My daughter is a senior, headed off to college in the fall. She's not playing college ball, and has been a pretty average B pitcher on a pretty bad B team for years -- they play 18U now. She's loved her coaches and her teammates (for the most part) and she likes playing the games.
Last season, as we were discussing coming back, i told the coach (who is a pretty good pal) the kind of season we were hoping for her last year. Keep the number of local tourneys to a minimum so the seniors on the team would have time to spend with their families, and maybe take a couple of fun tournaments for the girls' last year. In the spring we're gong to have college trips and graduations and proms and all that stuff, and we didn't want to have our last summer filled with the same local tourneys against the same local teams we've been losing to for years. This conversation wasn't just me -- it was with all the senior families and I thought we'd reached agreement. We'd get together and talk about tournaments as a group plan out this last year.
I offered to be the team manager to make this season easier for the coach. she said that would be great, but then never really answered my texts or questions about what she might need to help.
Not long after the season ended -- about the time tryouts ended -- our coach merged/.absorbed another team. That team was a lot of juniors, and of our six seniors, two decided to leave. I talked to the coach and she said it was all great, that they were getting good new players and adding some pitching. But when I asked about the schedule, she said she and the coaches were working on it and they'd get it to us soon. Well, last week they did. Just your usual 13-tournament summer, with 12 tournaments in town and one end-of-year to Mount Rushmore.
But here's the problem. First, the pitchers they added are worse than DD, which leaves her as the only barely competent one. But the second is that she simply can't be there for five tournaments. She's got college trips planned for two of them, her senior trip planned for third, and prom and graduation interfering with two more. The team that was supposed to be a group of seniors has now become dominated by juniors, and they want to play a regular season. So DD and I talked about her quitting, but if she does, the team is simply done. They don't have pitching. So she's caught between letting people down and letting people down, and I'm pissed at the coach because we agreed to come back under a set of expectations and conditions, and those conditions have all changed.
Anyone have suggestions?
Last season, as we were discussing coming back, i told the coach (who is a pretty good pal) the kind of season we were hoping for her last year. Keep the number of local tourneys to a minimum so the seniors on the team would have time to spend with their families, and maybe take a couple of fun tournaments for the girls' last year. In the spring we're gong to have college trips and graduations and proms and all that stuff, and we didn't want to have our last summer filled with the same local tourneys against the same local teams we've been losing to for years. This conversation wasn't just me -- it was with all the senior families and I thought we'd reached agreement. We'd get together and talk about tournaments as a group plan out this last year.
I offered to be the team manager to make this season easier for the coach. she said that would be great, but then never really answered my texts or questions about what she might need to help.
Not long after the season ended -- about the time tryouts ended -- our coach merged/.absorbed another team. That team was a lot of juniors, and of our six seniors, two decided to leave. I talked to the coach and she said it was all great, that they were getting good new players and adding some pitching. But when I asked about the schedule, she said she and the coaches were working on it and they'd get it to us soon. Well, last week they did. Just your usual 13-tournament summer, with 12 tournaments in town and one end-of-year to Mount Rushmore.
But here's the problem. First, the pitchers they added are worse than DD, which leaves her as the only barely competent one. But the second is that she simply can't be there for five tournaments. She's got college trips planned for two of them, her senior trip planned for third, and prom and graduation interfering with two more. The team that was supposed to be a group of seniors has now become dominated by juniors, and they want to play a regular season. So DD and I talked about her quitting, but if she does, the team is simply done. They don't have pitching. So she's caught between letting people down and letting people down, and I'm pissed at the coach because we agreed to come back under a set of expectations and conditions, and those conditions have all changed.
Anyone have suggestions?