The scariest thing I remember wasn't the coach throwing but the coach not giving a crap about kids getting hurt. There was a kid in sixth grade, and he was fairly chubby but threw ridiculously hard. I threw hard, but this dude had an overdrive gear. And while I tended to throw low to make catching it tough, he threw high to intimidate and freeze people up, and on more than one occasion, he hit people in the head and sometimes knocked them to the ground. Lots of games ended with him and me in one-on-one duels, and those were scary as hell. He usually won those.
The coach did nothing about it - didn't tell him to slow it down or to avoid the head. In fact he kinda celebrated it. He'd drill some dork in the head, and make his dork glasses fly off his head while he fell to the ground, and the coach would just yell, "great throw, Scotty!" He wouldn't even acknowledge that another kid just got the **** knocked out of him or care if he was ok. One day, he hit a girl in the face and bloodied her nose and mouth. What did the coach do? He handed her a wad of tissues and said, "walk it off, and watch out next time, especially when Scott's out there. He'll knock your head right off."
Last edited: Jun 12, 2019