<p>My mother always said, "Cross your bridges when you come to them." It seems to me that you are dealing with a lot of "what ifs", and that you are crossing your daughter's bridges for her, well in advance of when decisions need to be made. While I applaud letting the coach know up front that C's Daughter will attend scholarship weekends if invited, to have her give up activities because of the possibility of this happening is a mistake. It might even negatively impact her chances at college admissions; colleges do not like to see kids drop their EC's just because they are seniors. It is your daughter's senior year, and her chance to shine. She should finish out the year as strongly as she started - and make the decisions about the college scholarship invitations if and when she gets them.</p>
<p>I agree with anxiousmom.</p>
<p>Your D has earned the right to shine this year and there may be no unavoidable conflicts. Why shouldn't she be captain?</p>
<p>I can't imagine a school turning down a kid who honors her committment to her team instead of serving herself. IMHO that is not a school I would want my D to attend. Furthermore, I doubt an entire weekend would ever conflict with one game. Compromises should be possible.</p>
<p>If an unavoidable conflict comes up, deal with it then.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon, deep in your gut, what do you think the coach will say if you lay out the situation for him/her? I vaguely remember HS years on a team, and I can honestly say that I had a few coaches who would welcome the player and a few who would say "make the full commitment or I can't have you". And all of them were good coaches, they just had different ways of looking at life and sports. </p>
<p>Will the coach want to take a team vote? Although I assume your D would be mortified to be specifically called out, perhaps the coach could talk to the Junior and Senior players and basically say -- "Here's the deal. It's possible that college applications, visits, and other very important actitivities might conflict with some crucial games. We've never really had a policy on this in the past, but I think it makes sense. In the event of an absolute conflict that can't be worked around, do we require that players always give top priority to the team?" </p>
<p>Man, she's given a handful of loose teeth and a lot of blood to the sport already, I hope neither the coach nor the teammates would question her dedication?</p>
<p>My D school won the state basketball championships - all the games were during the week- I don't think they had games on weekends once they were in the playoffs.</p>
<p>Girls Basketball in Nassau County LI have week-end playoffs. We had to change our college touring schedule (which coincides with Presidents week vacation in February) due to the playoff schedule. Kids team hasn't been in playoffs in 20 years, this year they made it to the second round. Anyway- I like KitW's advice. Choose wisely. If the school is high on her list-and she needs the scholarship-- and she can't reschedule--She has got to go to the college event and try to make it happen. As you are going to be upfront with the coach, I think everyone will be ok with the decision.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon,
Is Scripps one of the schools your daughter is considering? I know that they offered an alternative weekend for their James E. Scripps Scholarship weekend to accommodate girls in the same situation. If you look in the archives under the Scripps thread, you will see Ursdad spoke about his daughter attending an alternative weekend due to a Championship basketball game. The James E. Scripps scholarship is a half tuition scholarship and the weekend gave the girls an opportunity to meet staff, faculty, currently enrolled students and prospective students. My daughter came home with Scripps as her number 1 choice and will attend this fall.</p>
<p>My daughter passed on the Scripps Scholarship weekend and was waitlisted. She was accepted at HYPC. I guess they took it personally :)</p>
<p>Hi Cur,</p>
<p>I think the Rhodes Bellingrath weekend may be one you are concerned about. I know some kids at my son's school who did receive merit aid regardless of being invited to the weekend, but the kids who were invited were guaranteed half tuition. It was not a major soccer weekend for my son, but he was a captain. I have to admit that when push came to shove, there was no question as to whether or not he would go. I am really glad he did go, but have to say that the coach was used to this sort of thing happening. Not sure how likely it is that your coach will have had to deal often? </p>
<p>Best wishes in advance!</p>
<p>curmudgeon:</p>
<p>I think you found the best solution with your last post. Make it clear to everyone that the team comes first with the exception of crital events that can not be re-scheduled (scholarship weekends). I find it hard to believe that any school administration would support a coach that took a negative view of such a situation. Once again I talk from experience having gone through this situation just recently. I would also be very disapointed in a coach that would strip a captains designation from a player in such a situation. Especially in light of the fact that such a conflict may or may not even occur. At least in our situation, we felt most comfortable being up front about the scenario. This was a very intense coach who did not take well to kids missing practices, much less games. It was also a team that had gone to states the previous year and had a good shot to repeat. Still, given the importance of scholarship weekends that could not be re-scheduled, and their potential financial impact, he did not have a problem with the situation. There was also a captains position involved and it was not lost for the season.</p>
<p>Good luck and I think with your mindset everything will work out for the best.</p>
<p>Just read in NYTimes.Com about a softball coach in Conn. that suspended a player for three games (to attend a prom). Dad became enraged and struck the coach with a bat. Sad for all.</p>
<p>Boy, AmeliaPeabody and momofthree you have a career in fortune-telling or detective work. That's two. Want to go for three? LOL. Again, thanks to all who have responded in good faith. Everybody has there own take on this and I see I am not the only one concerned with these issues.</p>
<p>Oh. Amost forgot. And for those who appear to want me to engage in the back and forth personal sniping that sometimes goes on our board ;) , I'm really busy today, will tommorrow be O.K.?</p>
<p>:) :) :) :)</p>
<p>Cur, I would only add the following observation. Our D competes in a team sport at the national level. We know now of an unshakeable commitment at the end of next year's season - what will be the post-season, either national or international competition - that directly affects her college opportunity.</p>
<p>We'll be sitting down with the coach before the season starts, so he'll have full disclosure and the opportunity to pick the team as he sees fit. This is difficult for my D, but she understands her obligation to disclose upfront.</p>
<p>However, what she is finding most difficult is not that she'll be possibly walking away from the opportunity, or that the coach might not be pleased. It's that she'll be letting down her teammates, kids that she has and will be sweating bullets with. Even full disclosure up front will not mitigate this pain.</p>
<p>In the end, I'm not sure which way she'll jump.</p>
<p>Doesn't it just drive you nuts when people drag up these old threads?? ha ha!!! :)</p>
<p>Of all old threads to bring up, did it have to be this one??? My d was just thrown off her basketball team ( Thank goodness the season is over) for attending her grandmothers 90th birthday party in Florida and missing a game. OK it was 2nd round of playoffs but she was going to be there for 1st round and would be back for finals. Though there is no way they would ever make it to finals. This is Nassau county and Massapequa rules again. The background to this saga is that my mom's birthday is 2/17. Based on LAST YEARS playoff schedule and the one that was given to us in November, the 2nd round of playoffs should have been completed by 2/21 and we felt it was virtually impossible that they would ever make it past 2nd round. So being the good "team player" and putting the teams needs as top priority, we decided to have the party 2/25 and not fly out until 2/21 PM. We thought everything would be ok, until they changed the playoff schedule and made everything a week later. Bt that time, we had airline tickets, restaurant reservations, and family was flying into Florida for the party. So we tell the coach- explaining that we took the teams need as top priority when planning the party. We told her we'd be there for game 1 and game 3, so my d would only be missing 1 game. The coaches decision was to cut her from the team immediately and asked her to return her uniform. I was going to let this all pass as the season is over, but I just realized that there is a big sports dinner at the end of the year. Now my d is probably one of the few girls who has participated in a sport every season since freshman year. Those kids usually get some recognition for their sports participation- so this issue will be revisited with the coach this week. I'll try not to follow the action in post #50- but I'll tell you no one person should have that much power and control over the students. D's coach told her she was not mad at her but that she needed to set her priorities. I don't understand her point. Was she telling my kid to defy our wishes that she should attend her grandmothers 90th birthday party? I don't think its a teachers place to tell a kid to defy their parents wishes- so this coach has not heard the last from me.</p>
<p>This one needs a letter to go to thecoach and Athletic Director,with ccs to the Principal and the School Board chair.</p>
<p>PS--Happy Birthday to Grandma!! My own turned 98 on Friday!</p>
<p>Marny, I would persist with this. I know how these coaches are about these things but there are some things in life that a child MUST do and this is one of them. She tried to put the team first and you gave notice and this was VERY reasonable. These people need to be HUMAN, I'm sorry. Rules are important but for some circumstances, there are strong reasons for an exception. Let me see, if her loved one had died, is she allowed to attend the funeral?? My child, when a senior, also put her teams' schedules first. Sometimes the schedule changed at the last minute. I recall that the big soccer game against the number one team was rained out and re-scheduled for two days later, which was when my D had a trip to Yale for her interview. She didn't know what to do (besides the interview, there were many other on campus appointments.) I am happy to say that the coach supported her going to Yale and said if it was him, he'd do the same. She was the only varsity goalie but they brought up a JV goalie for the game. This was a child who normally never missed and was dedicated. I think when something comes up of these natures, and a kid is not doing it on a regular basis and has made all efforts to schedule around the team but then the team schedule has been changed and the kid has other important things going on in their lives, then some give or human-ness needs to happen. My D chose to switch her spring sport after ninth grade because of a coach who would not be understanding of these sorts of things whereas the sport/coach she "defected to" (that was the receiving coach's words!) was one who was understanding of advance notice that was not abused but when something very important conflicted. Your family did all they could to work around the team's schedule but could not change this plan at the last minute. A grandmother's 90th is more important than a game. Sorry coach.</p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>maryny1,
I agree with mominva that this matter should not be dropped. I would follow the
"chain of command," and start with a conversation with the coach. If no satisfaction, go to the athletic director. And so on. I coached a high school varsity sport for a dozen years, and I had one instance where I had to bench two athletes for a playoff game. (One was a starter.) The playoff game occurred on prom day. I didn't expect them to skip the prom. However, I did expect them to skip the manicures, which they did not. I was forced to start a J.V. player in a playoff game and when the "manicure queens" showed up for the second round of the playoffs, they found themselves at the end of the bench. However, I did not cut them from the team.</p>
<p>Thanks for the support. I was thinking of doing the "chain of command" route- Talk to the coach first and if that fails- do the letter writing to the District Sports Director, Principal etc. etc. I really was going to let this rest as the season was over but when I realized my d could be humiliated and embarrased a 2nd time at the Sports Dinner, I realized I had to do something about it. I guess a phone call to the coach is on my "TO DO" list for Tuesday.</p>
<p>question.
what is the purpose of a "scholarship weekend?" What takes place?
Thanks anyone.</p>