Sumom3, I'm sorry your son went through this, but it sounds as if he handled it well and will end up stronger for it. It's a shame, though, that the coach couldn't have had an actual conversation with him earlier that might have cleared the air for both.
A couple of months back I got raked over the coals in another thread on this sitefor suggesting that a college coach who had more players than he wanted on his roster could decide to make things unpleasant for players he wanted to leave. I essentially was told that it was outrageous to even suggest a coach might do that. Just sayin'...