Bending team rules for special circumstances

Update: We planned to meet with her yesterday afternoon right when she got out of school at 1:30 (she has early dismissal since she's a senior). She saw my wife early in the morning and said she couldn't meet because her mom was getting the transplant, but she'd meet today.

When I saw her today, the first question I asked was about how her mom is doing (Great, at least for now). So that's good. The next question was "Do you want to play?" She said yes, so I said she's on the team. At first she resisted because she didn't want special treatment, but I explained what we've all discussed here. Told her that she can take any days she needs, but we want her around as much as possible. As long as she communicates with me, I'm willing to work with her. We did discuss talking about it with the team at some point, but we have not done that yet. If she just misses a few practices here and there, it may not be necessary to have a team meeting about it. I may just talk with any players directly affected (any other OFs, maybe).

She also stayed for today's tryout even though she didn't have any of her clothes or gear (she did find a pair of shorts at least).

It seems like as long as there are no complications, we'll have her around most of the time.

I'll provide more updates as the season moves along. Hopefully they'll all be positive.

great to hear, best wishes for her Mom

Yes, you made the right decision and my hat is off to you for CoachJD! This is a tough one as I am sure you just want to give the girl a hug for all that she is going through. I truly can't imagine and bless her heart and prayers for her mom and family!

Again, this is unique but want to throw out a situation that is FAR from this one but falls in line with "special circumstances." Please know this is way far off from your situation and not even close but a good lesson IMHO. We recently moved to a big city with a big time team and left a big city with a far from average HS team. I love the old team, the coach, the girls but we really were not a softball school unfortunately. Anyway, we struggled to get girls to come out so the coach (awesome coach) did whatever she could do to get girls out. I PREFACE AGAIN THIS IS NOT YOUR SITUATION. The coach would take good players who had quit softball for other spring sports like golf, soccer, cheerleading.... yes, cheerleading...WTH, and others to fill a JV and Varsity team. Tough situation all around and I completely understand making concessions to get a team(s) put together.

However, speaking with some friends still there, this has backfired like a SOB. The girls who play other sports like golf never go to practice yet they start as freshmen on Varsity. Other girls who are at every practice get little JV time thus far, and they are good players. I know these girls well and none of them are D1 or any division softball players at this point yet they could be but it is not their goal. Another player who wasn't going to play this year was asked to PLEASE come pitch for JV. So, she comes to the games, pitches JV (not a good pitcher by the way, not even close but best they have right now) and leaves after the game. Rule is to stay for Varsity games after but she just leaves and never goes to practice, ever.

Point being, and again and again, not even close to your situation but just throwing out food for thought for those reading this, how exceptions could backfire. My buddy down there with a JV daughter said she is about to quit because she is disgusted at the fact they have girls her age that don't ever go to practice get to play Varsity and pitch JV.

I never thought about it until he called me a few weeks ago and it appears the girls know they can do whatever they want and the program will except it. His remarks, and I agree 110%, you dedicate yourself to softball or your don't play at all. Meaning, softball is not second fiddle to the other things that come first to you. If they end up with 11 girls, then they have a varsity team and that is it. But those 11 will be the dedicated girls to make the program grow versus the girls that just show up when it is convenient and create animosity to those who really want to play ball.

Just a story to share and glad I am not there anymore...........

I felt today warranted an update:

First, everything has been going great with her mom. She has missed a practice or two, but nothing extreme that has even required an explanation for the team. While something could go wrong at any time, as of now everything is going great, and for that reason alone I'm so glad she's playing.

But the real reason for the post today is this: Last year, she went 2-28 (she did have 10 walks!). She had some bad luck, including one play I remember where she hit a shot to left field that ended up being a force out at third because our slowest player was running the bases. But still, she hit poorly.

For the past week or two, we've really been working on her swing. Today she had three solid singles. The pitcher we faced was not very good, but we faced a lot of not very good pitchers last year and she still manged just 2 hits, so today was a great day for her.

Thanks for the update. We hear so many stories about bad HS coaches that it's great to hear a first hand account from a great one. Keep up the good work and let us know how she is doing during the season.

JD, you're doing a great thing for this player. You're giving her a few hours to feel normal with her teammates. I'm sure when she's an adult she'll look back on this season with some fond memories. Keep up the good work.

...............................

I haven't updated this for a couple months, but today was high school graduation, so I figured now was a good time.

She never missed a single team activity because of this situation, so in the end, I worried for nothing, but I'm still glad I got advice from everybody here because having her on the team was the right call.

I mentioned how she only had 2 hits all last season. She finished this year with 13. She was in the top three on the team in AVG/OBP. She won the varsity team's Most Improved award at the athletic banquet. That was a tough call because we had a couple others who also improved a lot over last year, but she earned it.

She's been my favorite player (wait, are coaches not supposed to have favorites?) since we started the program in 2016. I'm really glad she played this year (and so was our only other senior since they're best friends), so thanks again to everybody who encouraged me to keep her on the team.

CoachJD you did the right thing and I'm glad it all worked out.