It's only fair./s
it’s all about self-esteem (after all you don’t want to hurt the kid’s feelings if they can’t play/s)
I expect some time in the future every school will go to a tournament so every kid, and not just the increasing numbers now attending, can have a very happy, state tournament experience. Because that's what's most important, right? Kids who do not have to work as hard to be happy as they did before. That's the lesson today's schools teach kids. No losers. But no real winners either.
While I am sympathetic and share your views on competition, public school sports can be controversial in their funding. HS sports are not the mission of the public school system, and when we allow them to be funded by public dollars - we are at the whims of the bureacrats and do-gooders. Coaches and administrators are public employees.
I say this as a parent of a HS athletes that agreed with my local county that parents should pay a fee for their kids to play sports. There are plenty great coaches, and if our tax dollars are funding sports programs - of course we should speak out if there is shenanigans. However I am not and big advocate of public school sports programs.
It is basically redistribution of wealth at the emotional level.
Typical.
If you are willing to educate your kids with other people’s money - this is the result.
In my southern city one school’s varsity football team got angry with my school’s football team for running up the score. The final score was 72-0 but our coaches were putting in second, third, and fourth string players. They even tried changing the players positions so the score wouldnt go higher. Makes me sick because now my school is in trouble with the board for hurting the other teams feelings. If my kid were on the other team I would pull him off. What are they teaching those players? Not to work hard, whine when you dont like a result, etc. We have got to stop being a nation of big babies.
My daughter went to watch her best friend’s JV Varsity game yesterday after school. The team lost because the coach insisted on playing an 8th grader who was no good. When asked, the coach said that everyone should get to play. My daughter’s friend was mad.
I knew this was a trend in the younger grades for sports, but by junior varsity and varsity it should now be about competition. True self esteem results from true accomplishment that one has worked hard for - and high school age players know this. If they played and sucked, their self esteem did not rise.
I am concerned that this trend is hitting the high school mindset. I didn’t think it would. I wish your neice the best.
So there’s a club team that’s so good that it travels far and wide AND her school team that are individually and collectively responsible for changing and screwing up her serve and her game so badly that she might not make the good club team?
Are you sure she’s not just wilting under the pressure of expectations from her family—and they’re all looking for her two teams to blame?
I've never coached volleyball, but I have coached other sports. I'm wondering if there's a different reason behind the softer serve besides letting the other team return it? Sometimes, a coach will make a player seem to go backwards to improve basic form and essentially relearn the skill the proper way. It looks like the coach is hurting the kid's ability, and the kid inevitably feels that way, but ultimately, the promising player will become better for the back to basics play.
I was playing chess with some very poor players, beating them easily every time, laughing & having fun winning.
The old man came over & asked to play. He beat me like a drum, every game. This depressed me badly, & he could see it.
He said to me, “You will never get better at chess, or anything, if you compete against inferior players. You must play with people who beat you consistently to improve your game”.
Absolutely right! If you are good, & not losing, you are not learning.
I'm so sorry for your niece, whose talents are being sacrificed for the collective. There are many consequences of socialism/Marxism beyond monetary redistribution. Your niece is experiencing one of them.
This is probably the real problem. I understand the club teams probably do this so they're accused of poaching players from school teams, but if this is going to be the school team trend then they need to reconsider this policy.
Fact is, for the school teams, you gotta play by the school's rules, no matter how asinine they are. With club teams, if a club starts shifting their focus to the point where they're hurting player development, then the good players are going to leave for another club if they can find one). That's the free market.
This is the result of the entitlement society, pure and simple. As a caveat, I may be reading too much into it, having limited knowledge of the situation.
There are two wrong lessons being taught from this, to both your niece, and the kids who replaced her. The kids who replaced her are taught that it doesn’t matter if they are not as good, or don’t work as hard, that all they need to do is want to play, and they entitled to get a spot that they don’t necessarily deserve. Your niece is being taught that all her hard work and commitment doesn’t count for anything, and that those who don’t is equally eligible for a spot on the team. Big failure on the coach’s side.
My context is from this...I helped coach the local high school’s summer baseball team, and we had the same situation, parents of a kid that didn’t work out at all, couldn’t hit, couldn’t catch and spent his weeks playing xbox and apparently not watching his diet, demanded equal playing time with those kids who worked out many hours 5 days a week. I refused, and the kid left the team. I was clear, that if I saw his effort and attitude improve, and saw the kid at the workouts, he would get his chance to play. The parents decided that it was unfair to expect the kid to work at his game, and that if he didn’t get playing time regardless, they would leave. And they did.
It is not a good lesson for the kids to tell them they are entitled to play just for showing up. Will they be entitled to a paycheck for just showing up at work? This is why we end up with kids who can’t read or write properly, and 50 million on food stamps. The government schools are showing them that they are entitled to graduate, spots on a team etc, and when they get in the real world and are expected to perform to earn, they can’t or won’t.
there always are competitive private clubs and teams, even traveling teams
also summer camps and clinics where she can learn or sign up to coach younger kids,which also looks good on a resume
Your family needs to look harder and find one for her
Maye she needs to start a team of younger kids in elementary school to boost up their skills - this is called leadership
Talk to some of the volleyball coaches at the colleges that you say have scouted her for their recommendations
The service academies (here USNA) have summer athleitic programs in all sports and teens come from all over the uSA for them
If your niece is tall, athletic, and anywhere near as good as you thinly she is, no high school coach can screw up her chances for a college scholarship if she plays USAV club ball.
College coaches do not scout High school matches. I ref at big USAV juniors tournaments, and there will be so many college coaches, you can’t walk 10 feet without bumping into one.