There was a story on the internet recently about a parent seeing their school district because their son was cut from the soccer team. The backstory goes something like this:
The son, a junior was cut from the varsity team because the coaches determined he wasn’t a strong enough player to keep on their squad. Because he is a junior he wasn’t eligible, due to their policies, to be a member of the JV team. Mom decided that this injustice was worthy of filing a lawsuit to get a restraining order and have her son placed on the JV team.
The courts, who I’m sure had to fight back the laughter reasoned that it wasn’t in anyone’s best interest for the courts to be involved in decisions about who should and should not be a part of high school teams.
Bravo to the court that made this ruling!
Of course, we live in a very litigious society and people do have the right to sue when they are wronged, but to think that a court order to get your kid back on a team is a good idea is, to say the least, baffling.
There are storm clouds on the horizon for the world of high school athletics. This is just one of dozens of examples of overzealous parents trying to undermine the coaches who coach at their schools. They believe they’re protecting their kids, but in reality they are hurting them.
The world is a competitive place and not everyone gets to win all the time. Athletics is an arena where we teach kids to compete for what they want. Where they work for what they want and, in some cases, deal with the disappointment that comes when you come up short. Having parents fight every fight for their kids is stealing from them great opportunity to learn and grow.
Don’t worry though, the way things are going, before you know it, you won’t have a coach to undermine because no one will want to coach.
About the Author: Tory Acheson brings a wealth of knowledge to the Fastpitch Prep staff. He has coached at all levels of the game, including the last 25 years at the college level at the University of Wisconsin – Parkside, Tennessee Tech and Kennesaw State. He began his coaching career at the high school level spending 9 years Whitnall High School in Greenfield, Wis. and is now working as a professional softball instructor.
