HS XC Coach texts my 15-year old daughter - should I put a stop to it?

I am a High School Cross Country coach and I have created a group text with all my runners. I rarely communicate with only one runner through text. Usually it's just me telling them what time practice is or other important information.

A predator's goal is to place themselves in position of power / control over their prey. They will choose a career based solely on its ability to get the perp closer to their targets in one on one, private locations. A couple excellent books to read are The Gift of Fear and Protecting the Gift by Gavin de Becker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNtXjIiJ0PU

My coaches in high school never contacted me outside of practice, and I would have considered that strange if they had.

This is totally unnecessary, and the reason that problems arise.

Serious suggestion—

Tell the coach that you are uncomfortable with your daughter being texted without another coach, the AD, or yourself being included. Do this in a way that leaves a trail—email would be good. Then if he violates that, go to administration in good faith having tried to solve the problem yourself. You can say you asked him to stop sending private texts and he refused.

It comes across as something admin will take more seriously than if you just go to them straight away.

Didn't read the whole thread.

Has anyone pointed out the daughter could be telling you its the coach in order to make a less innocent conversation appear innocent? Maybe the coach isn't involved at all, and its someone else she doesn't want you to know she's talking to.

Investigate before getting the coach involved. If it is indeed him, he is way over the line and the situation needs to be handled.

RacingtheCanteloupe wrote:

Serious suggestion—

Tell the coach that you are uncomfortable with your daughter being texted without another coach, the AD, or yourself being included. Do this in a way that leaves a trail—email would be good. Then if he violates that, go to administration in good faith having tried to solve the problem yourself. You can say you asked him to stop sending private texts and he refused.

It comes across as something admin will take more seriously than if you just go to them straight away.

Do this immediately. She may be furious now but your daughter will thank you down the road. If I were you I would have done it the first time I heard he had been texting her privately. I don't care if he is 24. He is in a position of power and teenager. No offense to teenagers but they do very stupid things.

I am a HS XC coach and I am younger. I text my athletes about running all the time but I usually will not respond or send text at night. I will wait til the next day to either respond or send anything. I also try not to have extended conversations about anything over text. Just use it to see where they were if they missed practice or to relay a message. Its entirely possible its innocent. I constantly think about how I act/behave around especially the girls to make sure there is no chance my behavior is misinterpreted.

TrackCoach wrote:

My daughter's coach texted her at night on a couple occasions......her coach was young and new to coaching and was super excited about my daughter's potential and the upcoming season.

Clearly she was (or still is) banging him.

Good job, pops.

Denial: Seeing something clearly and choosing not to do anything about it.

Intuition: Knowing something without knowing why and doing something about it.

This is what you should do! This whole discussion thread has gotten out of line! You all are wanting this coach executed without knowing what is really going on! In my 22 years of coaching and teaching I have found that most of the time kids do not tell there parents the truth about a lot of things and you should trust the adult in the situation before a 15 year old. Do what the above said! Just ask your daughter to see the texts! if they are borderline approach the coach and let him know your concerns and what needs to stop! If it is him sending her pics and being innapropriate and messages that have nothing to do with running, then I would report him to the AD. That is it! Done! Solved! But make sure your daughter is being honest and the "coach" in her phone is really the coach!!!

Pretty sure this was a play off another thread that was recently posted. Well done, OP!! 7 pages

As a male HS coach, I would recommend you inform the AD that this is happening and you are uncomfortable with it. A couple of reasons: 1) There really isn't a valid reason to be communicating that much and during those times; in 5 years I've never had to and I can't think of a reason to. 2) It's the AD's to manage the coaching staff and he can decide how to address the issue. The AD may just have a conversation and provide some coaching on best practices or the AD may launch an internal investigation to make sure nothing illegal happened. It all depends on the school's policies.

The #1 concern is safety of all the kids on the team. I'm not trying scare you and suggest something illegal is happening. I just want all parties to be protected and know what is and isn't appropriate.

What's the problem here?? 30 years olds used to marry 15 year olds. That was the norm She's 15, not 10!

What the hell is wrong with this society when it's worse to see a 60 year old dating a 16 year old than a two gay guys walking down the street or some interracial crap?

I do love all the projection of the LR crowd.... Great piece of trolling by the OP

Go to the teachers' union. He shouldn't be working outside of school hours and texting a student at night sounds like work to me. They'll take care of the rest.

problem solved wrote:

Go to the teachers' union. He shouldn't be working outside of school hours and texting a student at night sounds like work to me. They'll take care of the rest.

Social media has disastrously blurred the boundaries between teacher and student or adult and child in this case. This kind of communication would have been unthinkable only ten years ago. This is the 90s equivalent of your daughter's coach calling her on a landline phone every evening during the 6:30 news.

This is why we, as a profession, need to move in a direction of vetting younger coaches much more than we do now. They need to be adults, not quasi-adults, which I know can be a tall order for people who's pre-frontal cortexes are not yet developed.

As a youngish (30s) coach myself, I ONLY use texting for logistical/organizational issues. Any more complex conversation needs to happen face to face.

The thing is is that 30 years ago and more it was totally normal for teachers to get with students with no real repercussions.

Clearly they found a way to reach this sort of textual relationship back then.

Dad Concerned wrote:

Not sure what to do here. My daughter is 15 and runs XC. She is probably the number 3 girl on the team and best of her class. The coach is young, probably 24. He is constantly texting my daughter, especially at night. While I haven't actually read the texts, I don't understand why they are texting back and forth so much. I don't want to be an over-bearing parent but I am irked by the coach texting my daughter.

Any parents have experience with this?

First, is he texting just her or is it a group text to the team?

I doubt there is a school that does not have a clear policy on texting students/athletes.

I would read the texts first before going and making any allegations.

If he's a decent guy, i would urge them to get married.