Letter to the editor: Parents need to let school coaches do their job

Talk about it

I’m writing in response to the latest Jamestown Public School Board meeting. I think it’s great for the School Board to look at different options and find ways for students to participate in an activity.

One of the problems is finding coaches to coach these in-house teams. I’m sure there are many parents who would love to see this, but these are also the same parents who are preventing people involved in coaching. It’s hard enough trying to find qualified coaches who want to coach. For many years there has been a rotating door of coaches at Jamestown High School. The main reason for this is the parents. There is absolutely no way to make the parents happy. If you add teams, you will have complaints from parents about which team their child is on, or complaints about who the coach is. If you don’t cut players, you have complaints from parents about the amount of playing time their child is getting.

Jamestown offers many athletic and fine arts programs — some of which are finding it hard to fill rosters. Hopefully the student athletes who are cut from the program will take advantage of this. The worst part of coaching is cutting a player; no coach ever wants to do it. It’s something that has to be done though. The best thing a parent can do is support his or her child. Parents should never approach a coach or administrator about their child either being cut from a team, or not playing enough. If they talk to one of them about more playing time for their child, it’s taking away playing time from another parent’s child. You can only have so many players on a roster, that’s the way it goes.

The Jamestown Public School Board and administration should be applauded for trying to find ways for students to participate in an activity. Parents just need to let the administration and the coaches do their jobs. Some parents just can’t handle their child playing a sport.

Trevor Wilson

Lignite, N.D.

(Wilson, a teacher and athletic director for Burke Central School, Lignite, was an assistant high school baseball coach for 10 years in Jamestown Public Schools)

Tags: opinion, letters, school, sports, coaches, teams, jays, activities