Attitude So Bad They Bring Your Whole Team Down?
Image via Wikipedia Can One Player Destroy a Team?
The trading of Manny Ramirez today makes me ask the question, is a single player’s attitude enough to bring an entire team down? An analyst on ESPN today wondered why in an "individual sport" the Red Sox would trade their best player. How, he asked, could one player bring down an entire team?
Absolutely
This may or may not be true at the major league level, but in youth sports I say ABSOLUTELY a bad attitude can destroy an entire team. A bad attitude on a weak player will probably not effect a team, but a star player w/ a bad attitude will destoy the entire team’s moral.
Just Say No
I know coaches, and I am one of them, who will pass on a player w/ an attitude even if he or she has more talent than the next selection in the draft. I will take 12 average players with good attitudes to 12 superstars that can’t get along or don’t listen. I will usually win also. It is amazing how you can bring a team together with eager kids and a lot of hard work. It is equally as interesting how much faster a team can be torn apart by a kid with an attitude.
What About the Parents?
Another thing that will tear a team apart is a disrespectful parent. How will a kid ever respect the authority of a coach if their parents don’t show the coach respect? I once had an all-star team of fairly talented players. We were playing a team we should have beaten. I had the tying run on 3rd and one of my best bunters at the plate. I gave the squeeze sign. The ball came in at a perfect bunt level, the runner took off for home, and the kid swang and missed! Easy out. We never recovered.
What angered me the most was the look the kid gave me after fanning at the pitch. It was as to say, "I am not going to listen to you because my dad said I don’t have too". I know his dad had told him this because his dad did not respect me. I really don’t care what his dad thought of me, but as parents, we have to instruct our kids to respect the authority figure.
Of course this guy was a regular season coach as well and could have put in for the all-star team. He chose instead to sit in the stands and critisize me constantly. Again, I don’t care, but the effect it had on the entire team was disasterous.
Get Rid of the Cancer
Apparently the Red Sox thought that Manny was such a cancer on their team that they were better off without him! How bad of an attitude do you have to have to get traded from the team that you have delivered over 100 RBI’s and hit over 300 for 8 years for? I can relate, I will NEVER draft another kid with a bad attitude or a bad parent. Life is too short not to have to put up with an ungrateful parent or kid.
What is the worst experience you have had with a kid?
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I once had a kid with a lot of natural ability but marginal skills. His Dad says that he played baseball in college but sometimes I questioned it quietly. All of our coaches would teach our fundamentals from the book “The Ripken Way” just so that we were on the same page and the kids got a consistent message. Everytime this kid would go home, his Dad would contradict everything we were teaching. This kid would be so confused, poor kid. We once asked his Dad if he could attend some of our practices so that he could re-inforce our messages with his kid at home. The Dad declined but continued help/hurt his kid by putting him on his own program. As a result, the kid played less and probably didn’t enjoy the experience as much as the other kids.
I have discovered that some people aren’t happy unless they are miserable. They have to complain constantly and never respect or support authority.
Fortunately, this is the exception and not the norm. My advice? Simply don’t draft those kids on your team. The negative influence they have on the team far outweighs any physical ability they have.
This post interests me for a couple different reasons. As a die-hard Dodgers fan, I wasn’t too pleased when I initially learned that Manny would be wearing Dodgers Blue. Now that we’re in the playoffs, I couldn’t be happier. The sad fact is that professional teams are run like a business…big business. Players are treated like commodities. I traveled once with the Oakland Raiders and learned just how dysfunctional a team can be. It gives you more sympathy for the athlete, regardless of how much money they are making.
On the Little League level, I currently have a player who has a lot of talent but a terrible attitude. We’ve outlined what it means to be a team player and the consequences if you are not. I believe that a lot of his attitude comes from issues/problems at home, so I try to understand that he’s still a child who loves to play baseball. It’s not easy to deal with, but it’s part of youth organized sports. Coaches should be given handbooks on child psychology to deal with the 12-13 different personalities and egos in the typical Little League team.
Isn’t the main factor in having Manny his attitude though? He has so much better of an attitude since going to the Dodgers as he did when he first went to the Red Sox. Attitude is everything.
I couldn’t agree more on the child psychology thing. It has taken me 19 years to learn about it and the past 6 or 7 with girls that was a whole new psychology to learn. I think the main thing to remember is stay focused, provide positive reinforcement, and rule with a strict disciplinary code of conduct.
The problems happen when the parents don’t support your actions and rebellion begins in the stands. Baseball gives the parents plenty of free time to criticize the coaching, and they are often happy to do so.