Monrovia softball coach Randy Medina and his entire staff abruptly resigned, basically saying the pressure and expectations from parents forced him to come to the conclusion that returning for a 12th season wasn’t worth it. “Our expectations was we wanted to do well in league and go as far as we can in CIF,” Medina said. “To an extent I like the extra intensity that goes into travel ball, and I’m all for that. But the players, most of them play travel ball year round with intense schedules with four or five games in a weekend. High school is to be with your friends. It’s a different mindset. It just came down to where it felt that they being the parents weren’t happy and things got back to me. It’s a small town. A lot of parents were on my side and they said people are saying this about you.”
“My big problem was I had three parents who were not happy. They would talk about the program behind my back in adverse conditions. I think that hurt me the most. They were willing to talk about me, about my players and about my staff, sort of behind the team’s back. And that bothered me. It bothered me that my staff was being talked about as ineffective. That’s what hurt.”
Fred’s thoughts: I enjoyed covering Medina in MTown while I was at the Star News, he always came across as a knowledgeable coach with a genuine passion for what he was doing. He wanted to win as much as anyone, that was clear, and was a great example of what a high school coach should be. That’s not enough for some parents, particularly travel ball parents who feel more entitled, but I wish Medina would have stayed on and not allowed the distractions to get under his skin. We deal with it in the newspaper business too, specialization has made experts out of everyone, and the experts love telling you why certain coaches aren’t qualified, why so-and-so is better than so-and-so, and so on. Most parents are great, but the experts can be nauseating. My feeling is, the experts aren’t going anywhere, so just deal with it rather than allow them to chase you off, which is why I wish Medina would have stayed on. Here’s an idea for all the experts, you want to speak and make your opinions known? Any expert out there who has trouble with a coach and wants to debate or discuss the reasons on camera with me, I’m all in. I would love to see what you have to say when the spotlight’s on you.
