Our daughter had her last basketball game of the season Thursday evening. Her dad observed often throughout the game that it could very likely be the last game of high school basketball that we were to see her play. Since she’s been playing for quite a few years, on one hand it seemed rather a sad thought. But actually, if it was her last game, I am mostly glad. This year, I watched as basketball changed for Joyce – I don't think she has had fun with it for a while now, not like earlier in the season. In my opinion, it's because of the JV and the Varsity coaches – I feel like they've changed, and not, as I see it, for the better. Maybe they haven't, but it seems to me like they have. Basically, I think they are concentrating so much on winning, that they are not regarding the players as actual people with real feelings, particularly actual teenage girls with all that entails. I think they’re often too mean*. Frankly, I am hoping Joycie doesn't want to play basketball next year. I'm trying not to let her know that's how I feel, because I do want her to decide for herself. But I think it's just too much. The 2 coaches want only players who Live And Breathe Basketball, and I don't want that for Joyce. Maybe that's what it takes to play any HS sport, I don't know. Regardless, Joyce just isn't that overwhelmingly passionate about basketball. She really enjoys it and she’s a good, strong player, but apparently that's not enough.
It’ll be interesting to see how many girls try out for basketball next year. This year the word was that they had trouble getting enough girls… I was so surprised. Now, I’m not.
Instead of basketball, Joyce has told me she is considering playing indoor soccer with 2 of her friends – I would love that. She’d still get tons of exercise, the fun of playing with a team, and – here’s the clincher – I think it would do a hell of lot more for her self-esteem than playing in the basketball program we currently have.
Anyway, volleyball is next. Yay!
*Here’s an example of what I would call mean coaching behavior – one of the sophomores on the Varsity team, who was always one of the best players and who was on the JV team as a Freshman (which is a biggish deal because most of the Freshmen were on the Freshman team), and who was called up to the Varsity team mid-way through the year (also kind of a big deal), and who was on the Varsity since the beginning of this season, for whatever reason, didn’t get a lot of playing time. She’s still an excellent player, but the Varsity coach announced at practice, with no warning, that this player was going back down the JV and that one of the Freshmen currently on the JV team was being moved up to Varsity. This was at the beginning of a Saturday practice. The Freshman girl had warning, because she was there to practice with the Varsity team. The coach then told the girl being moved down that she didn’t need to practice with them that day (only Varsity practices over the weekend). Only thing was, since this girl is too young to drive, her dad had dropped her off and she had to wait until the end of practice time to be picked up by her mom, so she spent the time alone in the locker room, basically crying. She was publicly humiliated, and the coach didn’t even get it. He is such an ass.
Further, this girl has already been experiencing some self-esteem problems, I believe, because she wasn’t getting what she thought was enough playing time last year and this year. At least I suspect that's part of it, probably a lot more to the story. Anyway, I heard not getting to play was really bothering her (she’s one of those girls that live and breathe basketball, playing year-round, traveling teams, etc). Turns out, she’s bulimic. The general feeling is that this last hit by the Varsity coach really was a low blow for this girl and basically sent her over the edge. To her credit, she really played hard on the few JV games she was at, but “due to health reasons” she had to quit before the end of the season. With just a bit more caring & consideration by that coach, I believe this poor girl may have behaved differently. She put way too much stock into the opinion of one very large asshole.
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