Thursday, November 19, 2009

Poor Bean

The volleyball coaches can have an issue with the parents all you want. But it speaks volume of your character when you take it out on our kid.

At first, I was impressed. Since KoKo's coach was not there, the JV coach filled in. Initially, she was recollecting personal anecdotes for each player. I thought this was a nice touch.

The only trouble was that they were going down the roster in numerical order, and they conveniently forgot (again, no other player's number seemed to be forgotten - or is it coincidence that I spoke out about her playing time?) my step daughter's number!

I glanced at Bean, and she was hurt.

I thought, well, it is what it is. Nothing surprises me with this place anymore.

Then the coach mentioned playing time being affected and players sitting because of not knowing the rotation (and I thought, Oh boy, here we go. This is in reference to my email and blog. Say what you want, but my beef about KoKo's playing time was legit! If it weren't, why did the team lose the game when she sat and 8th graders played ahead of her? And why did they win the next game - with KoKo serving the final three points - when she played all three games?).

After that, she finally got around to conveniently finding a way to mention a few haphazardly generic comments on KoKo. Now, any coach worth their salt - especially at an end of the year awards meeting - must remember a player's number!

KoKo - no fool - recognized the slam and insincere effort - and lost it.

But isn't it a little convenient that shortly after this, parents receive a 15 minute lecture about my blog? As asinine as it was, at least put a modicum of the effort you put into that lecture into trying to remember KoKo's number and saying a few sincere things.

But, I'm a pariah for speaking my mind. And, God forbid, posting it on line for others to read.

Why is that so bad?

I have five - count them - five followers. (Yes, five followers. So much for "being publicly attacked" as the coach put it tonight in reference to this blog). So this is not a public outcry. It's not a letter to the editor. It's not a presentation to the school board.

Worse yet, people began flocking to it to read a stupid post on sports. God forbid, they actually care about something important that I blog about.

Maybe I should have just called and bitched out the coach - as other parents have or give the illusion to the coaches that they would if their daughter didn't play - then this might not have happened.

If my simple blog post got things all stirred up, then - again as one person put it tonight after the parent lecture/award ceremony - there is really something wrong with the programs. And there is when it results in a student/athlete being treated like this.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I too am a bystander and felt it necessary to comment about the coach expecting everyone to know the rotation in order to have more playing time. That seems rather ridiculous to expect when the coach herself doesn't even know how to count, missing #11 team member, apparently singling her out for some unknown reason. That was rather cruel. Must of been a memory block for the coach, forgetting the number of the athlete,ni and made the awards banquet even more uncomfortable. What a joke the "awards night" turned out to be!