Need help with a question from a friend.

[PEPPERS]

Heard about this yesterday from this girls parents. Young lady played summer ball had a batting average over 400 the entire summer season and was over 500 the first half of the season , even had college spotters ask her parents questions. She tried out for her school team and was cut, they play in the fall in Georgia. A school coach from another school told the parents after the fact, the coach had told him before summer workout began and the try outs he was not going to keep this player. The parents are upset because they feel the kid was not given a fair chance, after being told that.

The coach told the players before the cut that he would not talk to any of the parents about the cuts, it was thanks for trying and better luck next year. The kid told the parents she had a good try out and did not understand why she was cut. She is an A student does volunteer work in the community, teaches Bible School to the young kids, so she is not a problem kid.

Parents ask my opinion what to do about it and I told them to talk to School Principal, but you know how that works. I think if for some reason the coach don’t want her and then he is forced to put her on the team he will go out of his way to make her look bad as he can. The kid loves her school and friends and don’t want to change schools, but wants to play for a school team.

I thought if maybe I would ask if anyone had a suggestion?

 

[SnocatzDad]

You never mentioned what grade the young lady is and my advice for an 8th grader that feels slighted and a senior missing her last season would not be the same.

 

[yoopergarce]

My take on that, is the coach owes the player or parent some sort of explanation. There has to be something more to it if the coach already came to that conclusion before summer. Parent issues?...or maybe she can't play the field and the team already has fourteen .500 hitters...who knows.

Did the coach talk afterward to the girls who were cut individually? Your statement doesn't really cover that and that would be important to know. If not, or if the player didn't understand or hear it at the time because of being upset, I would have the player (parent 2nd) call the coach directly for an explanation. The next step would be to ask for a meeting (even if it's over the phone) with the school's athletic director and that coach to at least get that explanation owed. An assistant coach who was actually there during the tryouts would also be beneficial in case there are some personal conflicts between the family and the coach. At the very least the assistant may blurt something out that the coach may have wanted to keep quiet about or maybe at least give you something positive or constructive to chew on, as the assistant may not feel like he needs to defend themselves like the coach might.

Either way, the coach should have some evidence or descent reasoning behind the decision. If he doesn't, than it sounds like you may have a chump here since he had already set the stage before tryouts for not talking to anyone. Then she's screwed until she can prove otherwise and win him over or they get rid of him.

 

[sluggers]

This is not a good situation. Even if she gets on the team, it is unlikely she will play.

The child and the parents do deserve answers. Disregard the coach's request and ask the coach the reasons. If he says he doesn't want to talk about it, or even if he does and the answers aren't suitable, then go talk to the high school principal.

I wouldn't recommend the child change schools. HS sports is about 1% of the entire HS experience, so if she is happy at the school, it doesn't make much sense to change schools on the *HOPE* that things will be different at the new school.

Also, please keep in mind we are talking about softball parents. You should verify if the child is really as good as her parents think she is.

 

[Amy in AZ.]

It upsets me when a coach says that he won't talk to parents about cuts. That is why it is important to have coaches that are teachers and not just the first guy that is able to get off work early. If he is facility, he surely has office hours and the parents need to go to the AD, in an attempt to talk to him. An educator must be available to student's parents for at least one meeting.

Now, my dad would have been at this guy's house, in a heart beat.

The better try outs that I have seen, have a rating scale for various skills that the girls go through. You can easily see where your DD stacks up, then.

The coach that gave these parents this information, better realize that it is going to come out that he told the parents what the coach said. There had to be more to that conversation. He didn't just say "I'm cutting Suzie." He said "I am cutting her because ......"

Why coach A went to the parents about something that was told him, is a mystery, too.

 

[fastpitch]

I'm not saying what the coach did is right but there are always two sides to the story. I know school ball is different from travel but our travel head coach cut an otherwise spectacular player after tryouts because her dad is crazy. She had an attitude and was basically uncoachable as she only would listen to her dad. If you ask her dad what happened it was because the coach is stupid and doesn't know talent and is just being unfair for no good reason. This may not be the case in your described situation but parents tend to wear rose colored glasses when describing situations about their kid.

 

[starsnuffer]

How old is the girl in question? What grade? It may help to remind her that HS ball is just rec ball by another name, and that her TB experiences will be where she learns and earns the potential for college ball.

If I had a dime for every HS coach that did things that make no sense. . .

-W

 

[starsnuffer]

I'm not saying what the coach did is right but there are always two sides to the story. I know school ball is different from travel but our travel head coach cut an otherwise spectacular player after tryouts because her dad is crazy. She had an attitude and was basically uncoachable as she only would listen to her dad. If you ask her dad what happened it was because the coach is stupid and doesn't know talent and is just being unfair for no good reason. This may not be the case in your described situation but parents tend to wear rose colored glasses when describing situations about their kid.

Good point. Sometimes I wonder if the ratio of parents who ruin chances for their kids is higher then the ratio of parents who improve chances. It's usually the parents who are the most passionate that do the better job of destroying a kids chance to get on a good team. The parents that serve as the "taxi service" for softball and not much else usually are the ones that, inadvertently, help their kids the most.

-W

 

[druer]

My advice to you is tell the parents to look at it as a blessing and not a curse.

1. HS ball is ridiculous for the amount of time that the coaches require from the girls to play a handfull of games. In GA since the season is in the fall many of these players end up having a horrible semester because they are still on "summer time", they are forced to practice 5-6 days a week and they are too exhausted to study. Many coaches require them to cheer for the other teams so in addtion to their own games, they have that as even more obligations.
2. Unless the HS team is a top contender in the state (in GA that would be schools in Gwinnett county that are 5A, and a handful of other schools colleges aren't going to see them anyway. Some schools do go watch the state championship week but that's about it. So travel ball in GA is the way to be seen because there are tons more opportunities.
3. By this point of the year this player has played probably 80-100 games of travel ball. Her body needs a rest. If she has the time for it to heal up she'll be a better/stronger player when her travel team kicks up the week after HS ball is over.
4. She can use the downtime to get her socializing, studying etc done that she can't get during the travel season. In other words, this downtime allows her to be more well rounded.

I could go on and on about the reasons NOT to play HS ball and it being a good thing. One downside to not playing high school ball would be that prospective college coaches will likely ask her about why she didn't. They/she has to be prepared to answer why in a way that resolves the question and they can't just say "Her HS coach black balled her and we have no idea as to why."

The hardest thing for them will in backing out of the emotion of their baby girl's feelings being hurt when they go and talk to the coach/AD/Principal. It needs to be a "We want to know the truth. We believe the best of our daughter but if she's a rotten teammate in the dugout, is disrespectful or whatever, then we want to know so that we can work on those things. If it's a lack of talent, then what specific things will she need to demonstrate next year?" Things like "Coach A is an idiot her travel ball coach said she's the greatest thing sliced bread and is wonderful in the dugout" won't add anything to the conversation, so things like that have to be left out of it.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

Most HS ball is political. Like most have said, your either in a great situation or it's a waste of time. But that still does not ease the pain of being CUT.

We just had HS tryouts last week. ( but we play spring 2011 ) First thing coach says is the 16 returning players are on the team, the tryouts are for the 11 freshmen and a transfer from the magical softball state of CA ( but she got cut pretty fast ) He only kept 5 out of those 12. Feelings were hurt, words were spoken and emails a flying.

BUT, we are in a unique situation with a great program full of that 'once every 10-15 years' stacked full of talented travel ball players. Out of the 21 players for the next 2 years, all but one have traveled since 8u and 10u. Since I saw the tryouts it was obvious why the 7 cuts were made. They were good rec ball players but not use to the level of HS ball we have in this district nor use to travel ball caliper pitching and fielding. Their parents came in thinking little Susie would walk on and start varsity. Then when Susie got cut they went ballistic. To the other parents it was pretty obvious why she got the can.