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Old 11-23-2014, 09:09 AM
tomwed tomwed is offline
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As a teacher/coach something like this happened to me. And I would be surprised if it didn't happen to every teacher but you don't hear about it. It didn't make the papers.

I coached a coed golf team that was capped at 12 players. We had tryouts and the best 11 players, with the lowest scores were all boys.

One of the moms of the 3 girls that didn't make the cut called me and insisted that her daughter be on the team and I was being sexist. I need to make an exception just for her daughter. She had the worst score of the 3 girls.
I asked the mom for 24 hours.

I called the girl down and and told her that her mother called me. The girl said she was so sorry and her mother means well but she can be such an embarrassment. I told her not to worry and to keep this just between us.

The next day I told the team that I was not cutting anyone. The top 6 players will practice everyday and the other 10 will rotate every other day and try to work their way into the line-up. Everyone could come everyday but only 11 will play the course. The rest of the group can hit balls on the driving range, chip, putt, work on sand shot, yada, yada, yada.

As I got to know her I found out she beat cancer when she was 10. She stayed on the team all 4 years and did not improve all that much. In her senior year I insisted she play in a match at least once. She didn't want to, she just wanted to be on the team. When she graduated she enlisted in the Navy.

A teacher needs to be flexible and put the child first. What good would it have done for me to stand my ground? With everyone coming and going we had a terrible season in the league. But it was fun.