Dealing with Upperclassmen making it hard on DD

I am glad I came across this thread because I have a DD that is a Freshman this year and I hope all goes well with her this year. Her school only has a varsity team so she will be with all upperclasswomen. One thing that comes to my mind is that there could be another Freshman on the team this year that may go thru the same thing your DD did last year so your DD could help her with her situation. Your DD could be the girl who helps change the atmosphere on the team if she plays this year. If she truly loves the game then I hope she plays.

I really appreciate everyone's input, there are a lot of good suggestions and words of encouragement. Couple things I had overlooked in my initial post. The Head Coach has moved on to a new position in another school district, so we have a new Head Coach this year and she is a former college player. Hopefully if any of the same things happen she will pick up on it and address it. She has a bit of a reputation of being a hard a**, so maybe she shuts that type of exclusion of a teammate with an authorative hammer. In addition DD has a holdover assistant coach that she has a great rapport with. I am going to encourage DD to seek this coach out and have a sit-down to discuss her apprehension and concerns. Hopefully the Assistant Coach will address the issues with the new Head Coach so that she is aware of the certain individuals that are perpetrating this and will head it off at the pass and not let this type of behavior continue. Kind of like the old "There's a new Sheriff in town" mentality. I have been instructing to my DD since all of this first started that she take any new underclassman under her wing from this point moving forward and that she stick up for this girl because of what she has gone through, and not allow that any new underclassmen have to go through this.

Out in Left Field said:

Absolutely a ridiculous statement. Like there's no drama on boys baseball. I would like to post a no thanks to this post. So you want your daughter to know she has some sort of "naturally bad psychology." Great, what a success she will be with that!

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Such a common response to ignorance-attack what you dont know or understand. Whats your degree in??

If your daughter has any intention of playing college ball, she needs to learn to suck it up and deal with it. Many college coaches are no better, and in some cases worse than HS coaches. They dont want to be bothered with petty bickering, they just want results on the field.

Her juco college team had a girl that was nothing but a cancer. Constantly creating drama and turning all the girls against each other. Several of the girls complained to the coach about it and his response was to call the whole team together and tell them he didnt want to hear about any more problems and the next girl to complain would be off the team.

Thanks for the follow-up, softballdad - hopefully things will work out - I love your DD's attitude of taking new players under her wing. My daughter's high school coach was also pretty tough. One day she got wind of some infighting on the JV team and she made the entire program, JV and Varsity, spend an entire practice doing nothing but running. That pretty much nipped that in the bud.

I would guess that some of the older players were in the same position as 9th and 10th graders and had similar experiences. Some react to this by making sure that the younger ones have to suffer the same fate they did. I hope that if you DD can stay with it that she will become a true leader when she is one of the older kids and change the culture of the team.

Comp made a good post. College is some cases is worse. On my DD's team the season hasn't started and 6 have decided not to play on the team . You will find the same drama and turnover. If you find a college team with a few Seniors and Jr's you can bet they probably have issues.

I think we may need a new leftfielder soon.

PS This thread should be closed.[/QUOTE]

Why should the thread be closed, because a couple people have difference of opinion? Many DD or their parents that visit this forum may have to deal with this very same scenario and are looking for answers to learn how to deal with this. Closing this thread will only leave those that may be having to deal with this no forum to discuss remedies, I don't think that this website was established to leave those with these same questions without a platform to discuss these and many other types of issues that may arise in the softball world.

coach james said:

She proved herself with the coaches, but when dealing with upper classmen, they will view her as a weak link just because of her age... she now has to prove it to them with lights out and consistent performance on the field.

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CJ, I respectfully disagree. I think they see her as a serious threat to taking away their playing time, batting spot etc. not the weak link. IMO the bullies (for lack of a better term), like many in society, would much rather scorn those that are successful because they worked their tails off to be that way as opposed to working their own tails off to become successful themselves. They would much rather not have to work hard to achieve so they instead, belittle those that do. They prefer to have the level of competition brought down to their level of play so that they can maintain without much hard work. Thus, they ostracize, bully, pick-on, however you want to put it hoping to get rid of the better players so that "their" spots will just be handed to them simply because they are entitled to them. After all, they ARE upperclassmen (said extremely SARCASTICALLY) Sorry for the hi-jack y'all.