<p>“I would talk to the coach first. Confront him/her and see what they have to say for themselves.”</p>
<p>Why would the parent confront the coach? Can the daughter not speak for herself?</p>
<p>The student is a rising senior? Maybe this would be a good opportunity to let her learn to stand up for herself. Yes, she will have nasty bosses and co-workers in her life. Should she accept verbal abuse? No. Should she report this person? Under these circumstances, yes. Can she go talk to the athletic director herself? Or anyone? </p>
<p>You, the parent, swooping in and complaining won’t help her learn to manage these situations in the future.</p>
<p>During tennis season our son missed one full day of classes each week during the Spring. Teachers were nice and he kept up his grades, but it was very stressful for him. I thought it was a mistake, but the choice was his.</p>
<p>Givings…parent here, we’re not the swooping type. What I did not mention was the coach called ME the day after he rec’d note from daughter indicating she would have to pull back on away game participation. I was unaware D had sent the note but felt she did what was right for her academics and told coach it was between him and her to work out. He didn’t work out anything with her–he cut her off, stopped communicating. She kept practicing just as hard with the team as anyone else without complaint. Good thing was her grades recovered, she took the marginalizing ok, but the comment he made to her at the team party–geez, it was twisting the knife. She wasn’t a goof off. If you’re a shy 16 year old it’s pretty hard to confront an aggressive militaristic authority figure. It was an eye-opener for her so lesson learned. I’m likely going to take it up with Admin–coaching shouldn’t be like this.</p>
<p>givings - It appears that the daughter already did speak for herself and it got her bad mouthed by the coach. I’ll agree that a good next step could be the student reporting this to the AD. </p>
<p>As a teacher I see many parents go to the top before trying to find answers further down. If my child has already spoken to the coach with negative results, I would want to talk to the coach. If there is a problem, start at the source, giving that person (the coach) a chance to explain themselves. I would include the student at the meeting and let the coach know we intend to follow up with the AD. I tend to be a hands off parent, but if a coach or teacher is being verbally abusive, I’m going to be involved.</p>
<p>You’re right, OP. Reporting the incident seems like the right thing to do. I was saying that you could encourage your D to report the incident herself. NOT confront the coach! It might be good practice for when she has a nasty TA in college that she has to confront, or a boss that harrasses her that she must report.</p>
<p>If she can’t or won’t do it herself, then you really should report him for her.</p>
<p>The power differential between a teenage (female) student and an adult (male) coach with the authority of the school system behind him is simply too great to send her off on her own to confront anyone. This is a situation where it’s appropriate for parents to step in. In the OP’s shoes, I’d also bring my daughter along to the meeting, first because she’s the key witness and second to model appropriate problem solving behaviors (note: not confrontational behaviors).</p>
<p>I disagree, then. And if no one is really comfortable with the student at least TRYING to report the coach on her own (NOT CONFRONT THE COACH), then the parent has no choice but to step in.</p>
<p>But she will be in college, on her own, in a little over one year. She could at least make an appointment with the principal and tell her story. She’ll have to learn to do that one day.</p>
<p>What a great idea to have D talk to the principal who happens to be an approachable type. This would be the most powerful way to get a message across, being especially effective with D’s serious and genuine personality. I don’t know if she will do it but will suggest it. It’s likely I’m more angry about it than she is–mad as an old wet hen. Thank you all.</p>
<p>I didn’t have kids in h.s. sports, but I hear about this bullying behavior by coaches all the time from friends. At our public h.s., coaches hold training camps during the summer, which they charge for and while they can’t expressly make them mandatory, the message athletes get is if they don’t attend, they are on the outs with the coach. One coach wanted a friend of mine to keep her junior son from attending a long-planned family reunion out of the country because it occurred during his lacrosse camp over the summer. </p>
<p>How did coaches get so much power in our schools?</p>
<p>I think the only way to push back is if parents step up and complain to the administration, even if their student is leaving the sport and will no longer be affected.</p>
<p>Wow… If it were me and that were my child, I would praise her so much for choosing academics over athletics. In essence, that is what this is about. There is a reason high school athletes are referred to as student-athletes. She should be commended for placing emphasis on being a student first. Here’s the downside, many coaches do not understand this choice and that is a problem with them, not her. I would write a letter to the Athletic Director explaining what happened to your daughter in an unemotiojnal, tactful, matter of fact way. I would let the decision about whether or not to continue playing be left up to your daughter. I would tell her that if she plays, she will have to deal with the coach as that is just the way it is. Whatever she decides to do, should be supported by you. Here’s the thing. I have a son who played a varsity sport for four years. He was an integral part of the team and two time co-captain. He was also a scholar and is this year’s valedictorian. The coach and the team knew that academics came first to my son. To make a long story short, his team ended up losing their first CIF match because my son couldn’t get out of an AP test in time. However, everyone was not angry at my son. They knew it was a TEAM sport and that he had to be at the test. My son had chances to play Division I and III in his sport next year. In the end, he chose academics first and will be attending a top national university instead of playing tennis. It all comes down to academics vs. athletics in the end. Some decide to do both. Some don’t. But what your daughter did was so mature. She had the correct perspective. I don’t even know her and I’m proud of her. Tell her to keep her head up, great choice, and best of luck in the future whether she competes in her sport or not.</p>
<p>The above advice certainly sounds appropriate, but I can tell you that in a large, competitive school like ours it would fall very flat. For one thing, an AD will generally support his coach over any parent or student, especially in a “he said, she said” situation like this one. Was there anyone present able and willing (the latter being the tough part) to corroborate your D’s story?</p>
<p>Coaches and ADs often view parental complaints cynically, tending to see negative comments as stemming from bitterness over the student’s playing time, which in turn is due to the parents’ perceived unrealistic assessment of their child’s ability. Also, the AD wants a winning team and will side with a coach if the coach asserts that his requirements are necessary to be competitive. So as long as a student is academically eligible to play, which is a low bar by CC standards, the AD is going to care less if a student’s grades drop from an A to a B, or a B to a C. Ditto for most coaches. Think about who the majority of the school staff is. There are exceptions and some of them frequent CC, but many were not strong students in high school who went on to study at top colleges. They were average students who went to a non-competitive state university. As such, they may not be sympathetic to the demands on a student who is taking advanced classes while trying to play a sport. </p>
<p>One year D was failing one AP science class, and had outstanding assignments and missed tests in two other classes. The incomplete work was because of all the classes she didn’t attend due to having to leave school early for competitions. We decided D needed to step back a little to bring up her grades and catch up on her work. Instead of being given support, we were spoken to nastily and given an ultimatum. D had to return full force to the team after only a few days, or she was going to be kicked off completely. Trust me when I tell you that even after taking 2 weeks off, D was still going to be a much better runner than anyone else this coach had, but that’s beside the point. They played hardball with us, and since D’s passion was the sport and she wanted to play in college, we had to cave.</p>
<p>Also, the time commitment you cite does not seem to me to be unusual. The real problem is the sudden change from year to year. Had your D known in advance what team membership was going to entail, she might have made a different choice earlier on in her high school career. Sacrificing academics is never a good idea, but minimal decline can be OK if the student is definitely D 1 recruitable. If not, I’d walk away.</p>
<p>Actually, my son goes to a very large public high school. I agree that nothing may change, but I think the parent needs to write the AD just because that is the right thing to do. It is important that her daughter see her parents fighting to back her correct decision. My son spends well over 20 hours a week for his sport, so the time commitment wasn’t the issue to me. It was the disrespect with with the coach treated her. No coach at the high school level should demean or disrespect an athlete for choosing academics first. If they can’t deal with that, they should quit and get out of HIGH SCHOOL coaching. The Athletic Director may do nothing but I think the parent has got to try…</p>
<p>I don’t understand how your daughter was still on the team once she informed the coach that she couldn’t keep up with the demanding schedule. Was she the only one on the team who had reduced hours? How would she have felt if she committed to the schedule and someone else came in said they could only do x amount of hours and was still allowed to play?</p>
<p>I’d agree to encourage her daughter to continue the sport and continue the same schedule. The coach was obviously disappointed with the end results of the games and was looking to blame someone. He/she is probably new to coaching, so has a lot to learn. He was lashing out, so don’t take it personally.</p>
<p>Jordcin, D asked to remain on the team and to continue to practice along with everyone else. She didn’t have reduced hours per se, she just wasn’t competing in games. It was the away games and weekend commitments that gave her trouble. She understood the coach’s reaction not to include her in any of those away games (even the home games which she might have been able to negotiate) but he just completely ignored her for the rest of the season when they might have possibly reached some healthy compromise. Competing was not what I was concerned so much about,it was the dig at the end of the year as if her academic decision was a personal attack on his success. We gave her our full support as we felt she had done exactly what she needed to do in looking down the road at college. None of those kids is D1 material.</p>
<p>Oh heck, if that is the case, does she want to play next year? Does she need to play, meaning does she have all of her PE credits? I have three children and they would all react differently to the situation you describe. My oldest would have played on principle - he would not let the idiot coach win because he would think the coach is wrong (stubborn child he is). My daughter would just not play thinking it isn’t worth it. My youngest son would know that without him the team couldn’t win (he was 72-0 in league) so he would probably approach the matter a tad differently and I don’t think the coach would be speaking to him they way he spoke to your daughter. If she doesn’t want to play, I say get the heck out of there and enjoy her senior year. She sounds like academics is most important to her. She might be happier without all of this stress…</p>
<p>I have no real opinion about this, but is it really true that coaches no longer use moderately foul or even cross language? Things sure have changed since I played high school football in the 1970s.</p>
<p>I would let the young woman decide what she wants to do – drop it, try to work with the coach for one more season, report it, whatever. She’s already shown that she’s mature and responsible and willing to see things from the coach’s perspective as well as her own. And if she wants a parent there with her when she talks to the principal or whatever, I’d give her that support. Even if she wants a parent to take the lead, I’d probably do it, given how well she has already been handling things. She doesn’t seem to need to be pushed to develop the skills she’ll need to stand up for herself in the future. I would expect her to be perfectly capable of dealing with difficult TAs and professors a year from now and only need help if the situation is really bad.</p>
<p>But I’d also sit down and discuss with her the various ways in which she will be able to use her performance over the last season to her advantage. There will be questions on applications and in interviews like “Can you describe a situation in which you thought someone in authority was being unreasonable and how you handled it?” and she now has an answer that will show her to be able to prioritize (choosing academics over athletics instead of trying to do it all and just letting the academics suffer), to deal directly with the authority figure (going to the coach and describing the problem and proposing a solution instead of just not showing up or showing up and not giving her all), to follow through with her responsibilities (continuing to attend practices and games when she could without sacrificing her schoolwork), and to be a team player (accepting that a player who isn’t there all the time isn’t going to get a lot of playing time). These actions show the kind of person she is, and she will be able to use them in the future to show people what kind of person she is. I think it’s a great moment to help her to understand – without bringing the topics up directly – how to craft an essay for a college application that gives the people who read it an idea of what she can bring to their campus if they accept her, how her actions affect the way that other people see her, and why handling things responsibly matters even when there isn’t an obvious immediate payoff for doing it. And of course, you’ll also be showing her that you are proud of her, and why you are proud of her, without doing anything embarassing like coming right out and saying, “I’m proud of you.”</p>
<p>It sounds as if she’s already learned a lot of those lessons that athletics are supposed to (and often do) teach young players, which is a good thing given that this coach doesn’t seem to be a very good person to impart them to her.</p>
<p>I have no real opinion about this, but is it really true that coaches no longer use moderately foul or even cross language? If a team (or a player) was told to “get off their a$$,” that would be considered beyond the pale? Things sure have changed since I played high school football in the 1970s. And I think I heard worse stuff coming out of the parents in AYSO soccer.</p>
<p>And I understand this is a comment directed at a young lady, in a different sport, and not at an entire team. So the specific instance is different.</p>
<p>bovertine, I had three kids play a certain varsity sport in high school. Two were on CIF Division I Championship teams. The language is horrible! I played the same sport back in the day (1980’s) and this would have never been allowed. It’s really awful and it makes no difference the sex of the child. I would say certain sports are worse than others. Sad sign of the times…</p>
like coming right out and saying, “I’m proud of you.”</p>