Should coaches face criticism when a team loses?

No

1 of 10

by JRR

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Normally I try not to read articles on a topic before I write my own. This time, however, is different. I came across this topic while rating and since I have been on the team side, the parent side, and the coaching side, I felt I had something to add.

Now, should a coach face criticism when a team loses? As a general rule I would say no, but in certain situations my answer varies.

In professional sports, these athletes are paid to do a job they do well. They have years of experience in a sport in which they excel. Unless a coach were to call one bad play after another, then no they are not to blame.

The game is ultimately in the hands of the players. It is a result of their skills, abilities and choices on the field or court. There are also things beyond their control, a bad bounce, the way the opposing team reacts, sometimes even just plain old good or bad luck.

It can pretty much be said the same about college sports. We are again talking about players with talent and experience.

Now let's look at high school sports. Here it can become a little clouded. The game is still being played by the team but what a coach teaches and his/her attitude and actions can also play a role.

At the same time, these coaches are dealing with teenagers and the moods and changes going on in their lives as they mature both as people and as athletes. They also have parents to deal with. Parents who may think their child is better than others and deserve more play time.

Yet, there are times when a loss is very much a coaches fault. In my senior year of high school, our softball team made it to the state play offs for the first time in school history.

In the top of the sixth inning, score still 0-0, our coach touched our runner on third while the ball was still live, an automatic out. Our next batter hit a solid double which would have given us one run. The inning ended still 0-0.

After going into extra innings, stretching our 7 inning game to 10 innings, we lost 1-0. In this case the loss was because of the coaches actions.

Sometimes though I think the coaches that receive the most criticism are little league coaches. In most cases these are just everyday people who volunteer their time.

I have been on both sides of this fence. I helped coach my daughters softball team, and yes we lost several games. I frequently heard from parents that their child could play better than others and should be playing certain positions. My response was always the same, "At this age they are all learning, they all deserve equal playing time."

By the end of the season, we won some, we lost some. But, all the girls got equal playing time and they all had fun and improved their skills and sportsmanship.

From the parent side of little league, my son played little league football. After his first practice he complained about his coach saying he didn't like him and he was to hard on them.

I very well knew kids that age didn't like to be told what to do, that sometimes they took things the wrong way. I began paying closer attention though to how the coach held practice, how he interacted with the boys.

My son continued to complain but I saw or heard nothing to cause concern. Until the practice after they lost their second game.

Normally during practice I stayed to myself where my daughter could play safely and I could still see. This practice she had stayed with my Mom, so I was standing with some of the other parents. I soon learned their sons had been making the same complaints to them as mine had to me.

It soon became apparent that the kids didn't like playing for him because of the way he treated them. As he took the team to a steep hill beside the field I followed close enough to hear what was being said.

He was cussing those kids, telling them they would run hills until he thought they had learned how to listen to him. After a couple hills, my son started having an asthma attack and told the coach he needed to stop. The coach told him he didn't care if he passed out they weren't stopping until he said so, telling him what a sorry excuse of a football player he was. My son was 10 years old.

To make a long story short, neither my son nor the rest of the team ran any more hills, and by the next morning they had a new coach. They still had a loosing season but where treated with respect.

Even in these two cases the coaches didn't deserve public criticism. Coaching should be taken seriously by whomever accepts the responsibility, but in the end they are human, they make mistakes just like anyone. A team loss is a team loss. There is no 'I' or 'U' in team. The coach is also part of the team.

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