Coaching your kids
Author: By MAGGIE WOLFF PETERSON

Today, 17-year-old China Miller is a scholarship athlete who is plotting her course through college. But in fourth grade, the Hagerstown teenager was a neophyte volleyball player whose father was her first coach.
"I said, 'I want to play' because I had reached the age that I could," Miller says. "So he said he'd coach."
Miller's father, David, was an experienced player.
"I grew up going to tournaments," China Miller says. "I'd hang around all day and watch him play."
But coaching was something new. Navigating this relationship has meant separating the coach from the parent.
"It's difficult at times," China Miller says. "It's the tension between the father and the daughter. But in the end, it's the best thing. It's something good that we've shared."
For his part, David Miller is proud of his daughter's achievements and thrilled with the scholarships she has earned. Most of her first two years of college are covered, and China is being scouted by universities, he says.
On the court, China Miller calls her father "David," pronounced with an exaggerated French accent: "Daaah-veed." Off the court, the silly name is dropped.
"He's David, and then he's dad in the car," she says.
For Mark Carpenter of Charles Town, W.Va., coaching baseball for his 8-year-old son's team has been a way to extend his love of the sport.
"I've been in baseball for 15 years," he says. "I've been coaching for five."
Carpenter, who also coached teams his son wasn't on, concedes there are pitfalls to avoid when coaching one's child's team.
Sometimes a coaching parent will favor a child with more playing time than other children get.
"Their kid pitches whether they're any good or not," Carpenter says.
On the other extreme, a coaching parent might withhold support from a child who isn't playing perfectly. Carpenter's father, who coached him, was like that.
"He was an excellent coach," Carpenter says. "But if we made a mental error, we went to the bench. We didn't get a second chance. He was tough."
Carpenter compensates by giving his son, Ross, individualized help away from the team.
"When I'm with him, I coach him. When I'm with the team, I coach the team," he says.
And because he coaches Little League, Carpenter can emphasize the fundamentals of the game, rather than intricate plays or advanced strategy.
"It's throwing, it's catching, it's hitting," he says. "It's not turning double plays. It's not hitting home runs."
In Winchester, soccer coach Bill Bayliss also chose to focus on the youngest players and basic plays. He began as an assistant coach when his sons started playing soccer, though he was never a player himself.
"I was able to get a feel for what was involved," he says.
Like many volunteer coaches, Bayliss jumped into soccer because his sons' league needed leadership. Having begun coaching to support his kids, Bayliss says he will likely stop when the boys grow out of the league.
"There are few coaches that end up staying after their kids grow up," Carpenter says. "That's how most of them got into it. If you're not the coach, they won't have a coach."
Harrison Bayliss, 12, says the best part of having dad as his coach is, "whenever you need help, he's right there."
The downside: "Being your dad, he can scold you a lot easier."
Bayliss, who coaches pre-instructional league soccer, works on conditioning his players with running drills, as well as basic touches to the ball.
"I was never so worried about the score as whether they had some good experience," he says.
Carpenter, too, says his best times coaching haven't always been the wins. The most exciting play in his memory involved an outfielder who was wild about the sport but wasn't a natural athlete.
"He had a baseball mural in his room, a baseball bat-shaped ceiling fan. He loved baseball, but he wasn't very good," Carpenter says.
One day, a ball was hit deep and that boy ran for it.
"He saw it, he ran to it, it hit his glove and it fell out," Carpenter says.
"We were jumping up and down, and high-fiving each other," he says. "The fact that he got there - it was the most exciting play, and the kid missed the ball."

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