HS Varsity sport with jerk coach

[Anonymous]

My two kids, four varsity sports between them, wanted to be with their HS friends on the HS team. That mattered way more than the coach.

[Anonymous]

Tell your child to make the decision when green days begin next year. Our VA high school had a change over in coaches between 9th and 10th grade. Sometimes coaches don't remain, especially if they are jerks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9th grade is a tough age to make this decision, 11th would be easier. I say this for a few reasons but it really boils down to 1. being absolutely sure she doesn't want to do this in college and 2. the chances that there will be a different coach in place by the time she's a senior. If she is really 100% sure about #1 I would let her quit the HS team.

She is 100% sure she doesn’t want to play in college (it would really limit her options of where she could go) but she just wants to make sure she’s not hampering her application.

Life is short. No reason to deal with a jerk coach. Actually, sounds like a good college essay…” I chose my mental health over dealing with a jerk coach. “

[Anonymous]

We have faced this same thing with our son this year.
Really hated the coaching. Made him miserable and we were miserable dealing with a tired, grumpy, upset kid. One of the coaches really hit his confidence.
I want him to build resilience, but two hours of tearing him down 6 days a week…..
We have told him we may decide for him that he’s only doing travel, not the school team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD plays a travel sport she enjoys. Not planning to play in college whatsoever but does enjoy it enough to stay through HS. Her travel team pauses during the HS season so the kids can play. Her HS is a jerk and she hasn’t enjoyed this year (9th grade.) Should she suck up the next 3 years just so she can say she played 4 years of this sport in HS? Does it look bad to only play travel and not a HS sport?

She does some volunteering and will eventually have a job, but this is her main extra curricular.

We are in VA and she would like to go to UVA or W&M. Older sibling had a (different) 4 year HS sport.

WDYT?

If your DD is unhappy with the HS coach, I would let her drop the sport and replace it with another EC that fits her academic interests.

From personal experience with my DS, HS coaches are allowed to engage in abusive behavior that would never be tolerated by a teacher. Perhaps, it isn’t that bad with your DD, but I would listen to her concerns attentively.

We didn’t try to force our kid to spend 15-20 hours a week with a “jerk”. Surely, the two of you can find something better for her to do which might actually help with college admissions, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9th grade is a tough age to make this decision, 11th would be easier. I say this for a few reasons but it really boils down to 1. being absolutely sure she doesn't want to do this in college and 2. the chances that there will be a different coach in place by the time she's a senior. If she is really 100% sure about #1 I would let her quit the HS team.

She is 100% sure she doesn’t want to play in college (it would really limit her options of where she could go) but she just wants to make sure she’s not hampering her application.

Life is short. No reason to deal with a jerk coach. Actually, sounds like a good college essay…” I chose my mental health over dealing with a jerk coach. “

I would not do this. Sounds overdramatic and makes you look like you lack any resilience.

[Anonymous]

I need more details. Why doesn’t she like him, what is he doing? Being “a jerk” can be a whole spectrum of things.

However there are a lot of jerks in the world and she will have to take classes with them, work on projects with them, work with them as an adult, one might be your boss one day. Learning to not let the personality and behaviors of others affect you is a skill that takes practice.

Also have to consider how she otherwise likes the team. Are her friends on it? I think freshman year is a year kids typically have the most dissatisfaction like their coaches. They feel like they are overlooked, don’t get enough playing time, they get more corrections/criticism, little praise is given…

Playing on a high school team is fun and has a lot of benefits outside of college admissions. Unless the coach’s behavior was so bad I felt compelled to write formal complaints, I’d encourage her to try it another year. Her travel team isn’t even playing during high school season, so it isn’t as if she’d miss out on that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges don't care about sports unless you're a recruited athlete.

This. It doesn’t matter. She can put the sport on a line and say she played for 4 years either way. It doesn’t matter what combination of travel, club, rec or HS that 4 years is if she isn’t a recruited athlete.

Agree very strongly with this. Sports should not cause anxiety due to a jerky coach - they should be fun.

[Anonymous]

I would wait until next season to make any decisions. As others have said, in some schools there is high turnover. If this coach is jerk and the administrators have received complaints they may not be back.

[Anonymous]

If she does not plan to pursue the sport in college, I would definitely advise her to quit the HS team.

Find something productive to fill that time that "fits in" with the rest of the application. That's all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9th grade is a tough age to make this decision, 11th would be easier. I say this for a few reasons but it really boils down to 1. being absolutely sure she doesn't want to do this in college and 2. the chances that there will be a different coach in place by the time she's a senior. If she is really 100% sure about #1 I would let her quit the HS team.

She is 100% sure she doesn’t want to play in college (it would really limit her options of where she could go) but she just wants to make sure she’s not hampering her application.

Life is short. No reason to deal with a jerk coach. Actually, sounds like a good college essay…” I chose my mental health over dealing with a jerk coach. “

This was close to the subject of my kid’s Common App essay, except that it dealt with pervasive racism and misogyny. Got admitted to 3/4 of the schools to which he applied including his Top 30 reach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9th grade is a tough age to make this decision, 11th would be easier. I say this for a few reasons but it really boils down to 1. being absolutely sure she doesn't want to do this in college and 2. the chances that there will be a different coach in place by the time she's a senior. If she is really 100% sure about #1 I would let her quit the HS team.

She is 100% sure she doesn’t want to play in college (it would really limit her options of where she could go) but she just wants to make sure she’s not hampering her application.

Life is short. No reason to deal with a jerk coach. Actually, sounds like a good college essay…” I chose my mental health over dealing with a jerk coach. “

This was close to the subject of my kid’s Common App essay, except that it dealt with pervasive racism and misogyny. Got admitted to 3/4 of the schools to which he applied including his Top 30 reach.

l

College admission officers often identify the bad coach or injury recovery essays as the most common and WORST they see. Your kid probably admitted for the strength of the rest of their app.

[Anonymous]

Let her quit the HS sport but suggest she use the time to focus on something else and have a plan. I know plenty of kids who quit a HS sport because they didn't like the coach or team and didn't want to play in college. None of them regretted it, especially if it allowed them to focus more on something else that mattered to them, whether it's travel teams, a totally different extracurricular, or something else.

[Anonymous]

Club-only is fine. Or high school team-only is fine! Just make sure she's staying busy and involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges don't care about sports unless you're a recruited athlete.

This. It doesn’t matter. She can put the sport on a line and say she played for 4 years either way. It doesn’t matter what combination of travel, club, rec or HS that 4 years is if she isn’t a recruited athlete.

Yes and “recruited athkete” varies by sport and division To be a recruited athlete at the Power 4 level is statistically very rare. Athletics is not a solid bet any longer.