My son was black balled by his H.S coach

The good thing is that High School ball isn't as important as it once was. While it hurts, I go by what a parent once said, "they need us more than we need them".

Welcome B3711 to the HSBBW.

Some advice, Let your son do the talking to his coach. Not You ( his Parent's ).
If your son goes to college, Are you going to talk to his college coach?
Let your son grow up to handle adversity on his own.
He will become much more independent and mature.
And will grow from this experience.
Just keep working hard on his game.
No Complaints, Just play the game.
EH

Join the club, go with the flow and do not sweat it.

quote:

The things he told us were eventually proven to be untrue

What things ?

CV

baller3711 - Welcome to the hsbaseballweb!

Hang in there. Its true that HS ball plays less and less of a role in college recruitment, but consider his HS coach may be asked down the road about your son's attitude, commitment, grades and whether he is a team player. Might not be fair to ask someone who ?may? have an axe to grind, but it could happen.

I agree with the comment that your son needs to be having the conversation rather than you. Good 'growing-up' opportunity. Your role?...somehow you have to help your son to keep a positive attitude throughout this. His HS coach will undoubtedly want to win games and ultimately he will play your son if he believes he can help him win those games.

Tell your son to work harder in practice than ever before. Come early, stay late. Be the best dang teammate, scorekeeper, batboy, whatever he can possibly be.

Good luck. Come back and tell us how its going.

I had a player in my program who played a total of 3 innings and got maybe 8 ABs. He got zero innings on the hill his senior year. He asked they coach what he needed to do and worked on it. He just worked hard and never complained. He played travel ball in my program and was a second tier guy. This year his hard work wa rewarded. He went to a DIII school and went about his work at hard as he uually does. He made the team but got no PT. He kept plugging along. A pitcher got hurt so he started to get bullpens. Right now, he is middle relief pitcher with about 15 innings of work.

Just keep working and give the HS coach no reason to say anything negative.

I sure am glad I found this site. We appriciate all the input. First of all we have let our son handle things as far as talking to the coach. But honestly, with 80% of the season gone, and seeing how upset (at the house) My son was, I'm saying something. It was a short meeting and we were very potile.

Someone asked what the coach said was untrue. I don't want to get into specifics. Sorry, but who knows who is listening (paranoid?). I'll say that there seems to be a double standard.

To answer someone else, my son has a great attiture with the coaching staff. He gives his all at all times and if he's not here he's at the field long tossing, BP, or pitching bullpin.

Some else mentioned that the coach will do what it takes to win. Why then would he pull his starting catcher to play at 3rd and put a green freshman behind the plate. This is with one game left and we are going into districts on monday. Why would he start a freshman pitcher in that same district game with an ERA over 10? This is just a few things. I'm not kidding you. These things have been going on all season.

I'm glad that h.s. ball is not the "end all" of recruting.

Baller3711, Welcome to the High School Baseball Web! I agree with the others. Parents of high school players shouldn’t talk to the coach about playing time or suggest to the coach how to make out his line-up. All parents (me included) want to help our sons. The problems arise when in addition to simply helping our sons we allow our “parental side” to come out and we find ourselves “promoting”, “praising”, “defending” and “protecting” them. The situation becomes so confusing that the real solutions; which happens to be a good work ethic and a good attitude become secondary and the young players are convinced the responsibility for solving this “problem” rest with the idiot coach.
"Let's control what we can and accept (or ignore) what we can't"

Baller...Tell your son to finish the season and then quit if this same coach is coaching the team next year.

I did that once a long time ago and don't regret it at all.

There are some bad people he needs "to get away from".

If he has skills, they will show in summer ball and at showcases or college camps.

Can always get a year in at the local juco to get seen by some coaches that matter.

I know 90% disagree with me, but I believe that the "feel good" answers don't work.

High school baseball is supposed to be fun for kids...Not a torturous plaything with a kid's mind by an insecure high school coach.

Unfortunately the matter is typically somewhere in between what Fungo is saying and what beenthere is saying.

First, it sounds like your son may not be getting the playing time he deserves but it doesn't sound like he's getting blackballed either.

As far as what Fungo's comments imply I've seen talented kids work hard, keep their mouth shut, support the team and sit their entire HS "career". I've also seen kids do that and get an opportunity when someone got hurt. There are no guarantees. Some do get the shaft, some get lucky. Even so, Fungo is right that talking to the coach is unlikely to help. Is that right? No. Is that the way it is? Yes. Are there other parents expertly kissing up? Almost always. Guess what, if you've gone and talked to the coach you aren't an expert and never will be so don't even try.

As far as beenthere's advice goes it is still probably better to put up with a poor HS situation than to quit and there are good things that go with HS baseball even for those who don't get their fair share of playing time. Quitting puts a tag on you that will take even more talent and hard work to overcome. The important point here is that you shouldn't tell your kid that if he works hard things will always work out. Chances are better but sometimes life just isn't a fairy tale and the "good guy" doesn't always win.

Baller3711,
While it is rare and atypical sometimes walking away can be addition by subtraction. I can only offer the facts regarding our son, a senior at a large AAAA school. He led his team in every offensive and pitching statistical area as a freshman playing on the freshman team. In between his freshman and sophomore season the head coach was fired. The incoming coach was well aware of our sons talent.The incoming coach imagined himself as a pitching guru and told my son to stop seeing a private instuctor in our area. The instructor is well known and respected, aformer pitcher in the White Sox organization, and a graduate of Dr James Andrews program on mechanics. Our son was placed on Varsity his sophomore year. The new coach began forcing him to alter his mechanics in ways that can only be decibed as "jibberish". He told us and our son he would never play Varsity if he continued to see the instuctor.He was unabe to pitch w/o having literally this coach come to the mound and tell him if he didn't pitch the way he told him he was not going to pitch. He yelled at him from the dugout after every pitch when he attempted to pitch the way he felt comfortable. My son requested to go to J.V. On J.V. he set the current school record for batting average and pitched excellent. He finished the season on J.V., where they won the section. Varsity did not make the playoffs. Going into his Junior year, the badgering began again.The team was 1 and 6, our son hadn't played except for 2 at bats in the first game of the season. Now the topper. The coach suspends him for a drawing on a blackboard in study hall. The coach is not a teacher and does not even live in the district. He never saw the "cartoon" only heard about it. The drawing was innocuous and did not offend any one. Finally, we stepped in. We contacted the Div I University the coach said he pitched at and they had NO RECORD of him ever playing or being rostered! He lied about his background and credentials. We sent a letter to the Superintendent and the AD.This most likely is the coachs last season. Our son decided to do track and field his senior season. In three meets he's finished 1st twice and second once in javelin. Baseball is still availabe to him if he chooses. He has had numerous phone calls from D II's and has been offered an invited walk on opportunity at a Div I. He has excellent grades and scores and has been accepted to several schools. Unfortunately in his case he was able to gain more by walking away from his high school baseball program.