While being a long time reader of the board I rarely if ever post. However, I have a situation that I could use some help with. My son is a junior this year at a very large high school in the Southeast. As a freshman, we were not sure he would even make the freshman team. He played every inning of every game on the freshman team. As a sophomore, same thing for JV. After his JV season he would have been the number two catcher on the varsity summer team. The number one catcher, who is the same grade and started as a freshman on varsity, injured himself the day before summer ball started. Son caught every inning of every game all summer including 2 WWBA tournaments. Did quite well. To be clear, he is not the quality player as the number one catcher, who is getting a ton of attention from many Div. 1 schools. Son decided last month that he does not want to play this spring. Lots of reasons, grades, time commitment, playing time, girlfriend ect, doesn’t like coach, lazy teen ager. (the last two I threw in) However, coaches do not seem to want to take no as an answer. Since notifying coach of his decision he is getting pretty heavy pressure from the coaching staff to reconsider. It is also important to note the son does want to play with his buddies (who have dropped along the way) rec ball in the spring.
Curious as to whether any of you have been in this situation and could use some direction. How can you get a head strong 17 year old to see he may be making a mistake he will regret. If his decision stands, how do you tell the coaches to back off? What would the motivation of the coaching staff to pursue so aggressively a, at best, bit role player for the team? It is not a numbers thing as turnout for tryouts is always very heavy.
Original Post
