Thanks for the great advice everyone. My son is feeling better today and after school made a point to tell me we should go to as many of the freshmen games as we can to support his classmates and a couple of his summer teammates. So that's a good sign I think.
One thing I was anticipating actually didn't happen. A new high school is being built near us and several of the freshmen will be moving to that school next year. I wondered if the coaches might make a point of taking more kids that will stay in our school district beyond this year, but that doesn't seemed to have mattered to them. They must be viewing this season singularly without worrying about the fact that 4 or 5 of the players selected for this year's freshman team will be playing for our new rival next year.
Perhaps the coaches here can confirm that this is either a smart or not-so-smart move on their part.