He has been playing since he was 4 (now 14). He is in his 2nd year of modified JV.
He is a very good player. Don't really want to get into all the details, but he's at least as good as the younger players who are all starting, but he gets no playing time. Same thing last year. He is, however, one of the better batters on the team, but he's also one of the smallest.
Anyway, he's getting really discouraged, and I can tell that he's completely lost his love of the game. It saddens me greatly. His coach is a very hard-headed older man who has been coaching at the school for at least 20 years. You cannot talk to this man. I have heard that he's sworn at parents who tried to talk to him about their kids' playing time. It is obvious that he is grooming players for his JV team. My son knows this and is experiencing a combination of anger, discouragement, and some loss of confidence.
I have told my son that it's his decision, but that he'd better think long and hard about it and be sure it's not something he's going to regret later, and if he decides to quit, he has to tell the coach in person. I'm hoping that if he talks to the coach, maybe the coach will give him an explanation or encourage him that he's important to the team, in some way. I really do feel that the coach has failed him. Any kid who once loved baseball the way he did would not want to quit.
However, I do feel that it's a big commitment of time (they have 5 games this week) to do nothing but sit on the bench or play right field. He's not learning anything, and he's not developing his skills at all. I can't see that he's going to have a good experience in the future having lost two years. I think his time would be better spent concentrating more on school work or on hockey, which he loves and gets a lot of playing time.
For those of you who have coached, do you agree/disagree? and please don't say he should stick it out for the team. The team could care less.
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