Well, what better to bring me back into the world of blogging than something going on right now ...
I guess this requires some history ... my oldest daughter (who is now eleven) started playing softball when she was eight ... she started with 40mph machine pitch competitive ball on a 10u (10 and under) team when she was eight ...
When she started playing she had an absolutely amazing coach ... we moved to another city and I was naive and didn't know about how the whole competitive system worked in a bigger city ... so she played recreational ball with a wonderfully nice coach who really didn't know how to coach for her first season ...
She ended up trying out for some competitive teams ... but again I was new to this process ... we made some rookie mistakes ... and then she broke her finger during a try out ... it just wasn't meant to be ...
She signed up to play fall ball with some of the girls she played with last summer ... at first it seemed great ... she had started playing catcher last summer and she continued in that position in the fall ... she shared the position with another girl ... and they were about 50/50 ... everyone seemed happy ... as the season went on we noticed that the head coach seemed to get more and more angry ... he had words with more than one umpire ... and then he started in on the girls ... my daughter no longer wanted to play for him ...
Over the winter I tried to get her on to two other teams ... one of them I again lost out on due to naivety ... I knew when and where to sign her up, but I was supposed to have a copy of her birth certificate and they only took cash ... no checks, no debit cards ... so by the time I pulled up her birth certificate, etc., ... the team was full ...
It came down to asking her if she wanted to not play at all or play for that coach again ... she chose playing for him again ... well, she started out slated for catcher (along with the other girl from the fall) ... the coach said he wanted a third catcher because he didn't want any of them being burned out ... an assistant coach jumped at the chance to get his daughter into the position ... and started teaching her how to catch ...
To make a long story short ... as time went by the kids have played about 22 innings of softball (they average about 2 innings a game ... they're timed games, so they go for about an hour and a half regardless of how many innings they go) ... the other girl that my daughter has always shared the position with caught about six innings, my daughter has caught for three and the assistant coach's daughter (the one with no experience) has caught the rest of the innings ... the other girl's dad has stopped coming to the games and is talking about starting his own t-eam ...
Now, if this was all about winning and it was about the better player ... and his daughter was the better player then I would have no issue with this, but that's not the way it is ... even other parents have said that my daughter has skills that neither of the other players do ... and just to make sure I wasn't looking at it through my "mom goggles" as my boyfriend calls it ... I started counting catches vs drop pitches vs pass balls ... the assistant coach's daughter is getting better but she was about 50% ... the other girl was about 75% ... and in the few chances she has had my daughter is about 80-90% ... so it's not about skill ... every time the assistant coach's daughter steps up behind the plate I get sympathetic looks ... and some parents even come up and talk to me ... I haven't been vocal about any of it, so they're doing it on their own ...
On top of that the head coach's daughter is one of the pitchers ... she has missed four games and more than half the practices, but when she is there she pitches all the innings ... despite having two other very capable pitchers on the team ...
All along, the coach is having major anger issues ... he gets ejected from a game ... in 10u recreational ball ... ejected ... seriously I don't understand ... three other girls have quit the team ... we all cringe at the way the assistant coach yells at his own daughter when she is catching ... or doing, well, anything ... it's not just about my daughter not playing catcher ....
Last night she had a breakdown ... she cried and cried ... and talked about quitting the team ... but she loves the sport ... she doesn't want to quit the sport ... at this point after talking with her father and my boyfriend what we've decided is that she'll go to the game tonight, but her father and I are going to go together to talk to the coaches after the game ....
I, personally, am willing to let her quit ... I understand all the stuff about following through on commitments, but there comes a point when the price is too high ... and teaching her that she has to put up with things she shouldn't have to put up with for the sake of commitment isn't a great lesson either ...
I guess we'll find out what happens tonight ... I'm not looking forward to this ...
