More Inconsitency from Solebury Storm Soccer Coach

Well, it’s happened again; more misinformation from the Solebury Soccer Storm’s u12 coach.

I guess at this point we shouldn’t be surprised.

Stupid us (said sarcastically)!!

We shouldn’t ever have believed that a man who had coached our son through three years of Autumn and Spring soccer would be honest with us. As I’ve said before, I wonder what his behaviour teaches kids about integrity, sportsmanship and leadership.

Forget the fact that …

• He recruited players from other townships to replace talented and dedicated Solebury players;
• He conducted two tryouts without any written documentation of the evaluation process or having any potential keeper candidates demonstrate goalkeeping skills;
• He justified his actions in front of the Solebury Soccer Club grievance committee by painting 10-year-old Jack as a liar;
• The Solebury Soccer Club doesn’t even publicly post its bylaws, and only follows them selectively;

… what has made us so furious throughout this entire soccer saga has been the coach’s repeated inability to communicate the truth.

The back story is that after last Autumn’s season, we could tell he wasn’t thrilled with Jack as a keeper. Kevin contacted the coach to find out what Jack should work on throughout the winter in his weekly Total Soccer sessions, but the coach didn’t provide any constructive feedback or explanation for his opinion of Jack other than to say he was uncomfortable coaching goal keepers. That left us with a bad feeling.

Before Spring tryouts even began, Kevin asked him point blank if Jack should be looking for another soccer team. The coach could have said something wishy washy like, “You should do whatever you think is best,” or he could have said something like, “I can’t make any guarantees.”

What he actually said was:  “Jack should continue to play for the Storm.”

At that point, we still trusted him, so we didn’t look for another soccer team for Jack because he very much wanted to play on the team he had played on for three years with the teammates he knew and cared about.

Big mistake.

After tryouts, the Solebury Storm U12 coach cut Jack, among others, so he could place four non-Solebury Township player on HIS soccer team.

He initially told us that he didn’t want two-sport athletes and wasn’t taking a full roster of 18 players. After the parents of the cut players, including us, complained vigorously, he re-instated two players (not Jack). This is an excerpt from the email he sent us at that time:

I have changed in my position of a) only taking 16 players and b) having those boys be single sport athletes for the fall season.  Therefore I have expanded the roster to 18 and looked at all the players on a “potential-conflict blind” basis … Jack was ranked number 19 on my overall list so even with this change, I could not add him.  If I had gone with this revised position from the beginning the result would have been the same, although the reason I gave to you and Jack would have been different.

Last week, we found out that one of the players had resigned.  We contacted the Solebury Storm coach as well as Solebury Soccer Club officials to inquire if there would be a tryout for the newly opened slot or if it would be filled based on Spring tryouts (noting that Jack was #19, thus “next in line”).

The Solebury U12 coach never responded to us, but a club official relayed that “at this time he is leaving his roster as is.” So I guess what he said about taking a roster of 18 was untrue. Surprise, surprise (said sarcastically).

I have no idea why he’s isn’t following through on his statement that “I have expanded the roster to 18.” (Actually, I can make a good guess. I’m sure at this point he absolutely hates us and by extension, Jack.)

• He can’t say Jack isn’t ready; he trained like a maniac all summer.
• He can’t say Jack missed too many summer practices; I know for a fact that several other players missed most, if not all, of the summer workouts as well as the Gettysburg tournament.
• He can’t say Jack has missed too much of the Autumn season; no games have been played yet in the Autumn season.
• He can’t even use his old standby — conflicts with football; there aren’t schedule conflicts between the Solebury Storm schedule and football.

I’d like to ask him why he won’t do what he said and have a roster of 18, but I probably wouldn’t believe what he said. I’ve finally learned my lesson.