what would you do? (1 Viewer)

[whiskey7]

A 10 year old who lost his dad recently to suicide...

Cut him? WTF

For the purposes of discussion, I read this as the BIL doesn't know if he wants to coach next season because he doesn't want this kid on his team but the director guy is saying he cant be cut. I could be misunderstanding, but I don't think its a question of whether or not to cut him from the team he's currently on for whatever is left of the season.

@msudaisy, please clarify. Are we talking about cutting this kid from next year's team during tryouts or kicking him off this year's team?

If its the latter, I agree with everyone who has said let him continue to play and finish the season. If its the former, my opinion is he should not make next year's team due to preferential treatment.

 

[belljr]

I love our travel softball.

We have tryouts in August.  Then we do league play with 2 tournaments in Sept and October.

Shut it down until January. Meet once a week for 8 weeks in Jan and Feb.

Startup again late March with league play starting April ending beginning of June. And about 5 tournaments sprinkled in.  We added 2 tourneys this year just because we qualified for the USSSA regionals. So this year was extended longer than normal.

I've seen the good things about travel and the definite stuff Commish is mentioning.

We remember they are still only 10 and make it fun

 

[Spike]

It seems like there needs to be more "team" teaching than "baseball" teaching with this boy.

He's 10, for cryin' out loud, keep him on the team and maybe he gets some fun out of his childhood.  It sounds like it's already been much worse than pretty much any of us had to deal with.

 

[belljr]

We definitely have kids that are less "talent wise" than some other kids but they all have great attitudes and want to learn.

 

[Chemical X]

I am in the camp of cut him.  No matter the baggage (and a suicide is awful), everyone has some kind of issue they bring with them to the ballpark.  Gonna throw age out here too.

Playing baseball is a privilege, not a right.  You spend what, 2-3 hours at a youth game?  During that small amount of time, you give your all.  It should be fun and a time to escape.  If you can't give your all, then you really don't want to be there.  They keep score for a reason....if they didn't keep score, let him stay and slack around.  Maybe he needs a therapist, not a baseball team.

 

[Gally]

We definitely have kids that are less "talent wise" than some other kids but they all have great attitudes and want to learn.

Attitude is the key to everything.  Attitude from the kids as well as attitude from the parents.  Tryout evaluation is not always about who are the best athletes and "best" players.  Attitude is a huge component to evaluate during tryouts - and this includes parent's attitudes during tryouts.  When I am evaluating players all of these items factor into the evaluation process. 

To have a successful experience  (and by successful I mean players develop and have fun doing it while working hard) you need to have proper expectations of everyone - including the parents.  If winning is put as too high of a priority then things will become difficult very fast.  Part of this experience is learning how to win with class but more importantly is learning how to lose with class. 

A phrase I heard recently and I have started to incorporate into my team talks is that baseball is a game of failure and it is the players that learn to shake off the failure are the ones that will eventually succeed. 

 

[belljr]

Attitude is the key to everything.  Attitude from the kids as well as attitude from the parents.  Tryout evaluation is not always about who are the best athletes and "best" players.  Attitude is a huge component to evaluate during tryouts - and this includes parent's attitudes during tryouts.  When I am evaluating players all of these items factor into the evaluation process. 

To have a successful experience  (and by successful I mean players develop and have fun doing it while working hard) you need to have proper expectations of everyone - including the parents.  If winning is put as too high of a priority then things will become difficult very fast.  Part of this experience is learning how to win with class but more importantly is learning how to lose with class. 

A phrase I heard recently and I have started to incorporate into my team talks is that baseball is a game of failure and it is the players that learn to shake off the failure are the ones that will eventually succeed. 

Yep - similar to our evaluations.  We already have a list of "parents"  that are trouble.

We also know to not to try to kids for their parents being ######s.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Does the kid even want to play? 

 

[Ned]

6yr old travel baseball?  WTF?

 

[msudaisy26]

If this is a traveling program where the kids have to tryout and make the team, its not right to keep this kid at the expense of other kids who are more qualified based on the tryout criteria. Yeah, I know...they're 10. Still, if they're going to have traveling teams with tryouts for that age group, they gotta run them fairly. My heart goes out to him and his family but its not right to keep him over someone else because of what happened with the father. Further, they are doing him a disservice if they treat him different than other kids based on what his father did, IMO.  Treat him with warmth and compassion but do not treat him different.

ETA If I was BIL, I would quit coaching for this organization. I wouldn't coach for a director who told me who I had to keep/cut.

To the this part that is in bold. He did tell him this was the only player that he would ever tell him whether he could keep or cut, and said that his playing time is completely up to my BIL.

 

[msudaisy26]

6yr old travel baseball?  WTF?

That is when they start I guess and you can see why they would have a high turnover rate with kids just not liking baseball anymore, moving, or whatever. That is why most of the kids on the team don't know what happened to his father.

 

[msudaisy26]

For the purposes of discussion, I read this as the BIL doesn't know if he wants to coach next season because he doesn't want this kid on his team but the director guy is saying he cant be cut. I could be misunderstanding, but I don't think its a question of whether or not to cut him from the team he's currently on for whatever is left of the season.

@msudaisy, please clarify. Are we talking about cutting this kid from next year's team during tryouts or kicking him off this year's team?

If its the latter, I agree with everyone who has said let him continue to play and finish the season. If its the former, my opinion is he should not make next year's team due to preferential treatment.

The season is over now, this past weekend was their last tournament until the fall tournament and I guess that starts a new year.  It was cutting him for next years team and because the BIL was told he can't cut him he isn't  sure about coaching next year, but the question was whether or not you would cut him next year, all of us sitting at the table for lunch/dinner were split on whether on not he should be cut or not. I was just looking to see what other people thought.