Seeing Red

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I have a lot of experience on this subject. ?First, you have to look at the coach. ?If he is a good coach not just book read, but a good coach who is working with the girls on proper form , mechanics etc. then you must look at other issues. ?If he is not a good quality coach then you either have to put up with it or move to another school, point blank. ?Your daughter and her future is more important than which high school you said you graduated from sports speaking. ?

Next, you need to look at the school board. ?What politics do they have. ?Are they there to support the coaches and back them with their decisions or do they cave in to the parents where they get their votes from? ?Many new coaches and even experienced ones have limited contracts and have net been given a continuing contract, so their teaching contract is more important. ?Because if they tell the truth and make someones daughter sit and that person has some connections then that coach may not be hired back. ?I have seen it happen. ?If this is the case get good school boared members who are not influenced as much with the voters. ?

I know someone in this situation and he decided to give up coaching at the high school level because he couldn't be honest with himself because of the contract issue. ?He played to win and in the 5 years that he coached took his high school team farther than they had ever gone. ?He was district of the coach of the year twice, won three conference championships, district champs from a small school in southern ohio. ?But one of the dads who is very connected and an ASA coach was upset and was making waves to the board because the coach wasn't playing the girls like this dad wanted. ?So don't always blame the coach. ?But what you can blame is if this coach sticks around and lies to himself and especially the girls. ?

One interesting point, this same dad has a daughter who plays basketball and he is still as involved like he was in softball, and guess what? ?Even though their team is loaded with talent is stuck in last place because of all the politics. ?So we either need to change the board politics, or move to a school where there is less and want their sports teams to do well no matter who is playing.

If playing sports in high school is important and I think it is, we good parents who wants a fair shake for all the girls including our own needs to get involved with the school politics and get them changed. ?Not just keep talking about this issue year after year after year.? ? ?

 

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High School Sports Suck!

Bottom line is if your daughter wants to play at the next level and is good enough to do so then forget about HS and keep her on a good travel team. College coaches are going to look at summer ball first - at least the ones that are good and worth your daughter playing for will.

HS sports is a feelgood look at me I'm more popular than you and my parents are too place to be and if your not into that then forget about it. It's not worth your time.

 

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Sorry to hear you couldn't make the High School team OP

 

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High School Sports Suck!

Bottom line is if your daughter wants to play at the next level and is good enough to do so then forget about HS and keep her on a good travel team. ?College coaches are going to look at summer ball first - at least the ones that are good and worth your daughter playing for will. ?

HS sports is a feelgood look at me I'm more popular than you and my parents are too place to be and if your not into that then forget about it. ?It's not worth your time.

I have actually been told the exact opposite by quite a few college coaches. Most believe playing A high school sport is important to prove to College coaches that a kid can balance sports and academics. I agree if your good enough to play in college your stats in high school dont mean anything, however, if a coach is looking at you and another kid with similar GPA's and playing ability and one played a high school sport and the other did not, that might be the tipping weight for which way a coach goes, just a thought. BTW High school sports are important beyond the sport in goes in being part of the community and school pride etc.

 

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High School Sports Suck!
HS sports is a feelgood look at me I'm more popular than you and my parents are too place to be and if your not into that then forget about it. ?It's not worth your time.

HS Softball has all the issues that have already been mentioned. Yet...If you ask a very talented girl why she bothers to play for this or that coach...or such a weak team, guess what she'll say 99% of the time?

"I want to play with my school friends and represent my HS"

Theres absolutely nothing wrong with that!

Do your best....be a team player...and parents....BUTT OUT!

Enjoy your HS years and classmates, believe me the years pass way too quickly as alot of posters here can attest to!!

 

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Playing on a High School softball team requires more than softball skills. Girls must also have good social skills, leadership skills, problem solving skills, and probably some others I am forgetting at the moment.

If a girl wants to go on to college, she must be able to overcome whatever challenges she encounters along the way. Colleges want girls with skills who will be team players and represent their school well. They don't want girls who complain because something didn't happen as they expected.

Travel ball and High School ball are different, but both are important because they have different lessons to teach. They may not be plesant lessons, but they are lessons girls can use later in life. Chances are good girls will face situations that **** later in life.

 

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Lady Knights, buckeyesoftball and others hit on some of the things I was going to say. ?And yes, certainly keep up the hard work. ?It might not pay off in this instance, but it will certainly increase her odds, and that's all you can ask for. ?And as others have said, it's the right life lesson. ?In fact, working hard and not obtaining your goal is a pretty good life lesson as well. ?I think kids need more of that so they learn to deal with that reality now, instead of being introduced to it as adults.

I always wonder where these schools are that have school board members, ADs, influential boosters, etc., trying to influence the coach. ?I have coached at a somewhat affluent D1 high school for six years and can say I've never had a school administrator once try to even talk to me about lineups, playing time/position or any other on-field matter. ?If they did, I would tell them to take a flying leap, and go ahead and fire me if you want. ?And then I'd make sure the entire town knew an administrator was trying to influence a coach's on-field decisions. ?Of course, parents (booster officers or otherwise) have discussed their daughter's position or playing time with me, but that's normal and expected. ?They haven't offered bribes or anything like that.

The issue with parents who contribute more time and/or money is vexing, to be sure. ?For me the opposite issue is one with which I grapple. ?I admit I have times where I'm mad at certain parents because they refuse to do much of anything to help raise money or work concessions or other tasks. ? I can't say that I ever give any thought to feeling some obligation to reward the girls of parents who are the most actively involved. ?But either way, punishing the girls of the deadbeats or rewarding the girls of the contributors, there are two things that keep me and I imagine the overwhelming majority of coaches from doing this. ?

One, it's simply not the right thing to do. ?How can any educated adult punish a kid for the actions of the parents, when those actions have no direct effect on the team? ?A parent not allowing his daughter to attend practices or games would be another matter, because that directly affects the team. ?The second reason we don't reward or punish kids based on the parents' contributions is that we want to win. ?Of course, doing the right thing by the kids is reason enough, but however mad I might get that some parents won't do any work, that is far outweighed by my desire to win. ?

There would likely be some of my past or present parents who read this and say, "yeah, right." ?But whatever mistakes I may make in coaching, rewarding or punishing kids for their parents' contributions isn't one of them. ?I have to believe that holds true for the overwhelming majority of high school coaches. Sometimes a coach simply has to tell a parent very bluntly that, "relative to the other girls on the team, I don't think your daughter is anywhere near as good as you do." ?

 

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OP I think a D1 D2 college coach wouldn't even look at an Ohio girl who chose not to play school ball - no matter how good they were. If they chose not to play school ball because of the coaches that would be a huge red flag to me that the kid/parents are gonna be trouble.

AS a JV coach years ago I wasn't allowed to decide who was on my team. The head coach told me who was on my roster. I respected her even though I didn't think three of the girls deserved or even really wanted to be there. After the V coach and I sat thru a 90 minute bitch session from a parent of one of these three girls (who rarely came to a game) I said, " We could have been at Kingys an hour an half ago if you would have let me cut this kid at the beginning of the year". She let me choose my own team the following year.

She kept that girl because there was more to the story - In that case it didn't work out. In the case of the other two it worked out very well. One of them went on to be a solid varsity contributor as a senior and the other had a close circle of friends to count on and day to day expectations of her, as her parents were splitting up. Neither of these things had anything to do with playing ball in college.

High school ball absolutely must be respected and "cherished" for the many many things that it IS - not the what it isn't.

 

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Just dealt with a similar situation in another sport with my 12 year old. I agree with Sammy have your daughter fight her own battle. I think that most coaches probably tune out parent complaints as part of the "My daughter is the greatest, how dare you not know that" syndrome. What I told my 12 year old is to ask to speak to the coach in private to express politely her concern about playing time, that she felt that she was not helping the team and what could she do to improve herself to earn more playing time.

If the coach blows her off, you know its just the politics or we just play upper classmen. If he indicates where she needs to improve to merit playing time then you know where he think that she is weak at even if you don't agree.

 

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Exactly, TomStoll. With that approach, you can't go wrong.

Another complaint I've heard is "How can my little Susie/Johnnie get any better if they don't get equal playing time?" As if to say their kid is in a catch-22 situation - they can't get better unless they play, but they don't play because they aren't good enough. I guess those types never heard of PRACTICE AT HOME. This is prevalent in ALL sports - both boys and girls.

I played music when I was younger, and guess what? At rehearsals, we didn't waste each other's time learning our individual parts. We were at rehearsals to "put it all together". We had practiced at home, and knew our parts. Why do so many people expect a high school coach to teach their kid to throw, catch, hit and run? THEN they have to be taught how to play the game. ALL IN THREE MONTHS OUT OF THE YEAR! It ain't gonna happen.

This dependency on the school coach to teach kids everything they need to know will not change. There will always be the few - maybe 3 or 4 average - on a high school team of 14 that will HONESTLY work on skills outside of regular school practice. If your kid is among that small group, good for you. You've figured out what it takes to be something more than just an average player. And that's at least half the battle.

 

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Let me give you an example of school board getting involved. A student gets in a fight at school, his parents are really good friends with board member, he gets two more board members to side with him and overturns the principals suspension until a hearing could happen, which conviently happened after football season was over.

Another example Principal takes heat from influential parents, then cuts off all support and communication with coach. This happened before suspension incident. Wow, how does this principal feel now? Even the pricnipal was turned on by the powers that be.

Maybe this is why some schools in southern ohio are behind times???????????