Coach Assigns Another Player To Mentor?

[Anonymous]

DD is a sophomore, plays middle/right side, has played VB for about 18 months (rec then entry level club) and made our JV team. They took 16 and are heavy with hitters. Big school, more than 100 tried out for V/JV/Freshman teams.

After a scrimmage where she rode the bench for most of the evening, DD asked the coach what she could work on to better help the team. He said primarily hitting. Today after practice the coach pulled DD and some players aside, and asked for one of them to mentor her on her hitting.

She came home a little upset, mainly out of embarrassment that another kid was essentially being made to tutor her. We had the talk about soaking up all the knowledge from anywhere you can get it, seeing it as a positive of not being written off, etc.

All of that said - I’ve never experienced this personally but we are new to VB. Is this common? The coach is new and there is no asst coach, so I understand that bandwidth is limited with this big a roster. But then again I’ve never seen instruction duty being pushed off to another student.

[Anonymous]

My son is a baseball player and team captain. For his school’s fall season he is essentially their pitching coach. He mentors and teaches all the pitchers.

I think it is pretty normal, but I do think it will work best when the mentor is a couple years older than the mentee.

[Anonymous]

Sports are not for your DD if she can't take pointers from a teammate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sports are not for your DD if she can't take pointers from a teammate.

That’s helpful.

[Anonymous]

I learned an overhand serve from my VB teammates, not my coach. Same for flip turns in swim. It can feel a little weird to learn from peers when you’re HS age, but it can also be really productive.

The only thing your DD can do now is to go along with it and learn everything she can and show that she’s a good teammate. Riding the bench sucks but if she’s on JV right now she needs to hustle and find her niche so she can make varsity next year.

Not to be harsh, but when we were in this position we didn’t realize how challenging it would be to go from sophomore on a big JV team to a junior on Varsity. Ultimately DD was cut junior year. Check the # of juniors on varsity right now and think about whether remaining a hitter is the only option.

[Anonymous]

This is very normal. DD was unable to practice for a few days last year and instead worked with another girl her own age on improving her skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sports are not for your DD if she can't take pointers from a teammate.

+1
It's surprising she's upset and you're upset.

[Anonymous]

OP here.

20:40/21:28/21:38 - thanks for the feedback, and what you all wrote lines up with what we discussed at home. Appreciate you all taking the time to share. Just wanted to get some perspective from you all.

20:47/23:03 - not so much.