Posted on 03/31/2009 3:49:49 AM PDT by GQuagmire
FOX25, myfoxboston - A youth soccer coach is off the job after sending home a shocking letter to his team of 6 and 7-year-old girls.
The letter didn't go over so well with parents and the Scituate soccer board and the coach has since resigned.
This is Michael Kinahan's letter:
(Excerpt) Read more at myfoxboston.com ...
I agree with you that this probably wasn’t the best for 6 & 7 year olds, but I would have no problem with Junior High and above.
Thank you.
The play is on the other end of the field, and I look up to see that she is sitting on the pitch in a semicircle with the other two defenders, and having a chat. It was hilarious.
It's also probably what this coach was telling the parents he doesn't want to see.
I was a carded soccer referee when I was young — youngest in my province, at the time. This letter would have described most of the girl’s soccer coaches I have ever met.
Aside from it being bombastic to the point of being asinine, I’m not scandalized by this letter particularly — except he misunderstands his true place in the Universe and the Grand Scheme of Things. You see, the Coach isn’t mentioned in the Laws of Soccer. But the Referee is.
He refers the “his sideline”. He’s got that part wrong: when his team is playing on MY field it is MY sideline He and his players are MY GUESTS, as are the opposing team and their coach. Spectators are not my GUESTS: they are spectators about which I can do nothing except demand that they keep a respectable distance from my field and not disrupt the game.
If, as coach he gets lippy with me, the ref, he will get a Red Card and be escorted off MY field by the linesmen. If he pulls his team off the field as a result, he will forfeit the game and LOSE.
If he yells abusively at his team I would give him exactly one warning to pipe down: that warning comes with a Yellow Card. The next time it happens, Red Card and off the field — I don’t mind.
Anyone receiving a card — be it Yellow or Red — will in due course be reported to the Provincial authorities.
Forewarned is forearmed: the ref should spell all of this out at the beginning of the game, and then make it stick. Nothing more need be done. Let’s have a clean game, and a good game, and may the best team win.
Go Green Death!
I LOVE this guy. I wish he coached my daughter's team!
Though my daughter's coach is very good, and thinks along the same lines. He is just not quite so vocal about it.
I guess the parents were wimps in school and had mommy protect them all their lives.
What is the reason for getting the ball in the net if you don't keep score? Is it wrong to celebrate a job well done?
LOL! Thats an understatement.
This is probably his typical post game speech:
"Over? Did you say 'over'? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!"
[...consequences the better. My heckling of the refs is actually helping them develop as people. The political correctness police are not welcome on my sidelines.]
This man should be coaching a boys team, not the girls whose moms live their sad life through their children.
Politcal correctness is hard and cruel and should be destroyed.
That said, I think it would be fine for high schoolers
I think DD played for him ;-) b/c that is her outlook on soccer: an opportunity to run rough-shod over anyone in her way.
That said ... at 6 and 7 years old the big thing is that ALL the kids want a piece of the ball, so you basically have two color-coded clumps of kids milling around.
He probably needs to work with older kids
An hilarious letter. Have already photocopied it for the kids’ coaches. I think the true measure of things is whether the children enjoy him.
HAHAHAHA...Best comedy film EVEH!!!
what a great coach...the mistake he did was writing it. it strikes me some of the parents with a child who should get a medal for ‘taking part’ were the ones who outed him.
this is a perfect half time speech to the team that is loosing. CRY HAVOC, LET LOOSE THE DOGS OF WAR!!!! GO GREEN DEATH!!!
instead you will now have a lispy matrosexual (or however the hell you spell that word), talking about inclusiveness and taking part and understanding the other team, when loosing 15 to 0.
They have no humor there, non-PC tongue in cheek least of all.
In fact, your standard Bostonian doesn't even realize that a joke is being told unless it includes the F word and a derogatory reference to Jesus Christ.
I’m not so sure that this is what six and seven year old girls play soccer for. Winning is more fun than losing, agreed, but at least half the girls will be put off by his over-the-top fervor.
It’s a mistake to project the ambitions of middle-aged men on to very young girls. They may find it off putting and stop playing altogether. I remember when my daughter was that age she played soccer on a mediocre team, but it gave her a bunch of friends and a lot of exercise. She also swam on a town swim team that dominated the state (and had for at least a decade). The swim coach’s philosophy was simple: stay in the pool at least two hours a day, six or seven days a week.
http://www.pattonhq.com/speech.html
Not “let's all be compassionate and equal”
The coach is an idiot.
my high tech dialup connection isn’t opening this up.
Any other way I can view the entire letter?
We have a president now that grew up with the "touchy feely" "everybody is a winner!" life, and he is a bully that doesn't like people talking bad about him. It hurts his feelings.
Let the kids have some competition. I think this coach is a bit over the edge, but I think he is more trying to prove a point. I like it and would let my girls play on his team. I would be his assistant any season.
A bit over the top for 6 and 7 year old girls.
Sounds like some of the coaches of youth sports I know - the ones I don’t care for. Not because they want to win - what person doesn’t - those kids keep track of the score even when no one else does.
I know some coaches at the grade school level who are just living thru their kids. They dreamed of becoming some shining star athelete but never made the grade - now they demand winning from their boys. You should see some of the fat dad coaches yelling at their boys. Did you know there is crying in baseball? (Contrary to the line in “A League of Their Own.) It happens when overbearing dad coaches stress out their little champions to the point of near meltdown. My God Son plays on a team like this. They are all great little players but are pushed too hard if you ask me. They are going to burn out at a young age.
Most of the games end up with the Dad’s yelling at the Kids, the kid’s breaking down, the mom’s get mad at the dad’s and everyone rides home in silence. Unless they win - in which case Dad is on cloud nine like he won some great prize.
So while his letter may have mostly been in jest - he seems better suited to coach older kids. IMO
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