Every high school sport is plagued by constant parent complaints. Many of these complaints are caused due to their child’s lack of playing time, or the strategies coaches employ when trying to win games.
Highland athletics director, and long-time baseball coach, Dan Shwam, has dealt with his fair share of parent complaints during his 33 years at the school.
“Countless. It’s the same-old stuff when it comes to parental complaints, usually about playing time, but we don’t listen to those,” Shwam said. “The biggest complaints we’ve had with baseball is how much school time the players are missing because of baseball.”
Obviously, the issue of overbearing parental complaints in high school sports isn’t new. However, the complaints are becoming increasingly harsh, according to Shwam. He believes these complaints have become more often over the years because parents have been investing more time and money than ever in their kids’ athletic careers, but they’re not seeing a return on those investments.
According to a syracuse.com survey in 2016, 58 percent of high school coaches said they’ve considered quitting due to parent’s obnoxious complaints, and 82 percent of coaches said dealing with parents has gotten worse. This survey is nearly 10 years old – and Shwam says it is only getting worse.
Being a high school coach isn’t lucrative but it is time consuming.
Coaches work long hours and receive little pay, usually in the form of a stipend. They almost always work another job to make ends meet. Adding disputes to their already hard-working reliant job makes it unbearable and overwhelming to complete each game throughout the season. Dealing with complaints, and not making a top salary, makes finding coaches difficult at times, says Highland principal Jeremy Chatterton.
“What’s made it tricky is that teachers don’t necessarily want to coach anymore. We don’t have a lot of teachers who are head coaches because it’s gotten harder to do both,” Chatterton said.
On top of that, varsity coaches are asked to not only win games but try and keep everyone satisfied with playing time or with their role on the team. Creating this balance is delicate and a near impossible feat. Coaches also must continue to build a team culture while the outside sources continue to hurt that chance.
“It’s hard. You take more time trying to fix an outside problem, then trying to actually fix and coach the baseball team. I’ve experienced complaints whether you win or you lose it doesn’t matter,” Shwam said.
Coaches’ mental health can be derailed by these parent threats, because some of them are hard to ignore.
“You start to feel like you’re caught in the middle, and it can become mentally draining to deal with when you don’t know who to trust or listen to. It makes it a tough job for all coaches,” Shwam said.
Even parent involvement happens at the highest level. In March of 2024, USMNT soccer star, Gio Reyna’s father made headlines to increase his sons playing time by making harsh comments to help threaten manager, Gregg Berhalter’s job.
In college sports, parent complaints are more prevalent than ever due to the transfer portal, social media, and NIL. Pressure from parents to have their child garner more NIL or get more playing time can cause their child to enter the transfer portal and enroll somewhere even if it’s not the right fit.
Dealing with parent complaints can become near impossible as the number of complaints move along during the season.
“Complaining is just the nature of high school athletics. It hurts the program no doubt when the complaints are coming, because it’s hard to give the kids a chance to fight their own battle,” Shwam said.
While there are a handful of parent complainers, most parents are supportive of what the coach is doing.
“Overall, the parents want to do the right thing and you’re going to need parental support to get through things, because of the current state of high school athletics. To be successful, you need to have parents support the program and the players, and I think we mostly accomplish that here at Highland,” Shwam said.
