Travel team parents

[Anonymous]

Ugh. Moved to area four years ago and DC has been on travel team for last three years. Practice is far away, rush hour, blah blah. We are one of five families in immediate area and they refuse to let us join their carpool. Folks will ask for rides to games when needed, but will not allow us to join regular car pool. A new family moved in and they allowed them to join. I just don't get it. DC is liked by other kids, etc. Not a top player on team, but solid middle. DH believes that the parents are simply competitive and don't want coach to see their DCs fraternizing with a middle pack player.

The families have to drive by our street to drop off one of the players. Just hate it.

[Anonymous]

Did you ask to join the carpool? What reason have they given you for not letting you join?

I have 2 kids that play on a travel team and I've been doing this for 10 years. I've never heard of anyone caring about their kid interacting with other kids based on skill level.

We had the opportunity to join a far away team that would mean rush hour traffic getting to/from practice and a home field 45 minutes away. In the end I decided it wasn't worth it and we stuck with our local nearby club. Any chance you could switch to a team that's closer to you?

[Anonymous]

How old is your kid? I have to admit, I struggled to find a polite way to get out of a carpool with one of the kids from my son's travel team. It was nothing about his playing ability and my son did like him, but he was just sort of an argumentative kid towards adults and it was annoying to deal with constantly being questioned and interrogated by a 10 year old about every little thing.

[Anonymous]

Our carpool people suck. No commitment, they are the type of parents who always say my kid plays travel where the parents who have kids who are successful just say they play soccer.

They always have something come up, complain about the distance to practice, how far games are away and then they say their snowflake isn't going to practice and if the snowflake does get in the game they screw things up because they have no idea what they are doing and oh they suck. Oh and always late.

We have gone back to driving our kid ourselves.

[Anonymous]

Why is it hard to carpool with you? Can you think of any reasons?

It definitely is a problem to add a fifth family - not everyone has a minivan.

There are other clubs and other teams.

[Anonymous]

Sounds strange! What sport?

[Anonymous]

So if another new family joined and was added to the carpool, I'd take that as a definite message. No way in hell I'd give one of those folks rides, and I think if I had asked to join the carpool and been told no, I'd straight up tell the parent who asked for a ride to a game why I was refusing.

We've had some screwed up team dynamics on travel teams (DS changed teams because of it, and it was the best decision ever) but no parents that were that crazy and petty. In fact, other parents have always been supportive of my kid who was one of the worst on the team when he started, and after DS got better and moved to a better team, those parents were super positive and congratulated him after they saw him playing with the new (much better) team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you ask to join the carpool? What reason have they given you for not letting you join?

I have 2 kids that play on a travel team and I've been doing this for 10 years. I've never heard of anyone caring about their kid interacting with other kids based on skill level.

We had the opportunity to join a far away team that would mean rush hour traffic getting to/from practice and a home field 45 minutes away. In the end I decided it wasn't worth it and we stuck with our local nearby club. Any chance you could switch to a team that's closer to you?

Hear ya. This is the closest competitive club. There is a second club, but their coach said our DC would not be happy there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you ask to join the carpool? What reason have they given you for not letting you join?

I have 2 kids that play on a travel team and I've been doing this for 10 years. I've never heard of anyone caring about their kid interacting with other kids based on skill level.

We had the opportunity to join a far away team that would mean rush hour traffic getting to/from practice and a home field 45 minutes away. In the end I decided it wasn't worth it and we stuck with our local nearby club. Any chance you could switch to a team that's closer to you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How old is your kid? I have to admit, I struggled to find a polite way to get out of a carpool with one of the kids from my son's travel team. It was nothing about his playing ability and my son did like him, but he was just sort of an argumentative kid towards adults and it was annoying to deal with constantly being questioned and interrogated by a 10 year old about every little thing.

Could see that but DC is pretty amiable, liked by teachers, etc. DC is 14.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is it hard to carpool with you? Can you think of any reasons?

It definitely is a problem to add a fifth family - not everyone has a minivan.

There are other clubs and other teams.

For us there is only one other club and in one of my earlier replies, the coach said DC would not be happy there. FWIW, everyone here has either a carpool or minivan. This isn't about numbers.

Have thought about reasons. Part of it may be that the core has been carpooling for awhile. From what I can tell, some of the players did not start out on the top team and their parents seem petrified that their DC will be moved down. Our DC was on the fence one year, but ended up back on top team. Parents interact and, for games, will ask for rides, but the carpool seems sacrosanct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds strange! What sport?

soccer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if another new family joined and was added to the carpool, I'd take that as a definite message. No way in hell I'd give one of those folks rides, and I think if I had asked to join the carpool and been told no, I'd straight up tell the parent who asked for a ride to a game why I was refusing.

We've had some screwed up team dynamics on travel teams (DS changed teams because of it, and it was the best decision ever) but no parents that were that crazy and petty. In fact, other parents have always been supportive of my kid who was one of the worst on the team when he started, and after DS got better and moved to a better team, those parents were super positive and congratulated him after they saw him playing with the new (much better) team.

Yup. If any one of them ever asked me for anything, I would absolutely say no. "We asked to join the carpool and were told no, even though it goes right by our house. Then Family X was allowed to join, so we know it wasn't because of space limitations. We got the message, loud and clear. Find your own ride."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our carpool people suck. No commitment, they are the type of parents who always say my kid plays travel where the parents who have kids who are successful just say they play soccer.

They always have something come up, complain about the distance to practice, how far games are away and then they say their snowflake isn't going to practice and if the snowflake does get in the game they screw things up because they have no idea what they are doing and oh they suck. Oh and always late.

We have gone back to driving our kid ourselves.

We are on an on time family, never late to practice, games, etc. Once drove, even though DC was not going because I know parents' schedules can be held together by just a toothpick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if another new family joined and was added to the carpool, I'd take that as a definite message. No way in hell I'd give one of those folks rides, and I think if I had asked to join the carpool and been told no, I'd straight up tell the parent who asked for a ride to a game why I was refusing.

We've had some screwed up team dynamics on travel teams (DS changed teams because of it, and it was the best decision ever) but no parents that were that crazy and petty. In fact, other parents have always been supportive of my kid who was one of the worst on the team when he started, and after DS got better and moved to a better team, those parents were super positive and congratulated him after they saw him playing with the new (much better) team.

The parents are very competitive, shockingly so. We're not and folks may pick up on that.

I never refused rides before as I probably was in denial about what was going on - rationalizing, etc. I just can't believe folks would behave like this.