Coaching - not a single thank you

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I have been coaching for about 5 years now but this year I took on a role as head coach to an U16 girls football group. The season was 18 weeks long, we had about 40 training sessions, 9 matches. We got to a final at the weekend which unfortunately we lost but was still a great achievement
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I did 16 hours coaching training to upskill my coaching qualification. I spent many hours planning training, organizing matches, recruiting new players. We got 7 new players this season, no other team in the club has done this.

Our season is over now and I put up a message on the team chat (for parents) to say well done to the all girls, it was great to coach them etc and not a single response did I get. Not a single thank you for your time.

I gave up 2/3 evenings a week, rushing home from work, no dinner and straight to the pitch. I put in a huge effort to ensure the girls were trained well, were fit, skills improved, confidence build as individuals and as a team.

I understand that people who havent coached before dont understand the level of time commitment it takes but they do see the training and matches.

WTF is wrong is people. I dont coach for thanks as I know you dont get it but seriously AIBU in thinking it is just plain rude and entitled.

When did you put the message up?

I’m shocked there is not even one reply!

I say thank you almost automatically.
I teach my DC to say thank you too.

I would have 100% replied saying what a great job they all did and thank you for your time and effort etc.

I volunteer for a conservation charity and I give up lots of my time to do it, I find it rewarding and I like to think I make a difference but to be honest we are under appreciated, undervalued and we get a lot of abuse from the general public. It’s disheartening and I’m trying to step back due to those issues but I do enjoy the volunteer roles I do, it’s just a shame that everyone around us volunteers, treats us like crap!

Without volunteers a lot of we know and love will stop so that’s everything from sports, scouting, public spaces, wildlife conservation (including helplines) and even tourism! The general public need to be nice or else they will shut forever as no one will fill the spaces left behind ( because why would the if they are get abused for free?)

We gladly accept help from MILs, FILs, aunts, uncles, older sisters, cousins etc :)

As they say, it takes a village and if people want these groups to continue to run, helping out 1hr per term hopefully isnt beyond wildest imagination. Otherwise as pp have said, it will just be cancelled and ultimately the kids will be the ones who lose out.

I do enjoy it to an extent in that some of the girls are really lovely and I get satisfaction from seeing them develop. However I have 25 teenage personalities to manage, girls who wouldnt look at each other off the pitch and it requires a lot of work and diplomacy. I also have about 10/12 girls who are not natural footballers and normally dont get game time and I worked hard to give them all fair game time and an opportunity to develop while trying to remain competitive.
I had a complaint go to the club committee because I didnt play one girl in one match. It was our 7th match and she had played in 6, it was the only match she didnt play and her parents complained. I gave her more game time than any other coach had but it still wanst good enough.

On the whole, I think most volunteers do enjoy what they do. But if parents treat them like child care, are late picking kids up, are rude and generally expect too much, volunteers are just going to give up.

As others have pointed out, most forms of volunteering involve much more than the 90 mins the children are involved. The hours of planning, preparation, training etc go unnoticed. This is often to the detriment of the volunteers' own families.

You missed the bit where OP said she rushes home from work. Regardless, what a spiteful and jealous thing to say that she's privileged not having to work. That's what you jump to, what you take from the situation, not the fact she's devoting her time to others.
Op and all the other selfless volunteers out there are under no obligation to volunteer, whether they are fitting in a job or not. In a world where folk think "whats in it for me " that there are people who devote time and energy to others is remarkable. The attitude of the self entitled who expect them to be their servants without recognition, out of jealousy , because they imagine their lot in life is worse stinks.

I worked in management for a bank branch, some staff, young people including graduates, had to be taught basic manners with customers. What on earth were their parents thinking ?I was stunned but got used to it. My three year old dgc says please and thank you. Something lacking in the way some kids are raised, this results in the op situation. In the age situation I would spell it out what the subs cover and that you are not paid, leave them in no doubt.
I am a choir member and always make a point of thanking our director, sometimes a card or flowers. I can tell she likes being appreciated for all the work she puts in. Basic human decency

If the parents actually took an interest in the club they would understand that not everyone can play every match.
Also, that if their child frequently fails to turn up for training without so much as a text message, they can hardly complain if child is dropped from the team.

I think its got worse over the past few years - I spent 9 years coaching girls rugby for under 18s, 15s and 13s (2008- 2017) . Often spent the whole of Sunday coaching rugby as the matches were in the afternoons but groups without a match trained in the morning. Gave lifts in my car and dropped players to their individual homes afterwards for away games where parents had spent the morning watching the boys and couldn't support the girls too, washed the kit myself, mid-week training on a Weds evening, arranged matches, sponsorship, end of season dinners, planned sessions etc etc. In appreciation, every year the girls clubbed together and bought each of the coaches a bottle of wine and wrote a card. Each Christmas, we got several individual bottles and cards and thankyous from the parents too!

The last couple of years I was coaching there was definitely more entitlement from the parents and less appreciation. Didn't get a single Christmas card from the last group I coached which was the final nail in the coffin - the whole process had become a chore for which I received no thanks whatsoever and I had enough.

I kind of hope this ends up in a Daily Rag so that some parents can feel some bloody shame. Awful.

So rude not to say thank you. I find it a lot driving my dd to football and games 3 times a week and it is very obvious coaches do far more than that!! They might not understand the work that goes into it while not at training but they are at the very least aware of training/game/travel time.

It is brilliant for teens especially girls to stick in at sport and great your team are enjoying it. Well done!

Thats disgusting we always thank our coach. Well done you. You have given the girls skills and a great experience x

Perhaps your MIL could have stayed for 1 hour on occasion then? We've had the odd granny stay and help from time to time.

If no one volunteers then all the children lose out and presumably parents don't want that?

I used to be in a not too dissimilar role and the parents genuinely felt they were doing me a favour by bringing their children along.

Long term volunteer here. 20 years ago, the week before Christmas we would need to take a few plastic bags to bring home all the gifts we would get to say thank you.

Now? I've not received as much as a card for years.

It's not the value of the gift (and as others have said, a card is more than ample), it's that the parent thought about us and appreciated what we did for their kid and the time we gave up. I still have homemade Christmas tree decs that I've been given, plus other small items.

People assume you are doing it because you want to. But usually there would be a collection for a present at the end of the course.

That's a weird take on what I said. I used to be on the PTA committee (somehow for five years) when DDs were small and I was working in a full on professional job for 4 days a week, I've no idea how I did it now.

Some people's lot in life really is a lot worse and there are numerous people who can't volunteer. Plus a lot of this falls to women. There are tons of men going blithely off to work in nice comfortable jobs who would never think of spending their evening running around playing football with kids. Though it is their choice - the big bit of volunteering is the voluntary bit.

I'm not saying people don't deserve thanks. But you also have to acknowledge the good fortune of your life and time being organised and settled enough that you can give of yourself to others. I'm very grateful that people do. But please also be understanding that many people can't- yes some are just selfish twats but some people genuinely are too busy with full on jobs and/or full on lives to give their time. Or they may well have done their bit in the past and don't feel like doing it now.

One reason the Big Society didn't work is David Cameron just blithely expected women to take on all this extra unpaid work. Er, we are working mate, and already doing loads of unpaid work too, so er, no.

They had enough help and we weren't asked.

I’ve noticed a real drop off in those words like please, thank you, excuse me, pardon, etc - the ones that while technically superfluous to a situation, are also oiling the wheels of society. I’m not sure if it’s a post pandemic issue, or just my middle aged grumpiness antennae tuning up.

I have an autistic ds and he struggled with these as a child, - please was fine because it was part of getting what he wanted but thank you was pointless if he already had it, and greetings just slowed him down! It made me think carefully about them, and made me more conscious of them in daily life. I honestly believe that the fact that dh and I use them so much with each other is a factor in our marriage.

I’m sorry that you’ve been left feel unappreciated op, but you’ve given me a wake up to be sure to thank the people in my dc’s lives who are making a difference, and remind them to do so too. In secondary, we take a massive step back as parents.

I actually feel really bad now because although there was a fee for my daughter's gymnastics class, looking back it can't have covered more than the hall hire. I had assumed that the teacher's were paid, maybe through a subsidy - but now it seems likely that they were volunteers.

I did thank them anyway of course at the end of term but I think i would have been more specific and effusive and mentioned the time they were giving up if I'd known. And maybe brought a gift.

As a scout leader I often find that people don't realise we are volunteers. Although that shouldn't prevent people from saying thank you.

DDs gymnastics was pretty expensive and was run as a business.

Fellow volunteer coach (of a different sport) - I hear you. I have never got a heartfelt thanks or present or anything from either parents or the head coach. Like you I have given up free time to coach, take on extra qualifications, attend competitions... on top of working full time.

I wonder if parents believe as they pay for a service that that is good enough?

Putnam's Bowling Alone:The Collapse and Revival of American Community

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BowlingAlone

Paraphrasing, Putnam's argues that the loss of volunteerism is linked to the loss of civic engagement which "a strong democracy requires from its citizens".

It's difficult not to accept the premise that stable societies depend upon social capital and it's been eroded on a substantial scale.