Youth Sports Tryouts, Team Selection, and Subsequent Rejection
Thought I'd ask how other parents have dealt with similar situations. My son (9yo) has played with the same group of kids for the last 3-4 years. He tried out for U11 this year, and in Regina, there are only 3 divisions (A/B/C).
He's not the greatest player, and neither were his previous teams, but a solid B is what I thought. Regardless, his tryouts, he neither stood out in a good or bad way. Just middle of the road. I suspected that he might be a bubble player, but thought there was a good chance he end up on a team with one of his friends.
Well, we got notified, and he didn't make Div B. He was obviously heartbroken, but to add salt to the wound, we found out every single one of his last year's team, made it on one team, except for him ( and the other 3 who are still in U9). Needless to say, he is utterly crushed.
We obviously can't do anything, and we are being supportive and sympathetic to his emotions. Our advice to him is that he will meet new friends, be one of the better kids on his team, and to treat this year as a building year, where we can work to prove they made a mistake.
Regardless... My wife and my hearts break for him. It doesn't seem fair, and we are embarrassed for him. I always coached with the head coach the past 4 years, we have a great friendship (or so I thought) and my son always fit in well with the team. It is what it is, but I can't help but feel embarrassed for my son as well as myself.
Sorry for the disjointed rant. Would appreciate thoughts on others experience. I do realize that this is a great learning experience, but it doesn't take the sting away, especially from my son.
Sent from my SM-F946W using Tapatalk
The Following User Says Thank You to manwiches For This Useful Post:
As someone who coached Youth Soccer for a decade, I've gone through Tryouts a ton both as a player and as an evaluator.
Tryouts suck and are largely not a great method to evaluate talent.
First of all they are usually too short to give an evaluator much real insight into players and secondly all evaluators have bias.
It was one of the reasons I kept coaching at a very high competitive level...I didnt have a kid in the game so I was largely more objective than most.
Just from the little info that you gave I can already tell the most common one is right there...whoever is coaching B wants certain players (their kid) and those players' close friends as well as kids that they know.
Rather than players who earn spots at that competitive level.
A tale as old as time.
Overall though I like what you've done with encouraging him that this is an opportunity to improve and prove that his non-selection was a mistake. Stick it to 'em.
Thats always one of my favourites. Never underestimate 'Spite.'
__________________ The Beatings Shall Continue Until Morale Improves!
This Post Has Been Distilled for the Eradication of Seemingly Incurable Sadness.
If you are flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a Fire Exit. - Mitch Hedberg
The Following 6 Users Say Thank You to Locke For This Useful Post:
Tryouts, auditions, competitions, even "lucky draws" always have favoritism in play. But sometimes you have to accept that you may not be as good as you think you are, be it your skills or your connections.
Unfortunately that's life...
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to lazypucker For This Useful Post:
My daughter was assigned to div 3 basketball this year. She’s bummed that a lot of her friends are in div 2. But she’s a leader of her new team, the coach relies on her to run the offence, and she gets all the court time she can handle.
So it might lessen the sting for your son if you tell him he’ll likely be counted on more on his new team than he was on his previous teams.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to CliffFletcher For This Useful Post:
Tryouts, auditions, competitions, even "lucky draws" always have favoritism in play. But sometimes you have to accept that you may not be as good as you think you are, be it your skills or your connections.
Unfortunately that's life...
Oh 100%..I never had any rose colored glasses w my son and hockey. I always encouraged him to just have fun and make friends.
It just stings for us, on our son's behalf, that he appears to have been singled out, despite my thoughts that at least 1 or 2 of the other kids on his previous team probably shouldn't have made it either.
But as noted above, all the kids who made it mostly, all are in the same class/school as the head coaches son. Mine goes to a different school. Definitely some favoritism.
I just needed to write it out and get some thoughts, as I have no one to talk to, besides my wife, about this. It was cathartic...
Sent from my SM-F946W using Tapatalk
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to manwiches For This Useful Post:
My daughter was assigned to div 3 basketball this year. She’s bummed that a lot of her friends are in div 2. But she’s a leader of her new team, the coach relies on her to run the offence, and she gets all the court time she can handle.
So it might lessen the sting for your son if you tell him he’ll likely be counted on more on his new team than he was on his previous teams.
Yea. This is also what I've been telling him. An opportunity to be a leader, get more touches. I think that helped his emotions a bit
As someone who coached Youth Soccer for a decade, I've gone through Tryouts a ton both as a player and as an evaluator.
Tryouts suck and are largely not a great method to evaluate talent.
First of all they are usually too short to give an evaluator much real insight into players and secondly all evaluators have bias.
It was one of the reasons I kept coaching at a very high competitive level...I didnt have a kid in the game so I was largely more objective than most.
Just from the little info that you gave I can already tell the most common one is right there...whoever is coaching B wants certain players (their kid) and those players' close friends as well as kids that they know.
Rather than players who earn spots at that competitive level.
A tale as old as time.
Overall though I like what you've done with encouraging him that this is an opportunity to improve and prove that his non-selection was a mistake. Stick it to 'em.
Thats always one of my favourites. Never underestimate 'Spite.'
Definitely some favoritism. But I thought given my relationship the past few years, my kid wouldn't be on the outside looking in. It's unfortunate. My attitude has always been an eff you attitude. But emotions are a funny thing. Just feeling it for my son as well as myself. But mainly for my boy when I see him suddenly go quiet
Oh 100%..I never had any rose colored glasses w my son and hockey. I always encouraged him to just have fun and make friends.
It just stings for us, on our son's behalf, that he appears to have been singled out, despite my thoughts that at least 1 or 2 of the other kids on his previous team probably shouldn't have made it either.
But as noted above, all the kids who made it mostly, all are in the same class/school as the head coaches son. Mine goes to a different school. Definitely some favoritism.
I just needed to write it out and get some thoughts, as I have no one to talk to, besides my wife, about this. It was cathartic...
Sent from my SM-F946W using Tapatalk
Yup. Thats totally cool. Like I said, I get it.
I also understand that it can be embarrassing or uncomfortable during the season seeing his friends, they know he didnt make the team, theres a 'social hierarchy' thing as well and that persists as the season goes on.
You never know though, sometimes he might get called up.
__________________ The Beatings Shall Continue Until Morale Improves!
This Post Has Been Distilled for the Eradication of Seemingly Incurable Sadness.
If you are flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a Fire Exit. - Mitch Hedberg
The Following User Says Thank You to Locke For This Useful Post:
It’s very, very hard, especially when the peers who they’ve played with before stick together. It feels very isolating and I’ve seen it happen with my kid(in fact happened again this year).
I hate the process, it is generally quite flawed. That said, I always tell my kid once the season gets rolling you will be fine, let’s get after it and learn to work with some new people - that’s a life skill.
I won’t kid you, this doesn’t always work - if that team that he’s already unhappy to be in happens to be poorly coached, or just a crappy team environment overall it can make for a long season. Then you just take what you can from it
My daughter was assigned to div 3 basketball this year. She’s bummed that a lot of her friends are in div 2. But she’s a leader of her new team, the coach relies on her to run the offence, and she gets all the court time she can handle.
So it might lessen the sting for your son if you tell him he’ll likely be counted on more on his new team than he was on his previous teams.
Best example of how it can turn into something much better.
Odds are with that leadership experience they'll get more/better opportunities not just in the game, but also the game of life. Learning resilience and persistence doesn't come when things come easy, but rather through adversity and stubbornly pushing ahead no matter what.
If I'm supposed to be picking a team and I have limited to no knowledge of these kids, which is kind of what you want...to prevent Bias.
What am I realistically going to learn about these kids in an hour or two?
Thats why serious sports teams have long camps. A player can have a bad day and its okay, or they can rally and thats okay too.
But like a 1 or 2 hour tryout? They may as well go and play Bingo for all of the use that is. Thats gambling or just leaning on your biases.
One of my favourites, so a short story.
There was this kid we were evaluating and he was an absolute magician with the ball. It was wild. His ability to control, juggle and shift direction was amazing.
But put him in a real game situation? Entirely useless. Worst player on the team by miles. And you couldnt coach it out of him. He just could not process the actual team game itself at game speed.
Tryouts suck.
__________________ The Beatings Shall Continue Until Morale Improves!
This Post Has Been Distilled for the Eradication of Seemingly Incurable Sadness.
If you are flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a Fire Exit. - Mitch Hedberg
Our evaluations start in July with a weeklong camp just to test the physical attributes of the players and some skills testing just to figure out positions.
Then at the start of August we literally have a 3 week camp leading up to a jamboree, then right after the jamboree we pick our roster, pick 3 or 4 kids as developmental players.
You can usually tell as soon as kids get into gear and hitting starts who's going to be the top tier at each positions, and who else can be productive at each position. And we move kids around based on what we see to other positions. A running back could become a lber or defensive back.
but it also becomes clear at the bantam level and at spring who's just not suited to play at this level. But yeah, heart desire and work ethic and coachability has a big part of it.
It also helps that the coaches don't have family skin in the game.
We don't let parents directly coach at their kids positions.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Our evaluations start in July with a weeklong camp just to test the physical attributes of the players and some skills testing just to figure out positions.
Then at the start of August we literally have a 3 week camp leading up to a jamboree, then right after the jamboree we pick our roster, pick 3 or 4 kids as developmental players.
You can usually tell as soon as kids get into gear and hitting starts who's going to be the top tier at each positions, and who else can be productive at each position. And we move kids around based on what we see to other positions. A running back could become a lber or defensive back.
but it also becomes clear at the bantam level and at spring who's just not suited to play at this level. But yeah, heart desire and work ethic and coachability has a big part of it.
It also helps that the coaches don't have family skin in the game.
We don't let parents directly coach at their kids positions.
I wish this was the case in youth hockey. I ran into the old coach today, and asked him what my son could have improved on. Gave some good feedback, but it sounded like there was lot of flex and bias amongst all the coaches during the draft.
It just majorly sucks seeing your child so hurt. My son is a sensitive one too. I thought today was a better day, but he had bottled it all up and I had to hold him to sleep while he cried. I know things will be better for him. Just breaks my damned heart.
My wife and I are so emotionally drained from this weekend's news and having to see our son go through this. It's not even comparable to what he is feeling.
The Following User Says Thank You to manwiches For This Useful Post:
I always played a lot of soccer as a kid. Played at a pretty competitive level, with the same general group from when we were little kids to the end of junior high. The last season that I played, I had a bad tryout and ended up a division lower than my friends.
I shifted from back to forward and spent the year scoring goals, but it wasn't the same experience anymore, and that was my last year. I guess that you can say that I went out on a high of having fun, but it was a lot less competitive.
He could fight to move up in the next year, and rejoin his friends, but if he just has fun and transitions to something else, it's not the end of the world, and honestly it's only a couple of years until his entire peer group hits the end of the road, as well.
The takeaway, I guess, is to just have fun and enjoy the game. It's different, sure, but this might be a chance to show off a little!
__________________
"We don't even know who our best player is yet. It could be any one of us at this point." - Peter LaFleur, player/coach, Average Joe's Gymnasium
Youth Sports Tryouts, Team Selection, and Subsequent Rejection
