<p>My daughter is a college athlete who was injured. She has been seen by the trainer for two weeks now. He has released her, but her coach has not let her attend practices during this time and still refuses to let her come back to participation even after her release. Coach will not meet with her or give her any explanation until a date she has scheduled a meeting with my daughter which is a week and a half after her release date. My question is once trainer releases her and there are no other team violations can the coach refuse her participation until she randomly decides to bring her back?</p>
<p>What do you mean by “no other team violations”? </p>
<p>You may want to post this question on the athletic recruiting forum, lots of parents there who may have had similar experiences. </p>
<p>Coaches can pretty much do what they want. If he doesn’t want her back at practice until they have a meeting, that’s what happens. Sounds like more going on than just the injury as coaches are usually anxious to get the athlete back.</p>
<p>The coach may be trying to preserve her eligibility for a redshirt.</p>
<p>Agree with twoinanddone. Unless your daughter’s university has an unusual chain of command, the coach will be in charge of all player personnel decisions once she’s cleared to play, including if or when the player attends practices, suits up for games, etc.</p>
<p>Usually the coach wants the player back as soon as the player is cleared by the trainer/medical staff. So, assuming your daughter was on good terms with the coach prior to the injury, something doesn’t add up here. </p>
<p>I don’t think it is related to redshirting - there are no restrictions on redshirted athletes practicing.</p>
<p>There is definitely something strange about having to wait over a week to get a meeting with the coach. I suspect you are not getting the whole story.</p>
<p>Dreadpirit</p>
<p>As far as we know the athlete is not currently under a NCAA hardship waiver (redshirt). The evaluation for hardship waiver include evaluation of participation in scrimmages. In any case if the coach was planning asking the NCAA for a hardship waiver then it may make sense for the athlete not to participate in practice in order to best prepare the team for the next game.</p>
<p>@Swimkidsdad One of the reasons to redshirt kids is so they get another year of practice in. It doesn’t really take away from game prep to include non-starters. In D’s program, red shirted players, who aren’t injured, fully participate in every practice and get extra workouts (while starters are doing regen work - stretching, light running, etc).</p>
<p>I think she has no choice but to trust the coach and train on her own in the mean time. There could be a good reason for waiting, but nagging him let alone going over his head won’t help and could hurt.
Can she attend practices but not participate?</p>
<p>It depends on the sport.</p>
<p>For swimming and certain types of injuries you would not want the injured athlete practicing with the team. Work out sets usually are very structured with tight time requirements. If you have an athlete who swims slower due to an injury in a lane with uninjured swimmers it can make it difficult for the other swimmers to complete their sets. If there are no spare lanes available then it may be necessary to have the athlete completely heal from an injury before rejoining team practice.</p>