Saturday I attended a cross country meet with my children. Something I've done many Saturdays with our school for the last 7 years. (Since my oldest child entered 7th grade). So, I'm not new to school sports/coaches, etc. I'm not against yelling at a kid at all and usually in the one telling my kids to take the advice and just ignore how it was said in the heat of the moment.
We have around 20 female runners at our school. It's a tiny school but because of the success of the xc program a lot of people want in. I have 2 myself. The top runner and an incoming freshman. Coming into the year my 9th grader wanted to make varsity. She ran ALL SUMMER. She is not naturally fast so it was a lot of work for her but she came into the season in the best shape she's ever been in and I knew she still probably wouldn't have a chance at varsity. I have let her know that I support her effort though and wish her the best. At the beginning of the season she was running 2nd. I couldn't believe all those kids had not run all summer and for the moment she was beating them. She earned a varsity uniform for the first race. The other kids are already catching her but she's still in the top 7 but race 1. She finished the race with the 5th place time. Great, coaches are top 7 at previous race are varsity. She's now earned her 2nd varsity race (3 earns you a varsity letter and jacket). She's now getting pushed farther back on practice times .... 7th or 8th by the numbers because it's easier for them to get back into condition than it is for her to gain speed she never had. But... She pulls it out and finishes 6th for the team. It's a bitter sweet performance. She has just run the best time of HER life. A time that beat 5 juniors, 3 sophomores, and 4 freshman. 3 of which are HIS returning state champs. She placed 45th out of 197 runners. Many of which are from larger schools because this was an open invitational. This is one of the hardest courses in Texas. She has never run it before because our school decided it was too expensive to run it for the middle school the year she entered middle school. Her older sister and the girls she just beat have each ran it at least once a year but as many as 3 times some years. You have to KNOW this course well in order to not get boxed in and trapped too far back from the lead to have any chance at all.
She ran a 14 flat. It's her PR run of her life. She was as 13:27 at 3100 meters and she mentally broke. I saw it, others saw it. She misjudged the distance to the end and couldn't give any more at that moment. She kept running but it was a visible break in speed. She still finished in the top 7. I expected coach to get onto her for slowing down, to talk to her about being able to finish. What I didn't expect is for him to go up to my child who from her perspective has just run 6th on the team and is herself disappointed and rip her a new one. He literally crushed her. She bawled the entire day. She doesn't want to run anymore. She wants to give up her only sport because the coach told her she failed her team. He told her she'd have to get on the bus and apologize in front of everyone for letting them down that last 100m. That she would NOT be varsity next week or the week after because she could not be relied upon. In 2 weeks she definitely will not be able to beat those state runners. All they have to do is want it. She will not letter. She will not earn a jacket. To top it all off her bullies will have been right. And he yelled at her in front of them. They took pictures of her ugly crying. They will have won because they told her she wasn't good enough to letter. She wasn't as good as her sister. Her sister is valedictorian, top runner, only girl from our school to make it to state in track. Popular. Beautiful. It's hard for her to even come close. Her father is deceased and the male role model she was looking up to to help her be successful as a runner like her sister just told her she wasn't good enough for him. Her performance was good enough to beat his state runners but not good enough to varsity. I told him I think he blew up in the moment and said some things that cannot be taken back. But he defended his anger. I agree her finish was disappointing but instead of seeing the best 3200 of HER LIFE, and a great 3100 meters, and he sees is the bad 100m at the end. Forgetting that those other 3100 were so fast she could break and still beat all those other girls. I'm not going to talk anymore about it to the school or kids or him. But I'm hurting for my child. That the best race of her life is now a bad memory. That she thinks she'll never be good enough for her coach and she has almost a full 4 years left with him.
All I can do is keep telling her that I saw the best race of her life. That I know she gave so much that she just didn't have a finish.
Just for reference her PR up until this point was 14:31 on a track, and 14:30 in an actual 2 mile xc race. So, still a 30 second PR. Last week's race was a weird relay thing so I can't compare to that. And those PRs were at the end of last xc season when she was peaking and this race is also the first race of the year. At this time last year she ran a 15:19.