Men's Soccer

takeitallin
Wed, 07 Oct 2015 18:54:29 +0000

@OneLove2- Maybe I missed it, but is your son on the roster this season, or is he red-shirted? That would change things significantly.

My son plays for a D2 team, and what you are describing in not the norm for his team, although we have seen it with other teams. In any case, I would absolutely NOT talk to the coach. While I know that our kids are supposed to be adults, we all know that there are situations where parental intervention is still sometimes necessary- certain serious medical situations, possibly a legal situation, etc. However, when it comes to college sports, I can’t think off the top of my head of any situation where I would ever get involved. Coaches at this level do not want to deal with parents and might even hold it against the player if a parent got involved. We didn’t even talk to the Coach of our son’s club team about team strategies the last few years of Club as we felt that our son needed to learn to deal with it at that level.

My son was red-shirted his freshman year. As such, he and the other red-shirts were of course not allowed to practice or take part in some of the team activities. His coach was very good about trying to involve them somehow- filming games, etc, and did keep in regular contact during that first season. As a red-shirt, he did play in their spring tournament season which was nice. Not all coaches are as nice. In addition, D3 teams seem to carry a larger number of players on their roster, and as a result, not all new players get much attention, especially if they are not getting much player time. It is a big plus that your son loves the school otherwise. I would tell him to try to stick with it for the year and see how it goes next year. He should continue to touch base with the coach, keep up a really positive attitude and hope for more next year. No one is really going to do anything if a player curses at another player on the team unless it is a regular thing that is impacting the team a lot. Parents are better off not hearing a lot of what happens on the field- much of it can be pretty “inappropriate” but is not unusual.

I’m really sorry he is not having a good experience. It may be partly because of a new coach figuring things out. I hope it improves for him!!!