We have 4 games left in the most expensive lesson I have ever learned.
We paid $1500 plus uniform. Which was $235.
That gave us 9 tournaments plus a nationals.
It was supposed to include two paid coaches, practice field rental, indoor rental, and game balls.
Both coaches had Minor league experience and promised to teach what the scouts would be looking for in the near future. Their practices were impressive.
Before even the first tournament one coach quit to take a minor league hitting instruction position. The second coach, who is the club owner by the way, brought in another coach to help with the first tournament. After that tournament, he turned the team over to him stating he had two other teams he had to coach and since the other guy left he would need to dedicate his time to the other teams.
The new guy had coached this age group for the club the year before and they were very successful. They were having to start a new team since the club moved cities and no one followed from the team. The parents took it in stride as they had confidence in him.
He quickly changed a few player's positons as he felt they fit better somewhere else. That upset a few of those parents. I see both sides of that.
I am our team administrator and the owner asked me to help with the younger of the two other teams as they did not have anyone with experience. I became aware that they are paying him double the amount we were.
It also became apparent that the coach\owner would not be coming back out to help. So we were basically paying for a coach we were not getting. When asked we were told that we were paying a club fee for paid coaching and that it did not say in our contract how many coaches. So basically what they were saying and what was written were two different things.
The contract also stated the fee covered one practice a week. The new coach wanted to practice twice a week. The parents agreed as we thought once was not enough anyhow. The kicker here is that we now had to pay extra for the additonal practice. We had fundraised some money so we agreed to use it to pay for the second practice.
By mid-season it had become apparent that the kids who were taking private lessons from one of the two coaches were recieving preferential treatment. You'll see other posts by me about short stop. First base and Left Field were an issue as well. An example would be the kid with the worst batting average\On Base percentage\Slugging percentage was batting second and the kid who leads the team in strike outs by almost double the next kid was batting third. I was told by the coach during an obvious weak moment that the owner was requesting that "his players" play certain positions. Since he did not agree with one of them he vented to me about it.
This coach was also easily swayed by parent's complaints. Parents who complained saw their kids moved to the positions they asked for and those who did not were left to fill the others. I know one parent went over to the dugout and told the coach to play their son at first base in the next inning and he did. The two dads he asked him to help coach say he asks them to fill out the lineup as he doesn't want to mess with it anymore.
After a hard tournament and some tough loses the coach tells a few of the dads in the parking lot that he didn't pick this team and he is just riding out the season until the next try outs in the fall.
Now, at the end of the season, they have picked up two kids that were advertised as "Pitching help for nationals". Both of whom have yet to pitch after two tournaments and half way through nationals. They took spots and playing time from a couple kids who had been here all season. One of those kids quit the team before nationals as he sat three straight games in the last tournament. The entire game in a all three. ...and he was one of our pitchers!
Those two new set of parents have made no secret of their intentions to be on the team next season.
This past weekend I see our coach bumming some game balls off of a coach in the parking lot. Now that is down right embarassing. We paid for game balls!
The parents have all turned on each other and no more than three sets of parents are on talking terms. Talk about tention in the bleachers!!
I have been approached by the coach and told that they are putting together a hand picked team of major caliber players and they want my son on this team. I have no intention of returning to this mess but have not lead them to believe that for fear of the ramifications to my son. They said they only intend to bring my son and one other player back. Funny though, neither of us take lessons from them. I just can't see them cutting off that revenue stream.
There is so much more detail I could give but did not want to go on for ever.
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