Posted: 6/5/02

Full Count: Parents hold key to success

Editors note: This is the final story in a three-part series exploring why Forest Lake is losing so many coaches and what impact it has on the athletic programs.

Over the past three weeks, weíve taken a look at why Forest Lake seems to have trouble holding onto its athletic coaches for the long term.

Other topics covered in the previous two weeks have shown that ISD 831 has had a hard time finding coaches who double as teachers within the district, which plays a large role in longevity.
The fact that ISD 831 does nothing to reward coaches for longevity, experience or responsibility in terms of pay was looked at last week.

Itís time to cut to the chase this week in what I view as the single largest area which dictates how long a coach stays around and how successful a program is:

The parents.

Like it or not, the kind of parents involved in a program and their actions are the most important factors in a programís success.

Having a child as a high school athlete seems to make normally good people act in ways which cause one to wonder about their mental stability.

A big reason for that is what parents these days have invested in their kidsí athletic careers by the time ñ realistically ñ an athletic career is really just beginning.

It starts so early. In fact, I see it in coaching my own daughterís T-ball team. Parents of kids that are five have already invested in batting gloves, their own helmets, bats and equipment bags.
Kids will tell me before the game that mom or dad wants them to hit the ball to the grass tonight.

If you take the same kids and factor in about 10 more years of buying equipment, paying registrations, getting into all the traveling teams and the intrinsic value of the time and stress it takes to do all those things, parent view this ìinvestmentî as being well worth the big payoff of high school sports, and ultimately the pipe dream of college scholarships.

What, in effect, parents are doing is investing in the future. When that investment gets to the high school and isnít getting the playing time, the number of shots, the recognition or whatever the investment is suppose to get them, it becomes the fault of the coach.

Parents are quick to say itís the coachís fault when things go wrong because in todayís sports world, so many parents have been youth coaches and ñ apparently ñÝbeing a youth coach makes you as qualified and knowledgeable as anyone.

So when a system, style, approach or playing time formula works at the youth level that maybe resulted in a cheesy youth state title isnít carried over to the high school level, then that high school coach becomes incompetent, by parentsí standards.

Meanwhile, while the kids the youth parent/coach had coached have changed, the parentsí mentality hasnít. For example, you can go out and play baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball or whatever in the summer and have a good time as, say, a fifth grader.

At that age, youíve got no worries. Youíre playing for love of the sport, hanging with friends and feeling no pressure. Maybe that group of fifth graders has a lot of success and even wins a state title.

Fast forward ahead to that group being in high school. Now, instead of the summer, theyíre playing during the school season. Theyíve changed a great deal physically, have to balance school with games and practice. They worry about the test they just took or have to take; who stole whose boyfriend or girlfriend; how they can steal someoneís boyfriend or girlfriend; how soon they have to get to work; what kind of homework is waiting for them; is there going to be pressure to drink at Friday nightís party; and the list goes on and on.

Plain and simple, high school athletes arenít the same athletes they were at the youth level.
Because of that, parents need to quit looking at youth sports as an investment for the future and more of an investment for the now. Take youth sports for what they are today and when theyíre done, theyíre done. Youth sports success ñÝor lack thereof ñÝas a team or individual rarely is the same as high school sports.

Yet, parents donít understand that. As a result, high school coaches are given a steady diet of headache sandwiches to eat because parents canít grasp why things arenít done the way they want them.

And it use to be that winning was the deodorant which covered all stink. Thatís no longer the case.

Use Jen Hesse, who recently resigned as head girls basketball coach, as an example. Hesse was hailed a program savior after her first season because she related to the players and cared about them.

In her second year, Hesseís team becomes the second ever in Forest Lake to go to state, but she gets heat all year about running poor systems and not being able to put players in a position to be successful.

In her third and final year, guiding a team with suspect talent which basically quit on her anyways, Hesse was considered unapproachable, out-of-touch with her players and the like.
Had she not resigned to pursue her administrative licensure, there was a mob of parents ready to demand her resignation.

One year youíre a savior, two years later you have to go. Such is the life in Forest Lake.

When Ted Anderson guided the Forest Lake girls hockey team to its first-ever trip to state two years ago, he took constant heat about not playing the right players the right amount of time. He resigned his coaching duties literally hours after the end of the best season ever of girls hockey.

The examples are endless, from coaches being questioned about their tactics in public places, during games or in phone calls not even a telemarketer has had to endure.

All of this comes with low pay and no incentive to stay longer for Forest Lake coaches.
So how does all of that translate into a programís success or lack thereof? Simple, really. Just look at Forest Lakeís most successful program.

The only state title Forest Lake has ever earned came from its wrestling program ñÝwhich is the model program in the Forest Lake sports scene.

Wrestling parents are special in Forest Lake. While theyíre not all laced with sugar and spice, the Forest Lake wrestling community gets it.

Itís a program which has a coach who teaches at the high school and has been there for a long time. Itís a program which hasnít had a losing season in more than a decade.

Itís a program where the parents actually understand the sport on a high level, unlike softball, baseball, basketball, hockey, volleyball and other sports where parents think they know a lot more than they actually do.

The wrestling community supports its coach without lapse and gives the coach of its program the respect he deserves.

The same can be said for the cross country community, which has helped spearhead that sportís recent surge in success and it carries over into the winter for the Nordic ski season.

Those programs are examples of what a strong, supportive and knowledgeable group of parents can mean to the success of a program as well as the experience their own kids get from it.

And thatís what it all boils down to for the parents: making it the best possible experience for their kids. Isnít that what we all as parents want for our kids in any aspect of life? It should be.
Numbers are at an all-time low for the Forest Lake basketball teams. In short, all the traveling the kids do, parents with egos bigger than their knowledge of the game and pressure put on teenagers ñ teenagers for Godís sake ñ is killing the programs, especially the girls.

Forest Lake has the coach it needs in place to make athletics a great experience in at least 90 percent of its programs. Those coaches now need an administration with the rocks to support them and AD Don Bosch is more than capable of being that person.

But mostly, Forest Lake needs a stronger group of supportive parents in its programs which truly understand what high school sports is supposed to be about.

Those parents are the most important spoke in a programís wheel. A program without supportive parents will never thrive. Parents need to quit worrying about if their child falls and start teaching them how to get up.

Bottom line is this: If parents want a successful program, it starts with them. They need to give their athletes the proper understanding of sports, need to put sports in the proper perspective and need to act properly themselves.

Is that really too much to ask? In Forest Lake, it apparently is.

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