HoopClinics

by Brian Williams
The Coaching Toolbox

My belief is that there are some areas that coaches should not discuss with parents:

1)  Other Players on the Team

2)  Playing Time

3)  Strategy

Basketball coaches should not ignore all parent requests for meetings, but the purpose of the meeting should be to help the player in some way that does not involve the other players, strategy, or playing time.

Most would agree that it is never appropriate to allow parents to come in for a meeting with the coaches and bad mouth another player by saying that their child should be playing more and why.

If you as a coach, talk with a parent about playing time, you are talking about other players in a roundabout way.  Playing time is a limited quantity. If a parent lobbies successfully for an increase, the coach must take it away from another player.

Even if the parent is also a basketball coach, it is not productive to ever talk strategy with parents.   Strategy is based on what has happened in practice and on the scouting reports, to which  parents do not have access.  Strategy involves hiding weaknesses and playing to strengths which is also based on personnel.  So essentially, by allowing a parent to influence your strategy, he or she could indirectly be influencing the playing time of some team members.

In the end, there is just not enough time to accommodate every request for a meeting.  Once you start the meetings, you set a precedent that everyone can come talk to you.   There simply isn’t enough time for that.

If all parents are informed of the policies and more importantly, why those are the policies, in a pre-season meeting, it will help with parent complaints, but nothing will ever eliminate them. When parent complaints do arise, John Maxwell’s advice is golden:  Work to poor water on the fire rather than gasoline so that you can get on to the business of coaching.

Basketball Coaching