Do HS coaches discriminate players who do not attend the school?

Home schooled kids were allowed to play middle school ball. They were not allowed to play high school. A parent constantly accused the coach of discriminating against his son. His son was not a good player. He sent his kid to a private high school where he would get a fair shake. He didn't make it past the freshman team.

As a HS coach, it's not my job to make the district rules regarding player eligibility.  It is my job to be aware of them and make sure that our program is compliant.  Once a player is deemed eligible, he must adhere to the same rules as every other player and is entitled and welcome to compete for a position just like every other player.

 

I don't believe our district/league allows so I am speaking hypothetically.  But I can't think of any reason why I would, even subconsciously, hold that against a player.  I guess he would have to prove he can reasonably fit in socially with the group of guys who have already learned to tolerate each other on a daily basis at school 

 

 So, how is it playing out at your school, Bogey?

Let me clarify a little bit. I'm not talking about home school or private school. Our school district have some small "independent schools" that are focused on special things, such as Academic, Career education, Science and technology, etc. These are still public schools, but they are small (e.g. a few hundred students) so not enough to host a sport team. The kids who want to play sports have to go back to his home school to play.

 

The Academic school actually combines middle and high school, so kids start from 6 grade and can go all the way to 12th. However, after 8th grade, many kids, especially those who want to play high school sports, quit and go back to the home school. When I talked to their parents, they seem to indicate that "coaches like to see their players on a daily basis".

 

It kind of make sense, by seeing the kid not only on the baseball field but in PE class or the dining hall, coaches can have more opportunity to evaluate the student. For example, in the season ending banquet, the coach commented on a 6'5" pitcher, saying "he plays quarterback in the football unit of my PE class, and in my opinion, he's better than [the varsity quarterback], but he dedicated his fall season to baseball training ... "

 

I'm just wondering whether that gives the kids who come from the independent schools a disadvantage. Hypothetically, if two players have similar capabilities, coach would probably tip the balance to the kid who come to his PE class everyday, right?

 

 

 

Sometimes it is who you know.  

On tie breakers, it comes down to who has the prettiest mom.

I could see that working both ways.  A kid in PE class can also show he is lazy, has average at best athleticism, disrespectful to others, etc.  Sure a coach would rather know more than less about a player.  But HS baseball teams practice every day.  Baseball skills are going to come to the forefront at some point, usually sooner than later.  Baseball strengths and weaknesses usually become quite obvious.  If your player is working hard at being the best he can be, the other stuff will take care of itself.  That's where I would suggest putting the focus.

In my little piece of the world there are a bunch of small rural schools. So school A may have soccer and schools B and C will play there. School B will have volley ball and schools A and C will play there and so on. What Ive typically seen. The studs. No discrimination what so ever. The on the bubble kids. The home kids have an advantage.

No. I could careless. If the player does what he is expected to do and is the best option he will play. If not he won't. I can't imagine any coach that was worth anything treating one member of his team differently than the others.

I'm not getting why a school with "a few hundred students" would need this. We have plenty of schools around where I live with less than 50 students who field football, basketball and baseball teams. When they really don't have enough come out for a sport, they will combine two schools to form a team. However, I only know of that need occuring once where two local small schools field a single baseball team which play at the 2A level as "County Line Rivals," eligible for playoff contention.  In fact, these two schools are serious rivals in football. Yep. They can field enough kids for football, but not baseball.

 

 

In a few minutes, I will prune this thread back to where it was before Bulldog's comment innocently derailed this thread from the original baseball-related question of how are these kids treated into an non-baseball argument about education policy.