University of Wisconsin LaCrosse Coaching Staff

3. To the posters railing the OP for sticking up for his son I say, “who were you at that age?” You never needed the guidance, counsel, support, or defense of anyone else at that point? If that is the case I would argue you took far too few risks and you probably are quite boring.[/quote]

This is actually laughable. To answer you question… at that age I was in college in LAX, having fun but not getting suspended from anything.

I think it’s absolutely fair to offer counsel and guidance, but to get actively involved is not helping your kids in the long run. My son is the same age and returned from a deployment in Afghanistan a year ago. He learned quickly to think about the consequences of his actions because failure to do so would result in himself or his buddies getting their ass blown off. Mommy and Daddy couldn’t save him there. When young adults learn that they have to deal with the consequences of their mistakes rather than have dad bail them out, they learn quickly to make better choices.

BTC rules wrote:

It must be a D3 thing. Parents don't interact with D1 coaches.

That statement is completely off-base. D1 parents can be worse because many have invested a lot more time and money getting their kids to the D1 level, and are utterly and completely devastated when coach doesn't share their viewpoint on how talented and/or hardworking the kid is. Pretty common DI coach-parent conversation: "Billy deserves to travel with the team and run X meet." "Oh yeah parent? Come to practice and then tell me that."

Here, there is probably more to the story than originally posted.

Name 3 D1 coaches who have had those conversations with parents. Three who haven't are Byrne, Martin Smith, and Mike Smith. You don't have even 1 example.

If I was a coach, I would look for any excuse to cut a kid once I realized that a helicopter parent was involved.

Big Boy in the NCAA wrote:

Name 3 D1 coaches who have had those conversations with parents. Three who haven't are Byrne, Martin Smith, and Mike Smith. You don't have even 1 example.

I'm not going to throw out any specific names, but there are literally academic articles devoted to "bulldozer" and "helicopter" parents in NCAA athletics. Hell man, coaches have even come up with the terms "bulldozer" and "helicopter" to describe such parents.

the hilarity of taking how-many-hours/days to write and edit this....and for what, exactly? to get back at the coach by activating the letsrun lynchmob? lol...oh the entitlement...

To OP, you may want to consult with an attorney that focuses on higher education issues. If your son was indeed treated unfairly, he may have some type of recourse to be reinstated, whether it be through the university or the courts.

frat boy wrote:

As I said at the onset, I wish that I did not have to put this message out. I care deeply about the UWL Cross Country and Track programs, but I also care about what is right. I hope that potential recruits and their parents learn from our story.

As a parent of current college runners I can tell you the captains on their teams are telling kids that are out partying to knock it off or leave the team. These are peers not coaches. It sounds like your son would be better off in a fraternity. The coach knows this and is helping him make that decision.[/quote]

Your kids are probably lying to you. College athletes 100% throw parties, and a lot of time it is the captains that are the ones hosting. If your children's team isn't like that, I feel bad for them.

Messed up the quote post function. Oh well. Point still stands.

So, I know Derek, and I don't think he's a bad guy, but I have no real opinion beyond that as I'm not in his conference or region. I don't know who you are, or your son, and I'm not even going to assign judgment to your or his actions.

I don't know if there's anything actually in the UW system rules about dismissing a student from an extracurricular activity with a written notice. I think that's probably specifically for concerns regarding employment.

My opinion is that you're thinking that a system of due process is setup for this, but I doubt that. I worked on my former institution's code of conduct, and some sort of right to appeal was not within the system. There was, for lack of a better term, levels of punishment to make sure that punishments between sports were equal. Missing a single basketball game versus a football game, representing a percentage of the competitive season... But the top level punishment was always dismissal.

If you genuinely believe that your son has explicit due process rights in this case, contact a lawyer.

Your point seems to be that your son was unfairly punished for hosting a party. In 1997, may not have been a big deal, but in fall of 2020, this carried a little bit more weight. It's a false equivalency to talk about the people attending getting no punishment, but the person hosting getting all of it.

All of that said, as a coach, you need to have control over your roster. Complete and final. Frankly, I probably would have dismissed your son at the moment the incident came to my attention, but I can understand why that was not done, procedurally; and this delay doesn't necessarily change the trajectory of this outcome.

I was lucky enough to only dismiss two or three athletes from my team. A couple were easily with cause, but one wasn't. One kid didn't do any one specific thing, but rather presented a pattern of behavior that were incompatible with being part of my team. This made it very difficult for them to understand, but there was absolutely no way I was going to die a death of a thousand cuts by one athlete, and one athlete can absolutely poison a team.

And so, my overall question is what would be the best outcome for your son at this point? To be part of a program that the coach doesn't want him to be part of? I understand you're annoyed that he's enrolled and can't participate, but it's no guarantee that he'd be welcomed at another program, and I don't agree that a June transfer timeline is that disadvantageous.

A lot of this, to me, is sour grapes. I think you probably thought there'd be a lot of support for your actions and your son, but it's clear that's not the consensus. And ultimately, I believe the coach needs to be able to have total control over the roster. It was a bad idea for Coach Stanley to give your son false hope of being back on the team, but I'm not sure it's totally clear that he had the ability to make that final decision.

I don't think your position on things is wholly unreasonable, but being part of extracurricular activities is a privilege, not a right. If your position is that someone hosting a party during a pandemic is worthy of dismissal, everything after that is moot.

We are talking about track/Xc coaches. It doesn't happen. No D1 coach that I know would ever entertain it. You have no example of even 1 D1 track coach entertaining a complaint from a parent.

No he doesn't. Don't you see how silly you sound? My kid ran XX time in high school which is faster than every kid on XX P5 team but the coach didn't offer my kid a scholarship. I am going to sue. My kid ran XX time on XX P5 team but he is only a walk-on while 5 kids on the team are on scholarship even though they are slower. See the unfairness?

Blah blah blah petty, long winded sarcasm LoL

Cruelty. It never ceases to amaze and sadden me. My late father called it "man's inhumanity to man". Cruelty is what I see in this story and in some of the replies to this parent's heartfelt post.

Compassion is the opposite of cruelty. Compassion and the desire I have for a more compassionate response to this story by UW Lacrosse compels me to reply to this post.

I am writing for the student athlete and the dad. It is no secret now that the student athlete's name is Nick. Nick’s dad is a friend of mine. Nick and my son ran in track and cross country in high school and both our sons went on to run collegiately.

As Nick's dad has documented, Nick is a senior and only has one year left of school and then, like most student athletes when they graduate college, his athletic career is over, forever.

Forever is a long time. Five years ago, Nick and his siblings discovered that hard, cold truth when they watched their mother die in a horrific hiking accident in Colorado (click on links below). Nick's dad wasn’t in a position to see his wife fall, but he heard his children’s screams and ran to them, only to discover the awful fact that his wife and his kid's mom had fallen and died. She was gone forever, and the kids saw it happen.

https://www.ballardsunderfuneral.com/shelly-kartschoke/

https://www.swnewsmedia.com/prior_lake_american/news/local/prior-lake-woman-dies-after-fall-from-colorado-mountain/article_58a287c8-4dd3-5759-aae6-c9814234830e.html

Losing a parent this way at age 16 had to be very traumatic for Nick, and will be with him his whole life. Nevertheless, what I observed in the days, weeks and months after his Mom’s death in Nick was a kid who was respectful and worked hard in school and in track and cross country.

Fast forward to 2020 and the global pandemic. We all have observed mistakes by our elected officials and others that cost people their lives. Nick, just 4 years removed from seeing his Mom die, made a mistake and had a party where the result was no one died and no one got sick. He has owned up to it and has suffered the consequences, losing his junior year of athletic eligibility. There is absolutely no good reason (except perhaps if the UW Lacrosse goal is cruelty) to continue Nick's punishment indefinitely and, for him, forever in terms of his college running career.

Kids like Nick who have been through the hell of losing a parent should receive a second chance. I wish UW Lacrosse would do the compassionate thing and give it to him. It's not too late.

"Kids like Nick who have been through the hell of losing a parent should receive a second chance. I wish UW Lacrosse would do the compassionate thing and give it to him. It's not too late."

While this young man has had to experience a traumatic event, he made an active decision to host a team party during a pandemic. I'm not a COVID panicked individual, but that is an absolutely boneheaded decision and could have jeopardized an entire team's season, and potentially greater impacts for individuals in attendance. Last year, schools were expelling students who violated COVID protocols. Maybe it was extreme, but in some cases, so was trying to mitigate COVID. Perhaps Coach Stanley should have told him immediately he was not coming back, but then again, over time, some coaches realize that the trust can't be re-established.

But here is the bigger issue, compassion has nothing to do with this. Many people experience trauma in their lives. Many people have tough things happen to them. It doesn't mean your actions don't have consequences. That's the tough part of life. Yes, he lost his running career, but not his job, his family, his income, his house ... real things that are much harder to replace. Heck, maybe losing a mother should help the athlete develop compassion for those who might die from COVID as a result of hosting a large party.

Of course, we probably aren't getting the whole story here either. At different levels of coaching I've suspended athletes, or witnessed suspensions, only to see those athletes continue to make poor decisions which elongate and ultimately make the consequences permanent.

Perhaps Coach Stanley is a jerk. But the runner still demonstrated awful judgment in this case, and had to face the music.

Big Boy in the NCAA wrote:

We are talking about track/Xc coaches. It doesn't happen. No D1 coach that I know would ever entertain it. You have no example of even 1 D1 track coach entertaining a complaint from a parent.

In 2021, coaches do take parent phone calls. Parents of D1 athletes do attempt to interact with coaches. They do file complaints. They do question a lot of things. I didn't think it would happen, but when I started working at a D1 school, I was shocked that it happened. Now, I'm just kind of numb to it.

If parents were heavily involved in their child's athletic development prior to college, what makes you think they will just suddenly let it go. As a college coach, sometimes ignoring the issue just exacerbates things, because they'll find someone else to address the issue with.

Nothing the school did was cruel. The coach is under no obligation to keep a kid that flouts the rules. It's D3 so there's no scholarship being lost. Just a spot on a team, that is all.

There's more to the story than you, or the dad, have presented. There's a reason the coach doesn't want the kid around and I'd bet it has little to do with the party.

Plenty of people suffer tragedy. Unfortunately, some people try to leverage said tragedy for special treatment. I'm not saying that's what he's doing. But it's definitely what you are doing. Shame on you. You bluster about "man's inhumanity to man", while trying to unload a sh!t ton of guilt on anyone who responded with honesty. Spare me your piety, you are as bad as anyone who responded.

Actions have consequences and the sticky thing about consequences is that you don't get to pick them.

that really sucks about his mom and i feel for him. however, the family friend a few posts up saying his running career is over is being melodramatic.

addressing the suspended lad directly: you have plenty of fast running ahead of you if you want it. it just won't be in the NCAA or at least not at LAX. it probably feels awful now but take it from a 32 year old former D3 never-was - running as an adult can be better than college in a lot of ways. no hectic racing schedule to maintain, no obligation to do this or that workout (personally i was subjected to a lot of workouts that probably did more harm than good), and if you know where to look there are enough competitive road races out there to keep you entertained. the twin cities (where it sounds like you're from) has a few different competitive groups. a lot of those guys are probably faster than you, especially at 10K and up.

i run with one of these clubs. is it as fun as college running? no, the social aspect is not the same at all. but like i said above the running is better for me actually. turns out i can get pretty good from just mileage, tempos, and the occasional fast workout. killing myself doing intervals was dumb and i don't miss it. i do miss my bros, but it sounds like you'll still be able to hand out with them so all is not lost.

Lots of tough guys on this thread who have never made any mistakes in their life. A young college kid made a mistake, and served his suspension. He got his punishment. Why is he continuing to be punished for a mistake he made a year ago. There are football players who commit crimes and are let back on the team the next week.

Also- You all are ignoring the fact said that there are no juniors or seniors on this roster. That is not normal at any level or any sport. There is obviously a major issue with the coach here, which seems to be the main point of the thread, and I have heard that personally before this thread from other runners who ran for Coach Stanley.