Vicarious Living
I did not get a moon light run in yesterday. Didn't get a run in at all. Spent most of the day at my youngest daughters volleyball games. She is on an 8th grade competitive volleyball team. It is essentially a feeder team for the high school she will attend. She is also playing rec volleyball through the city and intramural volleyball through her middle school. She is one of three 7th graders on her team and the only one from her school. Added to all this, she is very young for her grade, she started the school year 11 and had her 12th birthday 3 weeks ago.
She loves playing volleyball, her Mom plays in rec leagues, she tags along and is always out in the yard hitting the ball around on her own. She didn't try out for this competitive team, we signed her up for a couple of camps this summer, the high school coach contacted us and the coach of this competitive team and suggested that she be given a try out. So, she had a 1x1 tryout (team had already been selected) and was put on the team. We sensed the coach wasn't to thrilled about the suggestion which seemed to be confirmed this weekend.
She barely played, was the last person put into both of their matches. She was in tears on the bench after she had sat through the first 2 games and was the only one that hadn't played. She eventually got in the 3rd game, had several good serves and muffed a set when her and another girl tried to play it at the same time. During the break between matches I talked with her, told her I was proud of her and to just do her best. That I didn't care if she played, just wanted her to have fun. The second match, she got in on the end of the first game, served a few winners before they won the game and was pulled to start the second game. Same thing happened in the second game, and she never had a chance to handle a set or pass in either game of the second match.
Afterward the matches you could tell she was still upset. Her Mom and I talked with her and suggested that she ask the coach what she needed to improve on in order to play more. She thought that was a good idea. When my wife took her to practice tonight, she wanted her Mom to go with her to help with the question. She asked, and the coach told her she needed to pay more attention while on the bench and to get her serves over. My daughter ran over to join the warmup drills, and he told my wife that he wasn't playing to win at all cost, but that he was playing to win. Never mind the fact they were never really in the first match. My wife said it was hard to listen to it, especially the specific point he brought up, she had done flawlessly. We weren't sure about the paying attention comment, but our reaction was that it was ironic considering the tears.
Obviously we are struggling with the situation. The number one priority for us is for our daughter to have fun. We feel there are life lessons in sport, but this would be hard for an adult to handle. It would be so easy to work with or "drill" our daughter every night and systematically work through and remove this idiots reasons for her not playing, but is that what our daughter wants and is it the right thing to do for her? Is she going to end up hating volleyball? Should she learn to accept the situation with the idea that she is young and next year will be her turn? I guess the biggest problem is that the coach didn't explain anything, let the playing time be a big suprise and then had lame excuses or reasons for it. I hope this isn't a long year. It seems that many times, these end up being more life lessons for us as parents than they do for our kids.
Anyway, I did get a 50 minute run in over lunch today, ran the trails behind my office, it was a beautiful day with incredible views of downtown Denver. Nothing was solved, but I did enjoy the run .
She loves playing volleyball, her Mom plays in rec leagues, she tags along and is always out in the yard hitting the ball around on her own. She didn't try out for this competitive team, we signed her up for a couple of camps this summer, the high school coach contacted us and the coach of this competitive team and suggested that she be given a try out. So, she had a 1x1 tryout (team had already been selected) and was put on the team. We sensed the coach wasn't to thrilled about the suggestion which seemed to be confirmed this weekend.
She barely played, was the last person put into both of their matches. She was in tears on the bench after she had sat through the first 2 games and was the only one that hadn't played. She eventually got in the 3rd game, had several good serves and muffed a set when her and another girl tried to play it at the same time. During the break between matches I talked with her, told her I was proud of her and to just do her best. That I didn't care if she played, just wanted her to have fun. The second match, she got in on the end of the first game, served a few winners before they won the game and was pulled to start the second game. Same thing happened in the second game, and she never had a chance to handle a set or pass in either game of the second match.
Afterward the matches you could tell she was still upset. Her Mom and I talked with her and suggested that she ask the coach what she needed to improve on in order to play more. She thought that was a good idea. When my wife took her to practice tonight, she wanted her Mom to go with her to help with the question. She asked, and the coach told her she needed to pay more attention while on the bench and to get her serves over. My daughter ran over to join the warmup drills, and he told my wife that he wasn't playing to win at all cost, but that he was playing to win. Never mind the fact they were never really in the first match. My wife said it was hard to listen to it, especially the specific point he brought up, she had done flawlessly. We weren't sure about the paying attention comment, but our reaction was that it was ironic considering the tears.
Obviously we are struggling with the situation. The number one priority for us is for our daughter to have fun. We feel there are life lessons in sport, but this would be hard for an adult to handle. It would be so easy to work with or "drill" our daughter every night and systematically work through and remove this idiots reasons for her not playing, but is that what our daughter wants and is it the right thing to do for her? Is she going to end up hating volleyball? Should she learn to accept the situation with the idea that she is young and next year will be her turn? I guess the biggest problem is that the coach didn't explain anything, let the playing time be a big suprise and then had lame excuses or reasons for it. I hope this isn't a long year. It seems that many times, these end up being more life lessons for us as parents than they do for our kids.
Anyway, I did get a 50 minute run in over lunch today, ran the trails behind my office, it was a beautiful day with incredible views of downtown Denver. Nothing was solved, but I did enjoy the run .
posted by uphill at 7:28 PM
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