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I am having some major issues with the parent of one of the girls on my soccer team.
I have always tried to be fair and give everyone equal playing time during the season. Last season, we entered a tournament and I asked the parents and kids, "We can either play to win or play everyone equally but if we play to win that means I'm going to place players in positions where they are stronger and some girls might not get as much playing time as others." Everyone wanted to play to win so I did what I said I would do. One of the girls is good, not great, but was having a terrible tournament and was doing things on the field that were killing us (ball hogging, tripping all over her feet,and just not playing up to par). During the last game of the first day, I gave her limited playing time because we had to win the game to advance or else go home. We did win but after the game the father walked over to me, started yelling at me in front of his daughter over her lack of playing time, and basically said that unless he received an email explaining myself, they would not be showing up for the remainder of the tournament.
After discussing with the Asst. Coach, I decided to send an email and attempted to smooth things over as best as I could and without going into any detail regarding his daughter's horrible performance, re-stated that everyone wanted to play to win but assured him that I would give his daughter equal playing time the following day.
He sent me a response the following morning that was beyond rude, questioned my coaching style, made negative comments about my daughter, etc. With great restraint, I did not respond to his email. The daughter did show up and I followed through with my commitment to play her.
I really didn't want his daughter playing under me again but decided to rise above it and honor my commitment to coach (we generally keep the girls for two seasons unless the parent requests otherwise...he did not...so I chalked his email up to an emotionally charged situation. He never apologized to me and I don't mind the personal criticisms but when you start bringing people unrelated to the situation like my daughter, he had crossed the line).
This season, we moved into a really competitive division and decided to only play goalkeepers who wanted to play the position and had the ability. Only 3 players expressed interest but only 2 are good enough to play at this level. One of them is his daughter...so far so good. I have been alternating the two of them so they play one half as goalie and the other half on the field trying to give them more playing time on the field since they volunteered to play goalie.
Last night at practice, the girls says she no longer wants to play goalie. I told her she was doing a great job and didn't understand why she didn't want to play. She responded that her dad told her she doesn't want her playing the position anymore and wants her to play more on the field. I asked her if she liked playing goalie and she said "yes". The other goalie on the team likes playing but doesn't want to play 100% of the time and I really have no one else that is capable or wants to play the position (mainly because it is so competitive).
I talked to my wife about it and her opinion is that if the father has a problem with it, he should talk to me about it and not relay the information through the daughter. In the meantime, her opinion is that I'm the coach and unless the daughter is scared of playing the position or really hates it, I should ignore the father and play her anyway. If the father has an issue he can speak to me directly, I can state my opinion and see if we can compromise. She said if he won't budge, that I should just tell him that I'm coaching the team and doing what I think is in the best interest of everyone involved. If he doesn't like it, he can volunteer to coach a team in the fall and we can make arrangements to move his daughter to another team for the remainder of the season.
That's my wife's viewpoint anyway. She knows how much time I spend doing this thankless job and what a difficult and unreasonable person the father is who thinks he can just go around calling the shots and using his daughter as a pawn in all of this which I think is really sad.
I'd like to hear some others suggestions since I suspect this is going to hit the fan this weekend if I follow my wife's advice which to me makes sense. There are players who are better defenders but want to play offense and I try to accomodate that by playing them in both spots. If every girl on the team had their way, I'd have a team made up entirely of forwards with no defense and no goalie so everyone seems to be ok with this except the one father who is a constant thorn in my side and trying to put his own selfish desires before the team.
I have always tried to be fair and give everyone equal playing time during the season. Last season, we entered a tournament and I asked the parents and kids, "We can either play to win or play everyone equally but if we play to win that means I'm going to place players in positions where they are stronger and some girls might not get as much playing time as others." Everyone wanted to play to win so I did what I said I would do. One of the girls is good, not great, but was having a terrible tournament and was doing things on the field that were killing us (ball hogging, tripping all over her feet,and just not playing up to par). During the last game of the first day, I gave her limited playing time because we had to win the game to advance or else go home. We did win but after the game the father walked over to me, started yelling at me in front of his daughter over her lack of playing time, and basically said that unless he received an email explaining myself, they would not be showing up for the remainder of the tournament.
After discussing with the Asst. Coach, I decided to send an email and attempted to smooth things over as best as I could and without going into any detail regarding his daughter's horrible performance, re-stated that everyone wanted to play to win but assured him that I would give his daughter equal playing time the following day.
He sent me a response the following morning that was beyond rude, questioned my coaching style, made negative comments about my daughter, etc. With great restraint, I did not respond to his email. The daughter did show up and I followed through with my commitment to play her.
I really didn't want his daughter playing under me again but decided to rise above it and honor my commitment to coach (we generally keep the girls for two seasons unless the parent requests otherwise...he did not...so I chalked his email up to an emotionally charged situation. He never apologized to me and I don't mind the personal criticisms but when you start bringing people unrelated to the situation like my daughter, he had crossed the line).
This season, we moved into a really competitive division and decided to only play goalkeepers who wanted to play the position and had the ability. Only 3 players expressed interest but only 2 are good enough to play at this level. One of them is his daughter...so far so good. I have been alternating the two of them so they play one half as goalie and the other half on the field trying to give them more playing time on the field since they volunteered to play goalie.
Last night at practice, the girls says she no longer wants to play goalie. I told her she was doing a great job and didn't understand why she didn't want to play. She responded that her dad told her she doesn't want her playing the position anymore and wants her to play more on the field. I asked her if she liked playing goalie and she said "yes". The other goalie on the team likes playing but doesn't want to play 100% of the time and I really have no one else that is capable or wants to play the position (mainly because it is so competitive).
I talked to my wife about it and her opinion is that if the father has a problem with it, he should talk to me about it and not relay the information through the daughter. In the meantime, her opinion is that I'm the coach and unless the daughter is scared of playing the position or really hates it, I should ignore the father and play her anyway. If the father has an issue he can speak to me directly, I can state my opinion and see if we can compromise. She said if he won't budge, that I should just tell him that I'm coaching the team and doing what I think is in the best interest of everyone involved. If he doesn't like it, he can volunteer to coach a team in the fall and we can make arrangements to move his daughter to another team for the remainder of the season.
That's my wife's viewpoint anyway. She knows how much time I spend doing this thankless job and what a difficult and unreasonable person the father is who thinks he can just go around calling the shots and using his daughter as a pawn in all of this which I think is really sad.
I'd like to hear some others suggestions since I suspect this is going to hit the fan this weekend if I follow my wife's advice which to me makes sense. There are players who are better defenders but want to play offense and I try to accomodate that by playing them in both spots. If every girl on the team had their way, I'd have a team made up entirely of forwards with no defense and no goalie so everyone seems to be ok with this except the one father who is a constant thorn in my side and trying to put his own selfish desires before the team.
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