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Saturday, December 17, 2011

Did I have the right attitude?

We had preliminary tryouts in October and will continue in January.  This week a parent of a prospective player told me they had an offer for a spot on another team and asked what they should  do.

I told him I would not say but did remind him who the son was up against and basically told him to take the job or take his chances.  If he had a 0.00% chance of making one of our two teams I would have told him so.

I've had parents present that situation to me in the past.  I never say they are going to make our team, but I have told some parents it might be wise to take the other spot.  That's the extent of my possible answers.  If they are stuck in the middle I remind them that I am not going to make a decision for them.

It's a problem when every team is running tryouts over different time frames.  I could easily say this type of parental dilemma is not my problem, but that's not a statement I am comfortable with.  But I have to protect our process and be fair to the group in tryouts.

I hope parents have a "plan b" in their pocket when they are attending multiple tryouts.

This goes hand-in-hand with my lack of comfort in recruiting when it comes to youth soccer.