HS Coach issues veiled ultimatum

Sounds very familiar.  My 2017 is going to miss about a week of his month-long HS camp/league games this Summer due to attending a couple of academic showcases.  Coach is very old school and makes similar negative comments about players not being there losing their status.  What I saw last year with this Summer league was a bunch of scrimmage-type games (6 batters or 3 outs, unlimited subs, etc.) to evaluate how the Freshman and JV adapt to Varsity games.  Seems to me to be less critical for the guys who already played a year of varsity, but the coach may hold it against them anyway.

We talked and my son is just going to come clean with him and explain these opportunities are his best chance to meet college coaches and gain critical exposure.  He will have to work twice as hard while with the HS team and hope that the coach forgives him by the time Fall rolls around and they start practicing again.  Tough to make a kid choose, but he has no choice if he hopes to play in college.

Have these coaches Google "Jim Danley Eaton Reds." After 44 years as the head coach, 10 state titles, and reaching the state final championship game in 24 of the past 28 years, he was let go basically for threatening playing time losses if they didn't play for the school's summer team.

Funny thing is that everything I do, I base off exposure.  Summer ball strictly for kids auditioning for Varsity and During the fall and winter I schedule games only twice a month and never in conflict with big events.  We live in a different era where kids get exposure else where and I am fine with that, because at the end of the day, parent can't blame me for lack of exposure.

First of all, one would like to think that a coach who has kids fortunate and talented enough to play on some other teams during the summer two very important things can and do happen: 1- For the talented kids playing on other summer team's they face most times better competition, see lots of playing time, learn things that perhaps they haven't yet on their HS team, and the untold potential growth this will mean for the player AND for the HS team the next year, and 2- those players who DO stay around home during the summer but play ball and are maybe your "average/bubble" players benefit by more playing time because the others are off playing summer ball elsewhere. It gives a coach a broader and deeper look as to what he has to work with next year and maybe see where some of these players could best fit in. And playing time is where this is done at. It's not about winning or losing during HS summer ball. It's preparing for next year. Top tier winning coaches know this. 

With all that being said, I know in Georgia and perhaps most states that if a Coach makes such a statement about any player who doesn't play for him during the summer faces being cut can be terminated. This was the case up to just a few years ago here so you may want to check on this. Your HS Athletic Director is one place you can find this out with. Or your local County Commission. They take this stuff pretty serious.

You just hate that it would ever get to this. smh

YGD

Waffles&icecream posted:

Is anyone else running into this ? V successful HS program started playing "coaches" league at conclusion of reg season.  Involved 1 midweek practice & 1 midweek game. (Last year) o conflicts with summer ball team. This year diff story. At conclusion of season, now wants 2 practices & 2 games and go until end of July. Here's the rub: most boys on summer teams will be gone most of July playing in Florida & Georgia. Coach strongly implies that if kids aren't playing for him, then they may be out of luck. This just started last year. I'm following my original plans and sending the kid to these tournaments.  Anyone else running into this. It seems like HS coach  is really hurting players exposure. 

Wow, that would suck.  Around my parts, HS have taken a "can't beat them, join them" approach.  So they do HS summer league 3 days - M-W.  Then Thurs-Sun is travel ball.  And now the high schools have started their own travel teams. 

Part of Ohio has "ACME" baseball.  It basically lasts a month from the first of June until the State tournament right around July 4th.  My son played if he could after his freshman and soph years and didn't play at all his junior year.  His coaches understood.  The regular season games were basically scrimmage quality baseball vs smaller area schools.  Once the tournament started, it was better....and the team the 8 team state tournament regularly had 3 or 4 of the top teams in this half of the state playing...including 2 varsity state champions.  Those 3 or 4 teams took it serious....their kids played ACME first, travel second....and they scheduled the top teams they could.   I know that one of the teams expects ALL his guys to play for him...not travel, even though his school regularly produces one or 2 D1 guys per graduating class.  Fortunately for us, our summer coach was normally a younger volunteer coach (usually a former player) not associated with the HS program.  They wanted kids to play....but really had no recourse toward anyone who didn't want to.

Last year we had girls who were threatened to be removed from their club soccer teams if they missed a tournament... it happened to be the same weekend as the state championship! The girls and the club coaches tried to get the state championship moved!!! 

It all goes both ways...

It's illegal in GA for high school coaches to do this but it happens. Here's the crazy thing - some coaches in our county want/require kids to play the same teams that they play during the high school season rather than travel ball. In one instance, a kid (ACC commit) played travel ball instead of high school and wasn't cut. Now, borderline player may not get the same benefits of the doubt. 

Our coach tried to play some of that game too, but in a less overt way.  Kept after my boys to play locally in the summer for him, but they both played summer travel.  In the end, he wanted to win games in the spring season, and he knew he needed them to help with that.  Never turned out to have any impact on their playing time.

Some HS coaches in Tennessee try to make players play for them in the summer threatening to be cut or reduced playing time the following year if they do not abide.  While our HS coach does not do this he does have "non-mandatory" workouts all summer.   He is delusional about what travel and summer ball has evolved into being.  For the past 10 years for players that have college/pro projection summer ball is the ticket and HS coaches are well aware of this trend.  I compare it to AAU basketball in some aspects.

2018 told the HS coach the other day that he would be in Virginia for the summer and would not be attending the "non-mandatory" work-outs. The coach said " not any of them"?  and 2018 said I do not think I will be here , but if I am I will attend.  Coach then said " you have always been a selfish player"

Translation, the HS coach wants to be first in line, but knows in reality, he is a teacher coaching a sport at one of a thousand high schools and  is irrelevant .  Do not let HS coaches dictate your summer schedule, do what is best for your son.  The HS coach could leave, get fired, and most likely have a short memory by next spring.  

Bulldog is right. It goes both ways. I know a very good HS athlete who was a key player on the football team. Called in "sick" for a football game so he could attend a baseball showcase. 

I know enough HS coaches to understand their frustration at times. 20 players, 10+ of their parents think they should play college ball. Coach is just trying to make his HS team competitive and as good as they can be by running a summer program - giving the players a place to play with good coaching. Parents gripe because they read this to mean that they have to attend, but all that is really needed is communication and maybe a little bit of give on both sides.

For us, through 2 very different HS programs and coaches every single speed bump related to college exposure or recruitment (and even a few other things) were easily mitigated by honest and respectful communication. Try it, it might just work. 

justbaseball posted:

Bulldog is right. It goes both ways. I know a very good HS athlete who was a key player on the football team. Called in "sick" for a football game so he could attend a baseball showcase. 

I know enough HS coaches to understand their frustration at times. 20 players, 10+ of their parents think they should play college ball. Coach is just trying to make his HS team competitive and as good as they can be by running a summer program - giving the players a place to play with good coaching. Parents gripe because they read this to mean that they have to attend, but all that is really needed is communication and maybe a little bit of give on both sides.

For us, through 2 very different HS programs and coaches every single speed bump related to college exposure or recruitment (and even a few other things) were easily mitigated by honest and respectful communication. Try it, it might just work. 

Agreed!

Let me start by saying that my son is a rising freshman and plays both football and baseball. Football workouts start next Tuesday and high school baseball starts tomorrow with a camp and then games on Mon, Tues & Wed throughout the month of June...and he also plays TB. 

I spoke to the high school football coach back in the fall making sure that he was okay with my son playing two sports. He said absolutely and just have my son (not me) communicate when he won't be at summer workouts because of baseball. 

His high school baseball coach said he doesn't care where kids are playing in the summer, as long as they're playing but he does want my son to play some whenever he's not playing TB. 

We couldn't ask for a better situation but I know that some coaches are not so understanding, strongarming kids to play with them instead of TB because of the threat of being cut or losing playing time. 

Justbaseball, I have tried it.... with all four sons and same coach.... I understand HS coach wanting to win.... but he gets them for the entire school year, he should not need them in the summer.  If he cannot get it done in 8 months  12 is not going to make a difference.  He does not take this approach with football players missing in the summer  that's a "school sport"   bottom line... do what is best for your sons development irregardless .

Exact same scenario here - kids basically get punished in 2018's HS program for being good enough to go to JO's in Arizona in June, or then Florida, Texas, etc. later in the summer. Doesn't the high school team become better ballplayers by facing the highest level of competition throwing 85+ for a week, as opposed to staying home and facing the same guys you face in spring & fall? 

Multiple kids passing up going to Arizona for fear of upsetting the HS coach. 2018 taking the opposite approach - HS is like Little League, his travel is the "real thing" and that is what he needs to focus on if he expects an opportunity to play at the next level. Not the best situation, but clearly many players will be faced with the same decision this summer. 

We encourage our players to play.  If they can play with a good TB org, great.  Babe Ruth, great.  Our summer program, great.  Just play.  Generally, the better the competition, the better for the player and the HS team.  I think that is the general logic we all agree on here.  There is a balance, though.  We are able to field a summer team pretty much every year but there are several schools in our area trying to provide (and pressured to provide) this option and trying to set up schedules with other schools in advance only to find out later that too many players will not be available.  Then the program for that summer has to be dropped.  This leaves other players and other schools who are scheduled to play them SOL.  And, it is a very short window.  

So, what I'm saying is that the reason some of these coaches are requiring participation may be because they need reasonable commitment to provide a summer program and to fulfill schedule obligations so that they can perpetuate that program for many of their players who don't have TB options for a variety of reasons.  

Bulldog 19 posted:

Last year we had girls who were threatened to be removed from their club soccer teams if they missed a tournament... it happened to be the same weekend as the state championship! The girls and the club coaches tried to get the state championship moved!!! 

It all goes both ways...

True with one big exception. Those girls can tell the club coach to shove it and go join another club. Either way they still get to play. With a HS coach the other option is not playing at all. 

cabbagedad posted:

We encourage our players to play.  If they can play with a good TB org, great.  Babe Ruth, great.  Our summer program, great.  Just play.  Generally, the better the competition, the better for the player and the HS team.  I think that is the general logic we all agree on here.  There is a balance, though.  We are able to field a summer team pretty much every year but there are several schools in our area trying to provide (and pressured to provide) this option and trying to set up schedules with other schools in advance only to find out later that too many players will not be available.  Then the program for that summer has to be dropped.  This leaves other players and other schools who are scheduled to play them SOL.  And, it is a very short window.  

So, what I'm saying is that the reason some of these coaches are requiring participation may be because they need reasonable commitment to provide a summer program and to fulfill schedule obligations so that they can perpetuate that program for many of their players who don't have TB options for a variety of reasons.  

I really see both sides of this equation too. Just last night, our HS coach had to make the difficult to decision to drop from having two summer teams (a JV level and a varsity level) to a single team because a bunch of kids decided at the last minute not to play. The summer season starts next week.

I'm sure our coach would love to opt out of fielding a summer team all together, but that leaves about 18 kids with no where to play. These are not the type of kids who will play TB (either they/their parents aren't interested/cant afford it or they aren't at a high enough playing level to make a competitive team), but it's bad for the HS program for them to not play all summer. That left our coach scrambling last night to find a team for 5 of our varsity level players because he'll only be running a JV level team.

Luckily, not playing summer ball with the HS doesn't affect playing time. A coach would have to be pretty short sighted to bench a kid capable of playing a rigorous TB schedule because they chose to play at a higher level.

Hard to imagine that there is a HS coach worth his salt that isn't aware of the Summer TB situation. 

If he is aware and puts this kind of stipulation out there he is a lunatic.  If he is unaware then he is a head in the sand lunatic.

With that said, I believe the proper ground is that he would like for players to be available as much as possible and be aware of big events and avoid as many scheduling conflicts as possible.  He should talk to them about leadership and commitment to teammates etc. to keep them from blowing it off.  If he's not careful he might find a few things out about the kids he is dealing with.  To the extent players are unavailable then play younger or less experienced kids and see how they do.  After all the summer should be a pure development period for a HS program.

luv baseball posted:

Hard to imagine that there is a HS coach worth his salt that isn't aware of the Summer TB situation. 

If he is aware and puts this kind of stipulation out there he is a lunatic.  If he is unaware then he is a head in the sand lunatic.

With that said, I believe the proper ground is that he would like for players to be available as much as possible and be aware of big events and avoid as many scheduling conflicts as possible.  He should talk to them about leadership and commitment to teammates etc. to keep them from blowing it off.  If he's not careful he might find a few things out about the kids he is dealing with.  To the extent players are unavailable then play younger or less experienced kids and see how they do.  After all the summer should be a pure development period for a HS program.

This just makes too much sense.