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Reply to "Coach's Son"

Coach Cooper posted:

I know of a HS coach's son who was a "four year varsity letter winner" at SS.  HS Coach helped son make a D1 roster after JUCO and plenty of phone calls.  Kid made the team... got limited time... and did poorly.  Got cut before making the second year.

So what happened?  I thought the kid was a stud, I mean he was a four year varsity letter winner... right?

This happens all the time, and not just with coach's son (which is rare) but more often of a coach's favorite.  What makes a coach's favorite?  Let me spare you the BS you see across the web ("my favorites are the guys that hustle, work harder, perform better...").  That's CYA crap.  A favorite is sometimes the kid of the cute flirty single mom who's in charge of fundraising... or the kid that played on the coach's or assistant coach's club team or little league team (i.e. someone they invested in with time and training... like a surrogate son)... or the kid of the parent who donates a lot of money to the program... or is the kid of a colleague at work or a teacher at school.  I could go on.

That's wrong, but that's life.  As they say about life lessons being learned from baseball, that's one of them.  Life is unfair, full of corruption or personal dislikes protected by "discretion."  Yes, it's wrong, unfair, should not have anyplace in High School Baseball where opportunities to excel are coveted moments that should be earned, not given.

But what can one do about it?  NOTHING, at least directly with the HS coach.  Have your son continue to work on his measurables so he will shine at a showcase or in the opportunities he does get.  College coaches only care about what they see in front of them, and less about the padded stats of a High School coach's favorite.  I remember a recent conversation I had with OSU's new head coach, Pat Bailey, who said he has a great kid on his team who was cut by the high school coach and that HS coach's have weird and unknown reasons for decisions they make.

There is a lot of truth in this post!

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