Just dismissed an athlete for back-sassing, get call from parent, situation explodes.

coach minters wrote:

Earlier this month I dismissed an athlete from the high school program for persistent infringment (documented) of team rules, and for final straw of back-talking and ignoring all direction in this one practice session, delaying everyone else's training that day until he just left the area.

If you clearly laid out the rules for the team and the consequences for not following them at the beginning of the seasion and your AD and pricipal don't back you then you are better off not coaching at this school.

Well, long day, but everything seems to have taken a turn for the better.

I thank you all for the feedback. Sorry, I guess the term "backsass" is more of a Southern dialect thing, but I'm sure you get the gist.

The past rules violations this student had, and I don't want to get too specific, because it is a student privacy matter, primarily involved missing practices, showing up late for and missing the bus for multiple meets, and not bringing a complete uniform to 2 meets. He was written up for all the matters, and actually sat out one meet, and ran JV for 3 others, until he made some headway in the practice attendance area.

So he and his parents have been duly noted and warned that the contract and rules we have the kids sign are real life contracts, with real consequences.

The final incident actually appeared pretty innocent at first, as he brought a meal to indoor practice and began eating during our warm up and drills. I asked him if he was going to be able to complete the workout, with a meal in his stomach, and he took a sub and large soda and dumped it on the track, and then smeared it into the track with his foot. I asked him to clean it up and leave, as we would not be needing his presence today, and he told me to do it myself and to f--- myself.

So the meeting with my AD and principal went great, presented my background, explained the incident, and told them I will work with anyone who is willing to be part of the team, but cannot work with athletes who persistenetly violate our rules, appear dead set to tear the team apart, and set a bad tone for others in our program.

They backed me on the dismissal, and said they are meeting with the father tomorrow, and I am to be "on call" if more explanation is needed for why the athlete is no longer allowed in the track program.

What would Mr. T do if someone gave him some back-talk?

Tex-Mex wrote:

What would Mr. T do if someone gave him some back-talk?

Something along the lines of this

coach, the next time something like that happens, have a team meeting, describe what happened and point out the culprit. then explain that the entire team will be punished for his behavior. that it is the team's responsibility to get each person to pull together with the rest of the team. choose a severe punishment for the entire team. then do it. your team will then take care of the problem child for you. he'll either shape up or may not be on campus for the rest of the school term after wards.

marine corps recruit depot wrote:

coach, the next time something like that happens, have a team meeting, describe what happened and point out the culprit. then explain that the entire team will be punished for his behavior. that it is the team's responsibility to get each person to pull together with the rest of the team. choose a severe punishment for the entire team. then do it. your team will then take care of the problem child for you. he'll either shape up or may not be on campus for the rest of the school term after wards.

You have to be joking. Only a coward and pathetic coach would resort to something as assanine as what you just described.

So that's why the Marine Band never moves their eyeballs or heads when marching. I'll try that.

Backhand for the backsass.

That reminds me - at a high school in Connecticut about 10 years ago, this was what happened:

The team's top athlete (and one of the 4 outdoor track captains, all-state, ivy league accepted student) volunteered (and was chosen by head coach) to be a race-pistol starter at our town's middle school track race (there was a middle school in our area having a race at our HS track that week) so basically this guy would be trained to be a race starter - to put on the hearing protection, wear a bright orange arm sleeve, and fire the starter's gun (on your mark, get set, go, etc...).

Well, another senior on the team (not as good of an athlete) for whatever reason was pissed that he was not selected to be a race starter and I guess was really pissed because he felt our top athlete was favored and liked a lot more by the coach than he was. So basically (as I remember it) the kid who wasn't selected gave our head coach the middle finger during our stetching exercises and then head coach yelled at the top his lungs for this kid to leave immediately. The kid left the track, quickly got in his ricer mobile (I think it was a piece of shit pickup truck with tints) and sped away from the outdoor track screaching tires over the speedbumps and blasting music out the window so loud - loud enough so the entire track team and coach (all of us) could all hear it hundreds of feet away. That kid never rejoined the team after that incident. I bet it's possible he couldve rejoined if he apologized but I guess he never did and/or couldn't take it anymore.

marine corps recruit depot wrote:

coach, the next time something like that happens, have a team meeting, describe what happened and point out the culprit. then explain that the entire team will be punished for his behavior. that it is the team's responsibility to get each person to pull together with the rest of the team. choose a severe punishment for the entire team. then do it. your team will then take care of the problem child for you. he'll either shape up or may not be on campus for the rest of the school term after wards.

As a teacher, I've used group punishments for classes where a majority of students are misbehaving. I would never use it in a teaching or coaching setting to punish one person who is by no means representative of the team as a whole.

Maybe it's because I'm Canadian, where teams were less formal (we simply had to attend ten cross country practices to run our regional meet, and this was to discourage transfer students) in a number of ways, but while I fully support the original poster's decision, this idea sounds excessive and unimaginable from my perspective.

I was once a female high school coach of a fairly newly established team. Most of the kids listened fairly well and were easy to work with, some were just not going to listen no matter what. I had one female athlete with a very over-bearing father who NEVER fully listened because she had him breathing down her back at all times, questioning if what I was doing was right, if my training plans were sound, if I knew what I was doing with her, etc.

After a few years at this school, track got very popular. We went from having a 30-40 person team which is very manageable with 3 coaches to having a 80-90 person team, which is pretty difficult to coordinate, especially when most of these kids have no track experience. At this time, this athlete was a junior, had been to the state championships several times, and was running 2:14-2:16 in the 800 consistently. Had improved consistently through high school. It pretty much got to the point where her group would come to me before practice and ask what they had to run that day, I'd tell them, and they'd go on their way. See them at the track later after everything had calmed down for strides, drills, etc. This was my favorite part of the day, after their run when we just got to hang out and talk about running without me being pulled in multiple directions. If it was a workout day, it would be no different than when there was 10 distance runners.

She told her dad I was ignoring her, favoring other kids, not giving her good training. Her dad encouraged her to keep a journal of everything I had "said" or "done" to her at practice. Her dad also was adamant about being the team parent, ie. sending out travel info to other parents, coordinating car pools to meets, planning out who would bring water/gatorade, all the kind of stuff coaches don't have time to deal with. Little did I know that he was gathering all the emails of parents to circulate rumors about what an awful coach I was, and that I was hitting on the guys on the team...all because he wanted me gone for not treating his daughter as my #1 priority.

This parent scheduled a meeting with the AD, I heard about all this BS before the meeting and forewarned my AD about what his accusations were, and the AD had my back 100% and essentially told this father that he supported his coaches and had complete confidence in them. I told the dad if he continued to send false rumors of that magnitude around to the other parents, I'd sue him for defamation and slander. This parent later took his kid out of this public school and sent her to a private, $30k a year high school. I left the next fall for another job, a move that had nothing to do with all this.

My advice is to have a pre-meeting with your AD to discuss what you know is true, what was really said, and what really happened. I can't imagine if I had not heard what that parent was saying about me ahead of time and I went into that meeting with that bomb about to be dropped. I am sure I would have been fired right there.

coach, the next time something like that happens, have a team meeting, describe what happened and point out the culprit. then explain that the entire team will be punished for his behavior. that it is the team's responsibility to get each person to pull together with the rest of the team. choose a severe punishment for the entire team. then do it. your team will then take care of the problem child for you. he'll either shape up or may not be on campus for the rest of the school term after wards.

Team sport coaches employ team building and 'esprit de corps' techniques adopted from the Marines. USC football was one of the first. USC even copied the Marines colors. Track & Field and Cross Country are not team sports. The selfish, individualistic nature of our athletes would not respond at all to such tactics. The whole effing team would just quit on you.

marine corps recruit depot wrote:

coach, the next time something like that happens, have a team meeting, describe what happened and point out the culprit. then explain that the entire team will be punished for his behavior. that it is the team's responsibility to get each person to pull together with the rest of the team. choose a severe punishment for the entire team. then do it. your team will then take care of the problem child for you. he'll either shape up or may not be on campus for the rest of the school term after wards.

Are you nuts !

coach minters wrote:

They backed me on the dismissal, and said they are meeting with the father tomorrow, and I am to be "on call" if more explanation is needed for why the athlete is no longer allowed in the track program.

The only thing I would suggest is that you should be present at the discussion. You can be available for comment by the dad, or just silent.

But I've found that the feedback to you from the AD will be different from what the father hears. Always.

If not, then in the debrief from your AD, take notes, send an email back to your AD to confirm your converstion and path forward.

His response or lack of response will document your feedback and understanding for the future. You'll be covered.

Think future, not this one instance. None of this stuff ever goes away.

All this advice sucks. As a coach/teacher you are expendable--very expendable and you are young(ish). You've already lost. Fold and let this kid finish the season, he won't be back, and eventually will graduate/due/drop out.

Don't get involved in the he said/she said BS and just have the AD solve the problem.

I think it's best to keep these things internal. Like others have said, make him miserable enough to quit, or he'll fall in line.

Run him on JV, keep him out of Sat. meets, things like that. Don't do anything to be an issue with your AD, or parents for that matter.

Also, don't go overboard on Team Rules either. Man, I ran for a guy like that, good coach but often got too involved in "majoring in the minors".

Ask yourself this: Do you think you can help this kid more by kicking him off the team or by keeping him on and making him work his way back into your good graces?

coach minters wrote:

The final incident actually appeared pretty innocent at first, as he brought a meal to indoor practice and began eating during our warm up and drills. I asked him if he was going to be able to complete the workout, with a meal in his stomach, and he took a sub and large soda and dumped it on the track, and then smeared it into the track with his foot. I asked him to clean it up and leave, as we would not be needing his presence today, and he told me to do it myself and to f--- myself.

Thanks for the clarification. That is outrageous behavior by a student and could not possibly be tolerated or ignored by anyone, coach or teacher or administrator.

A kid doing this at our local public school would be sent to the principal and would be suspended, probably for a week.

I think your reaction under the circumstances was 100% justifiable, and I am wondering if perhaps the kid told a different version of events to the parent. If not, and the parent was actually aware of what happened and was still complaining, then I guess that would also explain a lot about the kid's behavior. No AD in his or her right mind would not support a coach under these circumstances.

The only question in my mind, and I am not a coach, would be what to do at this point with the rest of the team. Just move on and not mention it and act like it never happened - that might be best if the kid didn't have friends on the team anyway. Or, have a brief team meeting and ask the other athletes for their reaction, a sort of debriefing, in case any of them have misgivings and need to vent. Sort of group therapy, I guess. You know your team, so I'm sure you'll make the right choice.

I agree mostly with oldtimecoach. Hopefully, you documented these incidents. What I usually did was to call the parents up and talk to them immediately. The sooner they know about each incident the better. I had one parent that actually sat on the school board. I communicated with him on all his son's misbehavings. The child was eventually kicked off the team, but the parent knew eactly what was going on at all times and where the repsonsibility laid, and the team was much better off. Stand up for yourself.

Do you in any way feel that you have failed this kid?