Daughter broken-hearted over favoritism

[Anonymous]

Seriously you need to find a new club

[Anonymous]

It's good for kids to lose sometimes, OP. It's a learning experience. Your DD will lose out on job offers. There will always be someone who is smarter, richer, quicker, and gets your spot on the starting team. Sometimes you can try your hardest and still get beat by someone who is better at it (whatever it is).

Look at this as an opportunity for your DD to learn the valuable life lesson that she is not good at everything. You don't have to tell her that, she knows now. Learning this life lesson will make her a more humble, realistic woman. We show people who we are when we lose, not when we win.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. To clarify, this is an official school activity, but it does NOT have varsity status. That means the school lends its name and facilities to the activity, and the activity needs to follow the school system’s regulations on when they can meet, the official health forms the participants fill out, background checks on the coaches, etc. However, no school funds are expended for coaches, equipment, buses, etc.

People wonder exactly what the coach said. He didn’t say explicitly that the rival’s parents paid $5k for their daughter to win the spot in the lineup. But I think it’s obvious what happened if you read between the lines. Yes the coach wants to win, but first he wants to compete. Unfortunately the sponsor making that happen has a daughter competing with mine.

I wish I could write a check and place my daughter onto equal footing. But then the rival’s Dad would just up the ante. This is lunch money to him.

I appreciate the thoughts on what to do. I don’t really see how going to the school matters given that this is a (school) club sport and not varsity. There’s just not enough interest for the school to step in and pressure the coach—even if somehow media covered this. He can just drop the program and turn a large number of well-off parents against the school (and my daughter).

What makes you think your kid is better than the other kid? You seriously sound like a whack job. If your kid it that talented, no way she plays second string. More than likely the kids are pretty close talent wise. Time to step back and get a grip. As you said, it isn’t even a varsity sport, good grief

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. To clarify, this is an official school activity, but it does NOT have varsity status. That means the school lends its name and facilities to the activity, and the activity needs to follow the school system’s regulations on when they can meet, the official health forms the participants fill out, background checks on the coaches, etc. However, no school funds are expended for coaches, equipment, buses, etc.

People wonder exactly what the coach said. He didn’t say explicitly that the rival’s parents paid $5k for their daughter to win the spot in the lineup. But I think it’s obvious what happened if you read between the lines. Yes the coach wants to win, but first he wants to compete. Unfortunately the sponsor making that happen has a daughter competing with mine.

I wish I could write a check and place my daughter onto equal footing. But then the rival’s Dad would just up the ante. This is lunch money to him.

I appreciate the thoughts on what to do. I don’t really see how going to the school matters given that this is a (school) club sport and not varsity. There’s just not enough interest for the school to step in and pressure the coach—even if somehow media covered this. He can just drop the program and turn a large number of well-off parents against the school (and my daughter).

What makes you think your kid is better than the other kid? You seriously sound like a whack job. If your kid it that talented, no way she plays second string. More than likely the kids are pretty close talent wise. Time to step back and get a grip. As you said, it isn’t even a varsity sport, good grief

OP does not sound like a whack job. You, on the other hand...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The coaches exact words were: "If you want to win the race to Dubai, you need a road paved in gold"

Time to talk to the principal and the School Supervisor.

I don't believe that these quotes are real. If a coach ever did so far forget himself as to write insane nonsense like that in an email, I'd immediately go to principal or headmaster. Someone writing that kind of stuff seems too potentially unstable to be around children. I say this as a former middle school coach and parent of a kid who played club, rec, and school sports 2nd-12th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused. Is it a school team or a club team?

It's right there... right there in the first sentence. Right there! All you had to do was read it:

"My daughter is trying out for a high school[u] sports team ------

Come on! You scare me that this is something that confused you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t believe a word of this story.

+ 1 Million

Me either.
Troll for sure.

[Anonymous]

Here is how this plays out:

1. Parent sends the email to school, board, headmaster, etc etc etc and CC's or not the other parents
2. Coach denies every word - he said/they said
3. Parent looks like a psychopath sports parent who really really really thinks their kid is the very best
4. Kid is friendless and mocked in school forever

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is how this plays out:

1. Parent sends the email to school, board, headmaster, etc etc etc and CC's or not the other parents
2. Coach denies every word - he said/they said
3. Parent looks like a psychopath sports parent who really really really thinks their kid is the very best
4. Kid is friendless and mocked in school forever

OP said it was in an e-mail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's good for kids to lose sometimes, OP. It's a learning experience. Your DD will lose out on job offers. There will always be someone who is smarter, richer, quicker, and gets your spot on the starting team. Sometimes you can try your hardest and still get beat by someone who is better at it (whatever it is).

Look at this as an opportunity for your DD to learn the valuable life lesson that she is not good at everything. You don't have to tell her that, she knows now. Learning this life lesson will make her a more humble, realistic woman. We show people who we are when we lose, not when we win.

I hate that this generation of parents micromanage and become hyper-involved in all aspects of DC's lives, from socially engineering to college prep.

Just stop. Let your children figure out and navigate hurt, pain, disappointment and life in general.

I was involved in a popular, competitive club sport at my FCPS HS decades ago. My parents' involvement was limited to a meet the coaches night, coming to games, maybe dropping me off at a fundraising event, but that's absolutely it.

I trained hard to make the team as a freshman and was cut right away. I was devasted, embarrassed and upset...as a normal insecure and awkward teen would be, but I just worked my tail off to improve my fitness and enhance my skills. I was rewarded the following season with a spot. Truly taught myself the value of determination and practice and something that I still think about today; that I have an incredible drive and strong work ethic.

Now I'm the parent of 3. I have always made them advocate for themselves - emailing teachers, for example, or talking to the coach. I have never had to get involved at this level. My 3 have endured their share of disappointments, failures, not making a team, not playing as often as they'd like...but life moves on and I'd like to think I've instilled some realism and coping mechanisms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's good for kids to lose sometimes, OP. It's a learning experience. Your DD will lose out on job offers. There will always be someone who is smarter, richer, quicker, and gets your spot on the starting team. Sometimes you can try your hardest and still get beat by someone who is better at it (whatever it is).

Look at this as an opportunity for your DD to learn the valuable life lesson that she is not good at everything. You don't have to tell her that, she knows now. Learning this life lesson will make her a more humble, realistic woman. We show people who we are when we lose, not when we win.

I hate that this generation of parents micromanage and become hyper-involved in all aspects of DC's lives, from socially engineering to college prep.

Just stop. Let your children figure out and navigate hurt, pain, disappointment and life in general.

I was involved in a popular, competitive club sport at my FCPS HS decades ago. My parents' involvement was limited to a meet the coaches night, coming to games, maybe dropping me off at a fundraising event, but that's absolutely it.

I trained hard to make the team as a freshman and was cut right away. I was devasted, embarrassed and upset...as a normal insecure and awkward teen would be, but I just worked my tail off to improve my fitness and enhance my skills. I was rewarded the following season with a spot. Truly taught myself the value of determination and practice and something that I still think about today; that I have an incredible drive and strong work ethic.

Now I'm the parent of 3. I have always made them advocate for themselves - emailing teachers, for example, or talking to the coach. I have never had to get involved at this level. My 3 have endured their share of disappointments, failures, not making a team, not playing as often as they'd like...but life moves on and I'd like to think I've instilled some realism and coping mechanisms.

None of that is comparable to losing a spot because another parent purchased it for their child. At a public school, I would absolutely step in if a coach was accepting donations for spots on a team

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is how this plays out:

1. Parent sends the email to school, board, headmaster, etc etc etc and CC's or not the other parents
2. Coach denies every word - he said/they said
3. Parent looks like a psychopath sports parent who really really really thinks their kid is the very best
4. Kid is friendless and mocked in school forever

OP said it was in an e-mail.

5. Your kid is labeled "difficult to coach"

6. If it's between two athletes for the team roster, it comes down to the "nicer and kinder" parents

- xoxo from the volunteer youth/house soccer + basketball coach's wife who counted on at least one unhinged parent a season who'd email a diatribe/critique to outline all of the ways precious DC was wronged and underutilized. Saddest was this was under 8 teams. Absolutely insufferable.

[Anonymous]

It's so sad how many people on this thread are siding with the bribe schemers.

If this was happening to your child, you'd be livid.

[Anonymous]

I don’t see this as a situation where OP would be guilty of being a hovering parent trying to get his daughter playing time for which she is not deserving. This club is associated with the school and a school associated lib should not be a pay to play organization. The OP should say something g to the school because the school should be upset about how the coach is running the club. If the school is not upset with the way the club is being run, which is very possible, I question the ethics of the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t see this as a situation where OP would be guilty of being a hovering parent trying to get his daughter playing time for which she is not deserving. This club is associated with the school and a school associated lib should not be a pay to play organization. The OP should say something g to the school because the school should be upset about how the coach is running the club. If the school is not upset with the way the club is being run, which is very possible, I question the ethics of the school.

Yeah, part of an AD’s job is thinking “how would this look in a newspaper” about any aspect of the school’s programs (see St. John’s baseball pay-to-play and the terrible press that earned). A crazy coach email specifically advocating pay to play at a public school wouldn’t look good.