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[quote=Anonymous]My son plays a HS fall sport at a DC private.  It's a team sport.  The school does well athletically but had not recently in this sport.
    
The school decided to bring in a new coach a couple years ago who also runs his own club team.  He’s not a coach at large local club, but he has his own company running his own club.  After joining the school, the coach set up his own club to basically operate out of the school, with camps, practices, games, and even cook outs held at the school.   Just about every photo on his company’s website is clearly taken at the school’s facilities.  
As time has progressed, more and more players from his club team have enrolled in the HS, usually as freshman.  Every year a new crop of freshman show up (about 4), and they are placed on the Varsity team and given starting roles.  The coach uses the school team communication system to constantly advertise his camps and club, and the message to everyone seems to be if you want to play on the school's team, you need to be a paying customer of his club team.

The problem is – probably two thirds of the players don’t have an association with his club.  Which leaves 2/3 of the boys riding the bench while his club players take most of the game time.  (Some of his club players are good and should be on the field.  Some are no better or worse than the Juniors and Seniors his players are bumping off the field.)  The coach also seems to actively segregate his club players from the rest of the team – scrimmaging them against each other, talking to them separately, giving their parents special attention, etc.  I’ve also heard about the coach soliciting players from opposing schools to join his club team after games.  All of this has led players to quit the team, and even to a couple of transfers out of the school.  On the sidelines, the parents have segregated themselves as well, between families associated with his club team and those that are not.

My question is this – is this common?  Am I naïve in expecting a school to not allow a circumstance like this to develop or persist?  Is this just the way it is, and I should just deal with it, or is it worth raising as an issue?  This has been going on long enough that I know that other parents have complained, but nothing has changed over the last couple of years.  
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