j2...thanks for the input. Yes, I'm going to suggest that they try to make arrangements to be at the games, otherwise he will be missing a third of the season.
bcb3....Thats what really brought this to a head. Those numbers are correct. Many of the "misses" were very legitimate(illness, family illness/death, SAT's, Science Fair), but it still led to an awful lot of players not knowing what they should be doing.
TripleDad....I should note that in addition to players losing playing time for missing, they generally had physical punishment (read: running) that they got when they came back. Maybe I need to make the punishment more painful (similar to the Saturday night practices), but I'm afraid that just having Saturday night practices would not deter the behavior. Maybe 6 AM practices would, but they'd be killin' me too.
Good Eye....As a minimum, I'm leaning toward telling the player and his parents that he will be missing 9 games (3, plus 2x the misses), or a third of our season and that he will be losing his job and probably spending time on JV until he works his way back up to varsity.
As a maximum, I may have to tell him that if he's going to miss that much time, he may be cut from the team. I guess that really might depend on whether I have that many kids trying out who don't really deserve to be cut. If they are kids I'd want to keep, but don't have the room, maybe they'd take a job away from him.