High school softball

[nixxy311]

With regards to not playing her Sr. year, most humans say things they don't necessarily mean when they are upset. She may change her mind once things calm down..

I hope so - I'd hate for her to miss out on her senior year.

 

[nixxy311]

Supposedly the coach is going to talk to her this afternoon at practice about the whole thing. The other fun thing is that her friend is also in ROTC and she had talked to him and he told her that it was okay if she went to the parade? But now he wants to talk to both of them.

It's not like the parade is going to just be all fun and games. They have to be at the school at 630am and won't be done until 11am-12pm. I just kind of wanted to see my kid do something ROTC related - since she isn't able to do drill at all.

 

[soonerfan1966]

How about letting her choose and supporting her decision and not worrying about things that may or may not happen

 

[Strike2]

Maybe you should ask the coach why he hates the military???

Ok...maybe he just has a bit of tunnel vision.

You could go to the AD or principal, but first send your DD to talk with the coach (face-to-face). If the parade is that important to her, tell her to explain that to the coach. Tell her to look him in the eye and ask what the penalty will be for marching in an ROTC parade and missing a 30 min individual practice. If it's a make-up with a few foul poles thrown on top, then no big deal. If it's more serious than that, then you have something significant to talk about when you meet the coach's bosses. Who knows? You might run into someone with an office full of personal military history, or a flag with a star hanging on the front porch.

OTOH, it appears that your DD playing HS softball is more important to you than her. If she'd rather do JROTC, it's because she has an obvious interest in joining the military. That's a worthy pursuit...let her chase it. My DD had competing interests in HS that took her off the school ball path, and she's a more well-rounded person because of it. That didn't mean her playing career stopped, and she's in her second year as part of a college team.

 

[nixxy311]

We are okay with her quitting SB if she wants to but it really sucks if she is quitting because of the coach and not because she actually wants to quit SB (and I mean high school softball - she is still doing TB). I guess that's the issue.

 

[_MIA_]

Maybe you should ask the coach why he hates the military???

Ok...maybe he just has a bit of tunnel vision.

You could go to the AD or principal, but first send your DD to talk with the coach (face-to-face). If the parade is that important to her, tell her to explain that to the coach. Tell her to look him in the eye and ask what the penalty will be for marching in an ROTC parade and missing a 30 min individual practice. If it's a make-up with a few foul poles thrown on top, then no big deal. If it's more serious than that, then you have something significant to talk about when you meet the coach's bosses. Who knows? You might run into someone with an office full of personal military history, or a flag with a star hanging on the front porch.

OTOH, it appears that your DD playing HS softball is more important to you than her. If she'd rather do JROTC, it's because she has an obvious interest in joining the military. That's a worthy pursuit...let her chase it. My DD had competing interests in HS that took her off the school ball path, and she's a more well-rounded person because of it. That didn't mean her playing career stopped, and she's in her second year as part of a college team.

I wouldn't go over his head if she wants to continue playing for him..doesn't sound like the type of guy who would appreciate it and it will just make things worse...it isn't worth it in my opinion. Once she talks to him and he gives her the penalty she should just accept it if her choice is to march in the parade. The penalty won't be worse than the recourse of going over his head..

 

[nixxy311]

I hope they get it all figured out today when she talks with him. Problem is that my kid has a real fear of talking to people - I had hoped ROTC would have helped her there. She has had to lead PT and do a bunch of other stuff like that as a leader. But it's just not in her nature to speak up and talk. It doesn't help that DH and I are both similar. She doesn't want to "rock the boat" by questioning anything. Other DD is super outgoing and I don't know where she got that from.

 

[CoachJD]

I understand there is backstory that I don't know. but from this story it sounds like
1) you have coach who want your dd to make softball the priority
2) she does not have another required activity at the same time. She has something she wants to do.
3) coach expects her make required softball activities over things she wants to do.

This is the story as the OP presented it.

I'm trying to figure out how the coach is the bad guy here. The OP seems to want DD to get special treatment to not have to attend practice in favor of something else, which is not a surprise.

If a player chooses to do something else, the player is making that other thing a priority. And for some coaches, that's fine. For many others, it's not. If the coach made those expectations clear at the beginning, I'm not seeing the problem here. Either follow the rules and miss the parade or don't follow the rules, miss the practice, and take whatever punishment comes from it.

 

[nixxy311]

I'm getting that most people think I'm just whining because DD just wants to go have a fun time with her friends instead of practicing SB.

At the start of the school year, this event was marked as REQUIRED for all Cadets. So I checked our SB schedule and just saw it was a practice so thought - of course our coach will let her do this required event over a practice. That seems like a reasonable thing to ask. It's not like we planned the date and decided to do it after we got our SB schedule. If it had been a game, then we would have requested that DD miss the parade if possible.

In our mind, it was required so DD made sure to ask the coach or inform him she'd have to miss practice. DD's friend also asked him about it last week and the coach was like sure - go to the parade. Then after DD had asked him, the coach emails the sergeant I guess to verify that the event is actually required which I guess changed so he told him it'd be fine if she missed the parade. (Also she's not going to just watch the parade - maybe that's what you guys think - she would be marching in it as a ROTC Cadet)

She never misses practices - has never asked for any days off. He gets them 6 days a week for at least 2-3 hrs every day and longer on game days. Asking to miss a 30 minute practice didn't seem unreasonable. And not to mention - depending on how long the parade took, she would go to practice from there - we just aren't clear on when things are going to end.

The OP seems to want DD to get special treatment to not have to attend practice in favor of something else, which is not a surprise.

And what is not a surprise? Special treatment? Where in anything I wrote made it seem like we were trying to get special treatment?

 

[Strike2]

I wouldn't go over his head if she wants to continue playing for him..doesn't sound like the type of guy who would appreciate it and it will just make things worse...it isn't worth it in my opinion. Once she talks to him and he gives her the penalty she should just accept it if her choice is to march in the parade. The penalty won't be worse than the recourse of going over his head..

Yeah that's pretty much what I said, unless the penalty is much worse than a few foul poles. If the penalty is unreasonable, and she still wants to march, then going over the coach's head is warranted.