all the replies.
I still consider myself a green coach. I spent the winter vaulting and observing a seasoned coach at Alma College.
I obtained B2B DVD and the Book. I've been reading and studying everything I can get my hands on. I feel I'm fairly knowledgeable about the sport. I did it for 3 years in high school but what I learned there was on talent only, I had no real coach. If I had a coach like myself then, who knows. I want to give a vaulter today, what I didn't have then.

Thanks for all the support,
John

[grandevaulter]

You are on the right track with the BTB2 material. Be firm and don't back down. Once the public figures that out the word will get around.

[bel142]

The problem is continuity of language.

To say that "bending the pole is the goal" may be not correct from where you are sitting. But then again we all say different things. Bend the pole to you, may be different than what the parent means. Meanwhile coaching education is fairly poor in the United States. At the high school level there seems to be a continuation of chest thumping and energy that is carried over from (what I can see) football or wrestling. Not to say that those sports are bad, but the idea of how individuals approach and what they have experience in sport is different.

You see something similar at the collegiate level. You see a kid you recruited show up to a meet with another school seeming not be jump his or her potential. "oh man if he just did these two things he would be a 17 footer!" well he has a coach he may be working on two TOTALLY different things different from what you see or what you would have done. There is nothing wrong with the other coaches approach but training and building an athlete for the long term is different that just the snapshot of what we see of a trip or two down the runway.

Don't take is personally or let it get to you, it might make you snake-y to think that he is telling the kids to "bend the pole" but really coaches have different ways of doing things. Always be humble and confident in fact that you know your method will work.

[souleman]

Altius beat me to it. Get the BTB and Isy too DVD and give it to him and just say "ya know? I really could use your help but this is what I coach. Please take it home and watch it and then come back and help". I was at an Alan Launder clinic this past weekend and he allowed us coaches to help. There were a couple of occasions where I got ahead of the particular thing he had the kids working on (cause I've read the book) and he called me on it once or twice. His reminder got me back on task and allowed me to help the kids at the pace the clinic was designed to follow. Great clinic by the way and the DVD presents a model to teach the model that if your "Dad" were to watch it and buy into it, he would be a great asset to your program.