Those times have a shot to make your state meet?
The coach was right to put him in frosh-soph.
Those times have a shot to make your state meet?
The coach was right to put him in frosh-soph.
Ok I'm from Iowa not a distance power house
Ran 1:59, 4:35. 9:50 my sophomore year and only ran a relay at state! Get over it your kid is slow.
My junior year for my shit together and was a 4:21 guy and 1:57 guy and had a few more opprotunities. Senior year a bit faster and ran more races than I wanted... Didn't win anything...bummer.
Your kid is faster than most slow kids but still slow... I hope getting looked over motivates him. Welcome to a sport that isn't socialism.
Not making state save you a hotel bill and some gas money. The coach is doing you a favor. Focus your energy teaching your kid about the stock market, loans, and maybe someday he can be a man.
Realty Dosage wrote:
Coaches like winning and will put the best team out there. If it's close between a sophomore and senior, usually it goes to the dedicated senior.
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I've never understood this. Why not give the experience to the runner who will be returning?
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It's called RESPECT!
Better yet, have your sophomore kid start running more mileage and learning how to train. Kids do not know much as sophomores in high school. They are just babies. I'm betting that the parent does not know half of what he thinks he knows about the sport.
It takes more than thousands of books, videos, and workshops to know everything there is to know about Track and life.
I sure know I'm not there!
Warrior revolution has it right. The coach, as a leader, should spell out why and how the decision is made. Otherwise you lose trust and needlessly lose athletes.
Warrior revolution wrote:
I've been a coach and an AD and here's my input:
At the beginning of each season most coaches hold a meeting for families explaining the schedule, rules and expectations, etc. At that meeting parents can ask for clarity regarding the selection process for Varisty, State qualifying, etc. Coaches have a responsibility to explain their process, and ADs have a responsibility to ensure they do. Anyone who believes it's simply a high school coach's prerogative to make decisions without any explanation is giving the coach way too much room to be arbitrary.
As an AD I used to ask every coach to develop a clear and transparent system for making such decisions. That was the only way I could back them up when parents came in to complain. By the way, posters who say ADs laugh at parents who complain have never been ADs - interacting with parents, athletes and coaches is the job.
While it's incredibly difficult to objectively determine playing time for sports like basketball, track and XC have the huge benefit of time and distance. There are still many factors (leadership ability, performance under pressure, hand-off ability, attendance at practice, etc) but it is much easier for track/XC coaches to define the expectations, at least a decent/reasonable/fair coach.
As a coach, we wrote into our policies that coaches sometimes have to make hard decisions at the end of a season - one year we did put a senior on the team as our #7 instead of a freshman who beat him at Districts, but we looked at the entire season to make that decision. And we were open about it.
I don't have children, so I can't speak to how to parent. It seems a bit late in the game to complain now, although your son has every right to ask for clarification. But he's young and may not feel comfortable doing that, and from your description his coach doesn't sound too open. At this point, it's fine to go directly to the AD, let him or her know that there was confusion about the selection process for state, and that next year athletes and parents would appreciate clear policies.
We rail on this message board about bad coaches at the top levels (US 4x1 right now), but posters here are defending this high school coach. Based on my experience and how I define good coaching, he hasn't don't his job because he hasn't been transparent with the youth in his care. But it's a bit late to realize you actually don't know what his criteria are for decision making.
Realty Dosage wrote:
Coaches like winning and will put the best team out there. If it's close between a sophomore and senior, usually it goes to the dedicated senior. Your job as a parent is to shut up let the coach do the coaching. Your helicopter parenting has no place in high school sports. I guarantee the coach and AD are having a good laugh at parents like you.
Your son was frosh soph champ. That's a great way to end the season. Take a look at Cali state meet qualifying. 4:50/10:09 gets you a nice seat in the stands to watch the meet.
Tldr; your annoying and helicoptering. Get over yourself. Your prince isn't the next Rupp or Mary Cain. Enjoy being a spectator and cheerleader for your son when he races.
Exactly right.
He has a couple of more years at the school. Let the coach manage high schooler expectations. Let the seniors run. He'll get his turn.
He's not been kept from Rio.
I suspect you (the OP) set him up to talk with the coach. Probably poorly, given the lack of coherence in your original post. Or maybe the apple doesn't fall far from the tree?
I do want to make one final point about high school coaches. All of us have run for shitty coaches. Some know little about the sport and even less about specific events. This problem is worse in smaller schools where ADs may be forced to hire coaches from a small staff of teachers. If this was at the collegiate level then I agree 100% that parents should limit their involvement unless there's a serious issue.
But in high school, given the lack of expertise within the coaching ranks, I think it's good practice for coaches to reflect on their communication with athletes, their values and expectations. I'm coming at this from the perspective of a coach - we should be able to answer for our decisions.
For the poster who assumed that as an AD I was only hearing the parents' side, please re-read: an AD is in a much better place to defend a coach's decision if it's clear from the start. As far as where an ADs' loyalty lies...we are working with student-athletes, families and coaches. I'm loyal to open, honest and fair. I love this sport.
Four pages without a response from the OP. Please come back and give us some new troll fuel to keep the thread interesting.
Earth to everyone who posted on this thread. You wasted precious moments of this thing we call life. The whole this is a troll by the powers that be to create traffic. They succeeded. This whole site is a joke. There is no OP, there never was. I sacrificed my time with this post to help the needy, all of you.
1 2 3 green wrote:
Four pages without a response from the OP. Please come back and give us some new troll fuel to keep the thread interesting.
i know how you feel wrote:
Sounds very similar to my son's situation. His coach was a very strong, very difficult personality. He also really had no idea what he was doing regarding distance training.
I listened to my son's complaints and told him that he needed to run faster if he wanted to run during the championship season, that coaches sometimes give preference to seniors (especially guys who have been hard workers for four years and that was a good thing) and that he'd get plenty of opportunities to run as a junior and senior. I said nothing to the coach.
Fast forward to my son's senior year. He won MVP of the team and the coach literally cried at his banquet at the thought of my son graduating and not being on the team next year.
I think my son learned a lot of valuable lessons regarding hard work and dealing with difficult people. So, my advice would be to support your son, don't pile on the coach and keep your mouth shut. Let your son learn some life lessons. He'll be out of the house very soon and he's going to need to learn to be his own man. Might as well start now.
This guy gets it. Your son doesn't seem to be appreciably faster than the kids that ended up running. Your son can only be considered "slighted" if he was OBVIOUSLY better than these guys. He's not. He's got 2 more years to prove he's better than these guys. When Michael Jordan didn't make his high school basketball team, did he have his dad go crying to the coach to get him on the team? Or did he work his behind off, carry that chip on his shoulder, and prove them all wrong? Which is better for a high schooler in the long run?