Yo! I’m on vacation this week, don’t try and come rob my house, it’s a ‘staycation’!  I’m going to run some oldies but goodies so I can let my creative juices focus on Gin and Tonics. Here you go:

This one goes out to a special friend who is going through this right now!

Let me do this with full disclosure – my name is Tim Sackett, and I’m a Parent Coach…I feel like I have to give the AA introduction, because I’m definitely going to need therapy once my kids are all through the parent-coaching stage!   Coaching your own kids is probably the closest thing to child-parent-abuse without physical contact that I can imagine.  Dads completely lose their freaking minds when coaching their own kids – but not all in the same way – so I’ll give you run down of types of Dad Ball Coaches:

– Coach Moses: This is the Dad who thinks his kid walks on water!  You know the type, this is the Dad who has a kid who is probably a decent player, but there are other kids who are better, but he continues to put his kid in prime positions in the field and batting lineup – even when they don’t produce.  Coach Moses will tear apart a team faster than any other type of coach.  The only time a Coach Moses can be successful, is when their kid is truly the best kid on the team – and it’s very apparent.

– Coach Dalai Lama: This is a Dad who tries to make it all about the “experience”.  This Dad is all about fairness, and equality – winning isn’t the goal, learning is the goal.  After all these are just children, and we’ve been given this gift and opportunity to mold them, and we need to protect this opportunity like the fragile butterfly out of the cocoon.  This is also the team that get’s beat by hundred runs every game!

–Coach Knight (as in Bob Knight):  This is the Dad who yells – yells – and yells.  He yells at the players, yells at the umpires, yells at the other parents, yells at his mother – you get the idea.  These are the guys that believe the only way you get the most out of your kids is by yelling at them to keep them motivated.  This is usually the most hated of all Dad Ball coaches – but from personal experience, I’ve had some Coach Knights that were actually the best coaches.

– Coach Bobby Boucher (pronounced Boo shea):  From the Adam Sandler movie The Waterboy – This is a Dad Ball Coach who played the sport in high school, but wasn’t any good – thus the “waterboy” reference…  You can imagine, this coach is trying to re-live their failed youth, but driving their team to win the league championship.  This coach is usually the main figure on the team – out in front of the actual team – the winning is all about their job as a coach, the losing is all about those idiot kids failing.  Nothing like a grown man re-living this life’s failures through the blood, sweat and tears of adolescent boys!

The one cool thing about my kids getting older and into high school is Dad Ball is most likely over.