Reply to Pay-to-Play Sport at Private HS employing club coach

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Pay-to-Play Sport at Private HS employing club coach - what's normal?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I think we all agree that the pay-to-play landscape that exists for most youth sports s*cks, but what you are talking about is nothing compared to what the STJ baseball coach is doing. And if you go to the thread re WCAC baseball, you get a better picture of how the coach is not only extorting families, but apparently completely killing kids’ chances of being recruited to D1 schools.  And I’ll add that soccer and baseball scholarships are not a pipe dream at all for good players in the mid-Atlantic—I know scores of kids who are playing or played at great schools with significant scholarships over the past few years, not to mention the admissions boost they received due to their sport. You sound like you are hanging out with a crowd of uninformed people who don’t know much about recruiting and don’t value education. Your experience is by no means universal on that front.

[b]To “Johnny’s” dad and the posters with kids currently stuck in the baseball program, I am so very sorry.  Is there no one at the school or among the alums with the interest and power to make changes? [/b] I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but alums at Bullis rallied to force out some lacrosse coaches over the last couple of years. There is a long thread on DCUM about it. [/quote]

This is Johnny's parent again. As others said earlier in the thread, the SJC administration is aware of what's going on in the baseball program and they're fine with it. Maybe it's because the Coach's family name is on the field. There was an article and photo in the school magazine at one point about the naming of the various athletic facilities, including Gibbs Field. His father presumably wrote a fat check and was in the photo. I guess if your dad gives enough money at a Catholic school it gives you free reign to treat kids any way you want.

We stayed silent during my son's entire time at SJC and even after he left because that's what he wanted. He was afraid for us to speak up and didn't want to be ostracized. He found a way to put it behind him and move on, but I don't think he'll ever fully shed those 4 years of emotional baggage. He suffered from depression during high school, and while baseball wasn't the only cause it contributed significantly. Before high school, the baseball field was probably his happiest place, but that was taken away from him. Most teenagers deal with stress and varying degrees of depression, and playing a game should be an outlet to relieve some of that. He didn't have that in high school. Baseball added significantly to his stress and depression.

My son probably wouldn't approve of me posting about this  here, but when I found out about this web site and the 5 boys who had to transfer I decided I had to speak up. If someone had spoken up before we got there, my son may have been better off. If we spoke up earlier, maybe those 5 boys would've been better off. I respect those 5 boys and their parents for not putting up with it like we did. Them transferring and me writing here probably won't change the way they do things at SJC, but maybe it will keep someone else from going there. 
[/quote]

Thank you for sharing (and sorry I assumed you were a dad).  What an awful situation for a hard-working kid to be put in.  I hope your message reaches others too. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics