Here is the setup:
In the fall, me and two other coaches are putting together a 14u travel team. This will be the first time a travel team has been organized in our county. We don't expect to compete beyond the B level, but we are doing this so that the girls we've been coaching for the past 5 years have the opportunity to go beyond what they've experienced so far in their lives. For the most part, we are a bunch of poor rural kids that don't have a lot of opportunity within the county (softball or otherwise).
This spring we are holding our normal softball leagues. Several of the girls who we are looking at for the travel team know what we are doing and know that right now, they are on an extended try-out. Formal tryouts will be in early August where we will open it up to any girl in the county, but since we are such a low populated area, we pretty much know who will come for tryouts and what the talent level is.
This brings us to our drama queen. This girl has some of the best natural talent in the area. In many ways, she is a stereotype...comes from a broken home, mom works nights to support her and her brother, no father figure, doesn't do great in school but loves to play sports, has some attitude issues, etc. etc. Me and one of the other coaches have tried time after time to be either the "big brother" or "crazy uncle" to her and get her to take her passion for softball and turn it into something that she can use as a positive in her live. Every year we think we are getting through to her and then she always does something to really set the process back.
This time it was behavior in and after a scrimmage. After pitching 3 outstanding games last week over two days where she surprised everyone with her endurance and tenacity (I asked her a couple times if she needed to come out and she kept saying "no, leave me in...I can do it") she comes to a game and after 1 inning calls me to the mound and says she is too hot and needs to come out. I pull her and put in our 4th string pitcher (the rest were absent or injured). Drama Queen, within 2 minutes is with her 'best friend' running to the parking lot to "get some water". I tell best friend that the dugout area is for players only and that she had to go sit in the bleachers. Lo-and-behold, next inning Drama is ready to go back in. She finishes the game...doesn't do great, but did her job.
So after the game, she is supposed to hitch a ride with assistant coach home since Mom is at work. She borrows assistant coach's phone, talks to grandma and then tells assistant coach that grandma is coming to get her, she doesn't need a ride home. Assistant coach goes home. I stick around at the fields and talk to the dad of one of the players I coached last year. We talk for about 45 minutes when I see Drama and best friend walking across the park. I have to say that at the time I didn't think anything of it (in my defense I just had a tooth pulled and was on pain meds), but when I got home I thought, "hey...wasn't she supposed to have been picked up by grandma?"
I talk to her mom and find out that Drama evidently told grandma "none of the coaches could take her home" (she lives 2 miles from me and is on my direct way home), and that she deceived assistant coach in order to spend time with best friend and a boy who was also at the fields. Mom wasn't mad at us, but I could understand if she was because neither of us actually spoke to an adult to find out the pickup situation...we just trusted the girl.
Assistant coach says he is pretty much done with her; that he doesn't really want to be on a team that involves her in the future because of the drama/lies/deception. I hate the idea of the girl losing one of the few positive influences in her life, but understand his point and agree that regardless of her skill (and while she is good, she isn't so good that she is irreplaceable) a team with no drama is better than one that has to put up with a drama queen.
I guess I'm mostly venting here. If others have run across similar situations, I'd like to hear your story, but I pretty much know what is going to end up happening here.
In the fall, me and two other coaches are putting together a 14u travel team. This will be the first time a travel team has been organized in our county. We don't expect to compete beyond the B level, but we are doing this so that the girls we've been coaching for the past 5 years have the opportunity to go beyond what they've experienced so far in their lives. For the most part, we are a bunch of poor rural kids that don't have a lot of opportunity within the county (softball or otherwise).
This spring we are holding our normal softball leagues. Several of the girls who we are looking at for the travel team know what we are doing and know that right now, they are on an extended try-out. Formal tryouts will be in early August where we will open it up to any girl in the county, but since we are such a low populated area, we pretty much know who will come for tryouts and what the talent level is.
This brings us to our drama queen. This girl has some of the best natural talent in the area. In many ways, she is a stereotype...comes from a broken home, mom works nights to support her and her brother, no father figure, doesn't do great in school but loves to play sports, has some attitude issues, etc. etc. Me and one of the other coaches have tried time after time to be either the "big brother" or "crazy uncle" to her and get her to take her passion for softball and turn it into something that she can use as a positive in her live. Every year we think we are getting through to her and then she always does something to really set the process back.
This time it was behavior in and after a scrimmage. After pitching 3 outstanding games last week over two days where she surprised everyone with her endurance and tenacity (I asked her a couple times if she needed to come out and she kept saying "no, leave me in...I can do it") she comes to a game and after 1 inning calls me to the mound and says she is too hot and needs to come out. I pull her and put in our 4th string pitcher (the rest were absent or injured). Drama Queen, within 2 minutes is with her 'best friend' running to the parking lot to "get some water". I tell best friend that the dugout area is for players only and that she had to go sit in the bleachers. Lo-and-behold, next inning Drama is ready to go back in. She finishes the game...doesn't do great, but did her job.
So after the game, she is supposed to hitch a ride with assistant coach home since Mom is at work. She borrows assistant coach's phone, talks to grandma and then tells assistant coach that grandma is coming to get her, she doesn't need a ride home. Assistant coach goes home. I stick around at the fields and talk to the dad of one of the players I coached last year. We talk for about 45 minutes when I see Drama and best friend walking across the park. I have to say that at the time I didn't think anything of it (in my defense I just had a tooth pulled and was on pain meds), but when I got home I thought, "hey...wasn't she supposed to have been picked up by grandma?"
I talk to her mom and find out that Drama evidently told grandma "none of the coaches could take her home" (she lives 2 miles from me and is on my direct way home), and that she deceived assistant coach in order to spend time with best friend and a boy who was also at the fields. Mom wasn't mad at us, but I could understand if she was because neither of us actually spoke to an adult to find out the pickup situation...we just trusted the girl.
Assistant coach says he is pretty much done with her; that he doesn't really want to be on a team that involves her in the future because of the drama/lies/deception. I hate the idea of the girl losing one of the few positive influences in her life, but understand his point and agree that regardless of her skill (and while she is good, she isn't so good that she is irreplaceable) a team with no drama is better than one that has to put up with a drama queen.
I guess I'm mostly venting here. If others have run across similar situations, I'd like to hear your story, but I pretty much know what is going to end up happening here.
