Your club is a dumpster fire. What are you going to get out of this conversation anyway that you don’t know.

If asking for a straight answer from people you’ve paid $3k a season for several years is “aggressive”, you folks who think that’s the problem are truly gaslit into believing you are demented unless you blindly do what the glorified gym coaches tell you to do with your kids.

OP here to report back after today’s game and answer some questions.

DS is not first team. He’s been on the third team (of six teams at his age group) for the last two years. He’s also a July birthday so the new age groupings have made him one of the youngest in U11. Moving down a team wouldn’t be unexpected because of these things. Moving down two teams (which is what the coach heard his offer was going to be, was a bit unexpected.

As for the game today, we went as usual. DS was in goal the entire game (which is pretty typical). Planned to chat with coach after the game. However, the coach didn’t show up!!!! Our team manager called, texted and got no response. So the kids played with no coach 🤦🏼‍♀️🤬. Coach sent a message after the game was over saying that he’d been without his phone since last night and just got it back and he apologizes for not being there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Travel U11 boys for next year. DS has played for this club for 3 years. Tryouts for next year were last week. Offers started going out for top teams last Friday and by practice on Thursday night, everyone on our current team had gotten their offers. We have heard nothing. I spoke with our current coach at the end of practice and he said he was told DS was getting an offer for X team and said those offers had already gone out. He said he’d reach out to upper management and see what was going on.

That night, DH sent an (very polite) email to the boys head coach, the age group head coach, and our current coach. We have heard nothing. Not even an acknowledgement that they got the email. We texted our current coach. Nothing. Called the club office and left a message this morning.

We have a game tomorrow. What do we do/say? Do we even go??

At this point, I don’t even care if they’ve cut him. I just want someone to have the balls to tell us!!

Ok, I guess I will be that person to say it.

This was ALOT. Emails, texts and calling the main line. If this was your communication style throughout this process I imagine you have been meddling throughout and it may be less about the kid and more about you and your DH.

Another club did have the audacity to tell the parents face to face, “your son is welcome back but you are not.” I prefer that directness but most people are. It emotionally prepared to handle that level of rejection in a mature manner. They take their ball and cash to another club instead of being reflective of their actions. I am pretty sure I am going to be shouted down for “keeping it real” with this post.

While I don’t approve how they handled it, I had a completely different reaction reading your message and thought that you and your DH were completely over the top agro (although probably done with a smile and politely).

Somebody else will probably take your money but if you are truly open to feedback, you might want to look at your approach for the sake of giving your son the best opportunities possible.

NP. There are a lot of people on DCUM who don't like to read. Also gutless people who avoid responsibility. Busy, prepared parents usually need to get their logistics in order and don't have time for evasion and disorganization.

I am routinely asking kid extracurricular people for info weeks to months before they deign to get planning and give it to me. My kids are a bit frustrated about being asked to get information from adults "too early".

What I see is that I'm spending my time, vacation benefits, taking off work sometimes to volunteer, shaping costly vacation and summer camp decisions around their schedules, and these people think they can just cobble everything together in 2-3 weeks.

Last year I had to drive 16 hours and create a mini-vacation in Wisconsin because my kid's EC team decide to go to an event there after I'd already registered my kid in a summer camp. I had to pick him up and get him to the event separate from the team. The event organizers published the wrong dates for the event 3 times on social media. We weren't even sure it would be held until a few weeks before. Another typical one: our high school's music director is ADHD and always publishes at least one incorrect concert date a year.

This kind of logistics sloppiness is pretty typical. And parents need to know. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask multiple people and multiple times.

I don't think OP said it was the first team ?

Teams entice club-shopping players to switch clubs with offers on the top team. Most won’t switch for a 2nd team offer. So even if your kid is similarly strong, they will be sacrificed in order to get the new family over.

Report back and tell us what happened at the game

Run. Fast.

just wondering, is your son end of the bench, least amount of playing time on the current team?

100% go to the game.

I disagree that it was " a lot". The coach told them that he should have gotten an offer and so a paperwork/admin mistake must have been made.

They sent one email cc-ing three people, checked back in with the coach who originally told them it was a paperwork error, and called the office admin who handles paperwork.

I suspect the coach lied to get them to go away because if in fact it was really just paperwork, it would have been fixed ASAP.

Anonymous wrote:Travel U11 boys for next year. DS has played for this club for 3 years. Tryouts for next year were last week. Offers started going out for top teams last Friday and by practice on Thursday night, everyone on our current team had gotten their offers. We have heard nothing. I spoke with our current coach at the end of practice and he said he was told DS was getting an offer for X team and said those offers had already gone out. He said he’d reach out to upper management and see what was going on.

That night, DH sent an (very polite) email to the boys head coach, the age group head coach, and our current coach. We have heard nothing. Not even an acknowledgement that they got the email. We texted our current coach. Nothing. Called the club office and left a message this morning.

We have a game tomorrow. What do we do/say? Do we even go??

At this point, I don’t even care if they’ve cut him. I just want someone to have the balls to tell us!!

Ok, I guess I will be that person to say it.

This was ALOT. Emails, texts and calling the main line. If this was your communication style throughout this process I imagine you have been meddling throughout and it may be less about the kid and more about you and your DH.

Another club did have the audacity to tell the parents face to face, “your son is welcome back but you are not.” I prefer that directness but most people are. It emotionally prepared to handle that level of rejection in a mature manner. They take their ball and cash to another club instead of being reflective of their actions. I am pretty sure I am going to be shouted down for “keeping it real” with this post.

While I don’t approve how they handled it, I had a completely different reaction reading your message and thought that you and your DH were completely over the top agro (although probably done with a smile and politely).

Somebody else will probably take your money but if you are truly open to feedback, you might want to look at your approach for the sake of giving your son the best opportunities possible.

Sound s like vrsc?

If a club is leaving a kid hanging with no offer at all, I would assume they want to put the kid on the lowest team but are waiting to see if they get enough kids signed up in order to have that team. Otherwise why not send an offer and then move the kid up a level if some players ahead of them turn it down? No one complains about being moved up.

Sadly I think this happens more than people realize. When DS was that age, I remember one of the players was left in limbo after everyone heard and the mom was really stressed. Eventually he was offered but a team below. He was a bubble player and they were waiting for other players to respond. There’s not so much an issue with moving a player down as there is with leaving one kid hanging when everyone else knows their fate. I think all offers should go out at once and if you’re on the bubble they can place you on the lower team with a possibity of being promoted. When my son was demoted a year later from that same team, I appreciated that the coach at least told me before any offers went out.

I hope you will hear from the club soon. My nephew at that age was completely ghosted. My SIL patiently waited and no offer came. The season ended and she reached out to the coach and TD multiple times. She never ever got a response at all. By the end of June, she explained to her son there was no offer but it was so hurtful. A no would have been fine but to not respond to a returning player is inexcusable.

If this is how they treat someone who has been with the club for 3 years, I would start looking for a new club today.

Absolutely you should be at the game this weekend. Even if he is cut for next year this season is still going and you paid for it. I would also politely confront the coach after the game to find out what’s going on. Make him tell you to your face. F them. It sucks your kid has to deal with this.

Sounds like Valor. If so they had their first try outs last week for U11 and it sounds like your DS is a bubble player. They are just waiting for other kids who got offers immediately after the first try out to accept or reject (especially for 1st team) and/or want to see how your DS does at the second try out on Monday before deciding on where to place him. This isn’t that uncommon, even for a club that’s as poorly run as Valor is (just look at all the Arlington threads re not receiving any offers yet).

If this isn’t Valor, then most of what I said still generally applies. Seems like you were expecting an immediate offer and aren’t used to being in this position if you’ve been at this club for 3 years. You can press the issue, but this is travel soccer in the DMV - no one’s going to really care cause there’s someone else more than happy to take your sons spot. If it offended you this much, just go somewhere else.