This will be a little long so bear with me...
My DD plays 8u travel, with a great attitude and is very easy to get along with and be around. Our only expectations and goals for her at this time is to have fun playing better competition than rec, and to grow and develop with a team that has great chemistry top to bottom( last one is a big one, and is a focal point of this post.)
She had been playing rec for a few seasons with our local org who fields two teams, 4 coaches apiece. The majority (6) of the coaches are my age, we all went to the same schools and they grew up being friends together and eventually having girls the same age. All of these girls in turn have been in each other's lives heavily since birth.
This past season, the two rec teams went 15-0 and 13-2, and they decided to form a travel team pulling from the two teams(basically an all star team that will travel) . DD was a shoo in for this team as she was known throughout the league as a top player that season through all the teams. The tb team wound up being all of the 8 coaches kids, DD, and 3 other kids.
After the first practice, my daughter made a comment to me that some of the girls weren't being friendly, basically describing them as cliquey as best as an 8 yo could. As practice and a couple tournaments went on, I had been paying attention and saw exactly what she was talking about. These girls, who happened to be the coaches kids, would ignore, give dirty looks, roll eyes to any of the other 4 kids on the team. It was a situation of "this is a club you're not in, and we're not accepting new members." I had friendly discussions with the HC about some of the issues, and the mean talk stopped, but in the end the exclusion continued.
Because of the friendship dynamic, you can be sure that there was some daddy ball in play. DD wound up batting last every tournament we played, even though she's a double or triple hitter with excellent consistency while we went three and out most of out 1st innings. (as I found out later, this baffled a lot of folks/opposing coaches)
After my wife and I had a discussion, and after having talks with a few friends who coach older TB teams about what was going in, I made the decision to pull her from the team mid season. I told the HC after we came home from winning a tournament through a phone conversation, and he seem surprised, but it was like he was more surprised that we were leaving a winning team than the issues I brought up. He did mention that he would talk to the other coaches and parents about the exclusion issue, but we had already been down that road before and nothing had changed.
So we have spent this past month practicing with some of those 8u teams we had been playing, which is how I learned that other people highly questioned some of her former coaches decisions. We've also been practicing with my friends 10u team, and will pick up for an out of state 8u team coming to a tournament a couple hours away in a couple of weeks. We were called by a coach who is forming an 8u team with the goal of this team growing and moving up at the same time, and she wants DD to come tryout for this team at the beginning of August. Since that call we have been meeting with her privately and she has been working with DD on some things. She had heard of DD's former team and when I told her about our situation she understood and assured us that team chemistry and bonding was a priority and the stuff that was going on with DD before would not be tolerated.
That's our story, I post this because I wanted to hear feedback from people that aren't close to us personally. Did we do the right thing, even though it was mid season? I know it boils down to doing what I think is best for my daughter, who hasn't minded this ordeal because she's met lots of new people and made new friends working with these other teams. What do y'all think?
My DD plays 8u travel, with a great attitude and is very easy to get along with and be around. Our only expectations and goals for her at this time is to have fun playing better competition than rec, and to grow and develop with a team that has great chemistry top to bottom( last one is a big one, and is a focal point of this post.)
She had been playing rec for a few seasons with our local org who fields two teams, 4 coaches apiece. The majority (6) of the coaches are my age, we all went to the same schools and they grew up being friends together and eventually having girls the same age. All of these girls in turn have been in each other's lives heavily since birth.
This past season, the two rec teams went 15-0 and 13-2, and they decided to form a travel team pulling from the two teams(basically an all star team that will travel) . DD was a shoo in for this team as she was known throughout the league as a top player that season through all the teams. The tb team wound up being all of the 8 coaches kids, DD, and 3 other kids.
After the first practice, my daughter made a comment to me that some of the girls weren't being friendly, basically describing them as cliquey as best as an 8 yo could. As practice and a couple tournaments went on, I had been paying attention and saw exactly what she was talking about. These girls, who happened to be the coaches kids, would ignore, give dirty looks, roll eyes to any of the other 4 kids on the team. It was a situation of "this is a club you're not in, and we're not accepting new members." I had friendly discussions with the HC about some of the issues, and the mean talk stopped, but in the end the exclusion continued.
Because of the friendship dynamic, you can be sure that there was some daddy ball in play. DD wound up batting last every tournament we played, even though she's a double or triple hitter with excellent consistency while we went three and out most of out 1st innings. (as I found out later, this baffled a lot of folks/opposing coaches)
After my wife and I had a discussion, and after having talks with a few friends who coach older TB teams about what was going in, I made the decision to pull her from the team mid season. I told the HC after we came home from winning a tournament through a phone conversation, and he seem surprised, but it was like he was more surprised that we were leaving a winning team than the issues I brought up. He did mention that he would talk to the other coaches and parents about the exclusion issue, but we had already been down that road before and nothing had changed.
So we have spent this past month practicing with some of those 8u teams we had been playing, which is how I learned that other people highly questioned some of her former coaches decisions. We've also been practicing with my friends 10u team, and will pick up for an out of state 8u team coming to a tournament a couple hours away in a couple of weeks. We were called by a coach who is forming an 8u team with the goal of this team growing and moving up at the same time, and she wants DD to come tryout for this team at the beginning of August. Since that call we have been meeting with her privately and she has been working with DD on some things. She had heard of DD's former team and when I told her about our situation she understood and assured us that team chemistry and bonding was a priority and the stuff that was going on with DD before would not be tolerated.
That's our story, I post this because I wanted to hear feedback from people that aren't close to us personally. Did we do the right thing, even though it was mid season? I know it boils down to doing what I think is best for my daughter, who hasn't minded this ordeal because she's met lots of new people and made new friends working with these other teams. What do y'all think?
