Coaches Dangerous Coach

[LAnderson]

We are a parent run non profit gym (unfortunately) and we recently lost a really great level 5 coach who was then replaced with a 16 year old who has never coached team. I am a level 3 coach and also a parent of a level 5 gymnast. This is girl is awful! We were told before she started that she wasn't going to be spotting the girls because she broke her back when she was a gymnast and the spotting coach would be stepping in. Never happened, she spotted them anyway and after she dropped my daughter twice spotting front walkovers on high beam, the optional coaches stepped in and had my daughter start working out with them for safety reasons. We are losing level 5's left and right, this girl is emotionally and verbally abusive to the gymnasts. We all watched in horror last night as one of the level 5's stood on the high beam bawling for 10 minutes because she was scared to do her back hand spring (she is in no way ready to do this on high beam) and the coach verbally cut her down and wouldn't let her off the beam. She has cussed at the girls, demeaned them, dropped them over and over again, and our board will not do anything about it. All of the coaches are feeling like we're being held hostage by a teenage coach! Every time we have expressed concerns about this coach, we've been called liars and nothing is ever done about it. What would you do (besides quit)?

 

[Redford]

It is naiv to think anyone who has never coached before can just go ahead a coach a team. Coaching is VERY different from doing gymnastics. Everyone needs at least half a year of being an assistant to another coach in order to get to know the responsibilities of a coach and get a certain reportoi of exercises, drills, spotting tecniques, problem solving strategies .....
I was one of those girls who learned to coach at 17 because someone had to fill the gap, paid my own coaching license and during the past few years I mainly learned through trial and error, youtube and chalkbucket but even I had SOME kind of mentoring for a while before I realized that my mentor is doing a pretty horrible job at coaching and we gradually switched roles. Took me a solid year to get to that point.
What's happening at your gym is the following: they desperatly needed someone to fill the gap and just threw in a former gymnast without any knowledge whatsoever. Said gymnast most likely never expirienced any proper coaching as an active gymnst (of which the broken back is a rather convincing indicator) and didn't know what to do with her group so she just looks up the level 5 skills and tells the girls to do them. This strategy obviously doesn't work out so everyone involved gets frustrated. Instead of looking for her own faults (as few normal 16 year old girls do) she now blames the girls.
In conclusion: While it is the girls fault to treat the gymnasts the way she does and to not admit her own failure, one could not actually expect her to go out there without any coaching expirience and be an awesome level 5 coach. She is also not an adult so the gym is fully responsible for her actions and the current situation. Thus, if they are ignoring it, they are creating a safety issue and as with any other safety issue it's either fixed (and pretty quick too) or you leave. Maybe join forced with other parents/coaches to emphazise your claims. They surely don't want to loose any more coaches if they already short? (But honestly, it doesn't sound like you're being treated very well anyway...) I really don't see any other option, unless you want to take over a board position and/or be the new level 5 coach.

 

[raenndrops]

What's happening at your gym is the following: they desperatly needed someone to fill the gap and just threw in a former gymnast without any knowledge whatsoever. Said gymnast most likely never expirienced any proper coaching as an active gymnst (of which the broken back is a rather convincing indicator) and didn't know what to do with her group so she just looks up the level 5 skills and tells the girls to do them. This strategy obviously doesn't work out so everyone involved gets frustrated.

A broken back may not be a convincing indicator of not getting proper coaching. We had a girl at Old L4 that had a broken back… and actually it had NOTHING to do with improper coaching. She didn't even think anything was wrong with her BACK. She had mild HIP pain. Competed her first meet. Qualified for Y Nationals and was 2nd place in her age group All Around (1st on Vault) and her mom decided to take her to a sports med urgent care that they had passed on the way to the meet to get the hip checked out - it had bothered her for about 4 days (only one of which was a practice day… and she took it a little easy that day). Turned out to be a broken back. That was years ago.

She is now getting ready for her senior year of high school and is a coach at the gym - she coaches rec classes. She knows what she is capable of and would not ever think about doing something she had not been trained to do.

I don't think it is necessarily the AGE of the new Level 5 "coach" that is the biggest issue… I think it is that she doesn't care about the gymnasts or that her personality is incompatible with coaching.

With that being said, she should NOT be coaching ANY group, especially by herself!

 

[MissM]

We were in a similar situation at our gym for a time. 16 year old athlete coaching rec kids since we were so short staffed and she wanted a light job. Job wasn't as light as she thought and she ended up snapping on kids left and right. What I did was, every time I saw/heard this happening I would walk over and step in, work with her for a couple minutes, work with the kids too. It made it clear to the 16 year old that she shouldn't be talking to little kids like that, but also made it clear to the kids that they have to be attentive when she's talking (her lack of ability to control the group was the biggest problem for her so she'd let the irritability show). Session ended and she quit the job. We're still short staffed but this is probably better.

I agree with other people, it just sounds like she hasn't really had a good.mentor to help her learn to coach. Some people make lousy athletes and amazing coaches, some people are amazing athletes and lousy coaches, and some are just awesome altogether! However, people tend to think coaching is a job, not a career that requires skill. As I know I don't have what it takes to be a computer programmer, I don't apply for jobs in the IT industry.

Someone needs to get real with this kid. She is still a kid and I agree that it is entirely the gym's responsibility for her actions. However, many 16 year old girls (myself included when I was that age) sometimes just need that verbal boot to the head to wake them up. Point out the kid sobbing on beam. Point out the kids that quit. Point out that it's hard to believe that there is something wrong with every child she works with, but not with anyone else's athletes. SHE is the common denominator in the equation. But- do this as kindly and gently as possible since she, too, is still a child.

I don't believe her back is a factor in any of this, it's just an unfortunate situation. Could have been bad coaching, could be that she cheated on her strength for years. Could just be overuse. Tough to tell. I'm curious why the spotter isn't spotting like she was told they would be. That may be adding into her frustration and she's resultantly taking it out on the kids.

Good luck with all this!

 

[ayyyrial]

In a coaching or teaching situation, if you aren't confident that you have control over the class that can lead to yelling and poor treatment. There are so many coaching skills you don't learn from doing gymnastics - crowd control, dealing with younger children, time management during short rotations.

She doesn't have to be fired necessarily. Move her to a lower level class or a rec class where the potential for dangerous situations is lower and make sure she knows what the rules are for how she treats her students. Rec classes might even be better since they tend to be shorter time chunks. Ideally, have her co-coach a lower level so she can see what a more experienced coach does.

 

[twinklytoes9468]

What is the management structure? Who are you reporting this girl to?
I would suggest all you coaches put your concerns in writing and maybe send be recorded delivery to whoever is in charge, . it is much more difficult to brush a written complaint under the carpet.

 

[twinklytoes9468]

Also it doesn't sound as though she should have put your daughter fwd w/overs anywhere near the high beam if she needs support.She hould be building moves upwards from the 'line' very very gradually making sure she is confident and consistent at every level before she goes up to next height

 

[LAnderson]

Just an update on this coach, she was finally fired. But is working at another gym in the next town. She did work at another gym in town before us and was constantly in trouble for her bad attitude and know it all attitude. She had to be shadowed at the previous gym at all times. Things got much worse before she left, she became physically abusive with the girls, jerking them around by their shoulder and grabbing their leg when they were sitting on the floor and twisting it. The board still did nothing. It took a parent finally writing a long letter about how miserable their daughter was before they fired her. None of the complaints by other coaches were ever addressed because we were "biased". In fact one of rumors going around was that the other coaches were just jealous because, "she was younger and prettier." Gimme a break, it was all about the kids to the coaches.

 

[Pineapple_Lump]

Glad to hear that the club finally took some action. How many kids were lost in the delay? I it a shame more of those families did not mention the reason they were leaving to management.

 

[LAnderson]

Level 5's started off with 6 girls and by the time she left, there were 2 left and none of the level 4's were moved up because parents didn't not want their gymnasts with this coach.