Just quit HS team

[Cannonball]

I know I should just let this go. Bob, your dd quit HS softball over 2 1/2 months ago. You mentioned in the OP of this thread that she quit just after tryouts. I don't understand the need to blame your dd's performance on HS softball. Look, players have good games and they have bad. They have good tournaments and they have bad. One game or tournament is not a reflection on any player of their overall ability. You got what you wanted and the coach is gone. That doesn't mean that things will be better. You will now have an unknown coach. Perhaps it would be better for her to simply pass on HS softball.

 

[BobInMadison]

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[riseball]

Well, the players the departing head coach chased away learned a lesson -- politics and favoritism are everything, ability means nothing. They learned something from the experience, but the vast majority of them quit softball completely, and most of the rest were demoralized to the point where softball isn't as much fun as it used to be.

Is that what you meant by "learned from the experience?" I suppose it is training for the favoritism and nepotism and all the other isms they will see in life. Too bad to see them crushed while still teenagers.

If all it takes is one experience with a coach to quit softball, the kid was never really serious about it. If you are truly committed one coach will not drive you from the game. If it does that coach probably did you a favor to move you on to something more meaningful.

 

[BobInMadison]

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[riseball]

I think you greatly underestimate the positive effect a great coach, teacher or role model can have on a young person, and greatly underestimate the negative effect a terrible coach, teacher or role model can have...

Yeah, after only close to 40 years of coaching young women I have no grasp on that reality.

When one door closes another opens. Throughout life you have a choice. You can give up and wallow in self pity, or you can press on and do what is important to you. If it is truly important, not much especially a coach, a teacher, or role model gets in your way.

I was recently informed that months ago at a clinic I crushed the hopes and dreams of a 2019 pitcher. She asked about playing in college, how to get recruited and what she should do. I asked which schools and she said she wanted to play for Florida. I told her that is a great goal, but they have been done with 2019 pitchers for quite some time. Hear now that shortly after that encounter she quit playing because according to her she was told "she will never play for Florida". If that is all it took to make her quit playing it was not that big a deal for her. and she certainly has no business playing college ball at Florida or Neverheardof U. Most successful people have many stories where they were told they were not good enough. But they were committed so they did what it took to move past the adversity. Because that is what successful people do. They may fail, but they never quit. The unfortunate thing about quitting is that it gets easier every time.

 

[Doug Romrell]

When a player quits any team (HS or Comp), it's SOMETIMES a very complex issue... Complex such that it is hard to place the blame in just one place. Now that doesn't mean there aren't rotten, vindictive coaches out there that can ruin softball for someone. However, I think quitting is much more often the complex case and the player-simply-isn't-interested-in-continuing case.

 

[riseball]

When a player quits any team (HS or Comp), it's SOMETIMES a very complex issue... Complex such that it is hard to place the blame in just one place. Now that doesn't mean there aren't rotten, vindictive coaches out there that can ruin softball for someone. However, I think quitting is much more often the complex case and the player-simply-isn't-interested-in-continuing case.

I agree, and there is nothing wrong with leaving a specific team to remove oneself from a toxic or unproductive situation. The difference is what you do next? Do you feel sorry for yourself, quit the game entirely and tell everyone who will listen how you were wronged? Or do you go home and get on a tee until you wear through your batting gloves preparing yourself for the next opportunity?

 

[FP26]

DD and I just had a conversation about this very topic this past weekend. She has been blessed over the years with some very good coaches. She has also played for some real jerks, both in softball and other sports. There have been times that she has been down, but she has never allowed it to impact her goals. She is now entering her 7th year of travel ball, and we can both honestly say that 6 of those years provided positive experiences including positive coaching. One year was the complete opposite. And to be honest, we really do not speak about it much. If you read through the threads here and refer to the various rants about terrible coaches, 90% of them fit the coach for that one specific year. Out of nowhere, DD began speaking about that experience and how it has molded and shaped her life since then. She made it a point to prove that coach wrong and to be successful in softball in spite of that coach. She is actually considering sending him a thank you card for motivating her into becoming the person she is today. At least in her particular case, this negative experience was used in a positive fashion, and I am very proud of her because of it. Her love of the sport outweighed the negative experience that occurred that year. If anything, it made that love stronger.

That experience also taught me to be extremely careful regarding teams and coaches. She played 1 year at a respected organization with great coaching. At the end of the year, she realized that she would need to move up to the next team and would be one of 15 or 16 players on the roster (the youngest of those players). She decided she wanted to look for another opportunity and chose the team listed above. It didn't take one full tournament to realize it was a mistake, but she finished out the season and then returned to the previous org. All along I was an assistant coach for each team, including the poor experience. When she decided it was time to push herself further and join an org with a more aggressive schedule, my personal goal was to find coaches that could teach her beyond what I was already teaching her. She was lucky enough to find that exact team, with two phenomenal coaches and she continues to grow.

I realize that there are cases when impacts are made that influence a person's future decisions. That is part of life. But life is filled with positive and negative moments. In my opinion it is those negative moments that make the positive ones so worthwhile.

 

[Cannonball]

I agree, and there is nothing wrong with leaving a specific team to remove oneself from a toxic or unproductive situation. The difference is what you do next? Do you feel sorry for yourself, quit the game entirely and tell everyone who will listen how you were wronged? Or do you go home and get on a tee until you wear through your batting gloves preparing yourself for the next opportunity?

As I have stated before, I was cut from my HS baseball team my freshman and sophomore years. The coach, who hated me, said I was, "just too mean" to play ball for him. Instead of quitting, I worked even harder. My junior and senior years, I was all everything and led my team in just about ever offensive category. While I still despise that coach, I can tell you without a doubt that my later success was because of him.

(I despise him due to him judging me without the facts. I was in a lot of fights. However, I grew up in a housing projects. If I didn't fight, my brother and sister were fair game. I made sure everyone knew to never touch them. He should have known what that area was like. He grew up just outside of it.)

 

[BobInMadison]

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