[IRISH4]

I've watched many games over the years and have played a lot of baseball (high school and college) and I've come to some conclusions about coaches and their yelling. Coaches do not yell to intentionally hurt a player's feelings or to belittle them for an ego/power trip. Any person who is willing to do that I view unfit to work close to a group of monkeys let alone an impressionable child. However, coaches yell at their players to allow them to know they made a mistake and they are capable of doing better. If a coach says nothing when mistakes are made then it would be viewed as an acceptable behavior/action which isn't the case. That would be about like a parent not whipping their child for drawing on walls with crayons, grounding their child for failing in school by not doing their work, or get upset with them for a run-in with the law (all hypothetical situations, but all are actions shown by parents that do care). I would worry when a coach would stop yelling because if that's ever the case it means that they have given up or just don't care about what's going on.

Coaches know what their players are capable of and want them to all perform at his/her best even if it seems that might not be the case. I played under one of the toughest, hard-nosed baseball coaches in the history of Kentucky baseball in the late Charlie Adkins. You better believe if you made a mistake you were yelled at, but no one took it to heart. We knew that we should've made the throw, got the bunt down, made the catch, etc....but more was expected from us. We were expected to execute and expected to win each time we stepped on the field. It worked for him for 34 years and helped him win 805 games and become a legend and no one was upset for him yelling.

I think that kids aren't mentally as tough as they used to be. I know the Lawrence Co. staff well and have seen several of their varsity and JV games and couldn't ask for a classier guy than Randy Bowen. Once again, coaches yell to get the most out of their players and for them to reach potential....not to put them down.