“When angry, count four; when very angry swear.”
-Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson
I’m not perfect. I use four letter words on occasion with my pals. I listen to and will sometimes repeat a tasteless joke. Although at practice or games, I will not use foul language. It is an unnecessary distraction that can be easily eliminated from your repertoire. By stopping this poor habit yourself, this stressing of “proper” language will be passed on to your players. I did it, so can you.
Let us not forget about the teenage mind. It likes things like Beavis & Butthead, Will Farrell movies, and Jackass. Wait a minute…… so do I!!! Most of us were guilty of the same thing at that age and some of us still are. Remember the first time you saw Caddyshack or Major League? The parts that left us with our sides ready to burst were the cussing parts. Last weekend, I saw the movie “The Hangover”. There were more teenagers there than adults. Kids today are surrounded by vulgar language. The vast majority of reality shows on television and hip-hop albums are full of bleeped out vulgarity. These kids aren’t stupid. The “bleep everything out and it’s acceptable society” in which today’s youth are exposed does not help coaches trying to run a class operation.
As coaches, when we swear, we create a distraction. When we are explaining fielding technique and an expletive pops out, the focus of the lesson is lost, because the players are all snickering about a word they weren’t supposed to hear. We then are stuck re-teaching skills more than we want come drill time. Whether you use 20 or just one little four letter word, all they’ll remember is the swearing.
Swearing is absolutely uncalled for with umpires. I get upset with umpires’ performances and explanations (or lack of) from time to time. By swearing at umps, they will put up a wall at not hear what you have to say. As well, how many calls do you think you will get later? Not many. On top of this you will have trouble getting the quality umpires to do games for your school or organization if you get a reputation of being a hot head with a potty mouth. Ultimately, your kids lose out on a quality experience.
Dealing with some parents can be especially frustrating at times. No matter how frustrated you get when dealing with an unruly or unreasonable parent, never use foul language. If the parent starts using poor language you’ve got two choices 1) assertively ask them not to, or 2) walk away. One time I had to meet with the parents of a player that I cut from my roster. To be honest, I would’ve rather taken a Roger Clemens heater to the skull than sit down with these two particular parents. They were notoriously poor examples of what team parents should be. The player in question didn’t come to the meeting, which let me know who making the team was more important to. I listened to their point of view for about 15 minutes. Then I stated mine for about 3 minutes. I gave them detailed reasons why their son was not chosen to be a part of our season. Believe it or not, they weren’t satisfied. Shocker! They began to berate me with a machine gun blast of curse words that would’ve made Richard Pryor blush. I got up from the conference table and left. When asked to re-meet with them by the athletic director of my school, I refused. That was during my first season as head coach and my first “cut”. I am so thankful that I had the sense not to fall into the unprofessional trap of cursing that I was invited into at that meeting. If I had, my athletic director or even principal would’ve had to reprimand me and possibly even order me to rethink my decision to cut that player. Where would my credibility have been? I shutter to think.
Most importantly DO NOT ALLOW YOUR PLAYERS TO SWEAR. It isn’t cute. It’s not a ”boys will be boys” thing. It’s not “showing intesity” when a baseball or softball player curses. It’s more like revealing stupidity. Nothing is more bush league than to see a group of uniformed players swearing like sailors. It doesn’t say much for the program that they are supposedly representing. Also, you never know whose watching. It could be a scout or a college coach. Who knows? One foul mouthed idiot could make that person not interested in anyone in your program, both current and future. I’ve found two strategies to alleviate my players desire to use foul language:
- Find not-so-fun activities for your players to take part in. This is a nice way of saying, use punishment. Running is good but it usually takes the player away from valuable practice time. I prefer good old-fashioned push-ups. They’re quick, can easily be increased in number, and great for the triceps.
- Help your players find sensible alternatives. The sillier the word, the better it is. Some of my personal favorites are “son of a biscuit”, “cheese and crackers”, “fire truck”, “crimany sakes”, and the best of “holy buckets”. Sure it’s a little corny, but these are safe and sound so stupid sometimes it will bring much needed levity to a number of frustrating situations. I had particularly edgy group of high school players that began to police themselves by making the each other do push-ups when one of them slipped up. As well, they had a blast coming up with alternatives to the typical foul words. Of course, I had final say if the alternative was acceptable or not.
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