@BB and BB, lots of families are dysfunctional and members of those families are parts of sports teams. As both players and coaches. So common sense would suggest that there is dysfunction in sports teams. Learning a healthy way to deal with unhealthy people is a life skill that everyone needs. Maybe now more than ever before. Your son has an opportunity to learn that skill now. As @PTWood says, your son should distance from the bad actors and align with the good. Your son may have to sacrifice some popularity now for the good of his team and for the sake of his future. But @SpeedDemon is 100% correct in that it is a leadership problem with your team. If the HC won’t lead your son may have to. For his own good. My middle son played for a HS HC that wasn’t a good leader and that team had the same symptoms you described. Four kids ran roughshod over the rest of the team and the coach allowed it to happen. The result was a miserable experience for my son. Almost 10 years later he still wants nothing to do with those kids or his HS. I learned from that experience and advised my youngest son (who like your son was the biggest and best player) to take a strong leadership role. He was reluctant to do it at first but by his senior year he was the unquestioned leader of his team (at a different HS). And his team was better for it, making the playoffs for the only time in the past 10 years. My son, now seeing the benefits of being a leader, also became captain of his college team. Your son is in a difficult situation. But having lived this with 2 of my kids I see two options.
1) stay low key, ride it out, and hope for the best OR; 2) become a vocal leader and try to get his teammates in line.
