Hostile Takeover - Part I

I've already told about leaving our last team and going with the new coach to a new club, and doing pretty well in the tournaments we attended.

Then in the summer the coach (I liked to call him the crazy Czech) was pushing for the girls to attend a soccer camp in Santa Barbara (instead of the fun Y camp she'd already signed up for). The Girl changed her mind and attended the soccer camp, but it turned into a clash of personalities and wills that made some of the girls dislike each other instead of bonding like we'd hoped.

K and I went on a fabulous cruise for a few weeks, and even left The Girl here, staying with the team Administrator, so she could play with them.

After the season started, the Coach seemed to be getting more and more negative. He'd always had a reputation for being frank to the point of being harsh, and this also seemed to be getting worse. He stared talking about retirement more and more, like he was leaving after this year, and even complained one time that the Club wasn't paying him enough.

Then, halfway into the season, the Administrator, Ron, called a parent meeting after practice. A few parents had been with the Coach for many years (4-6), and seemed to act like they were in charge. They said they wanted the coach to have an official assistant coach, to stop saying things he shouldn't, and wanted to see how many families would be around for a Thanksgiving tournament. K went down to tell the coach he was running a great practice, and he said, "The parents are trying to get me fired." K thought he was just joking or being negative.

That Sunday we had a game, and and email went out that we were having ANOTHER parent meeting afterward! When we showed up, the coach wasn't there! But half the Club's coaching staff was. That was my first clue that something was up. My friend V said, "Look what these parents are doing." We immediately suspected who was behind it.

We also got another surprise - some of the parents had decided to take the girls out for ice cream after the game, as one of the dads had a friend who owned a limo company and it was left over from the night before and was therefore free.

I called the Crazy Czech during the game and he repeated that the parents were trying to get him fired. He said the goalie's dad had tried to fight him on the field after the last game, when a 2nd goalie had played half the game. The reason we have a second goalie is because last year this goalie's trainer told her she shouldn't play halfway through the season! Not even her doctor, just her trainer, and the team was left without a goalie for half the season. But now that we have two, the second goalie should never play unless their daughter is hurt?

He also said the team admin had hung up on him after a phone call where he screamed at the coach about why his daughter wasn't playing the whole game. The coach was especially hurt because he'd been with some of those girls for years, being a father figure to a few of them.

So after the game the girls were whisked off in a limo for ice cream, and we parents had a sham of a meeting where we were supposedly airing our views to the head of coaching for the Club, Half the team had no idea, and the other half was prepared, saying the coach was too negative, he didn't want an assistant etc. I complained about the blind-siding and one of them, M, said, "How can you be surprised? But there were all those emails...." seeing that half the team was as surprised as I was, I told her, "Not everyone got those emails."

Only I and one other family stuck up for the Coach. I told the Head Coach, "But no, we're here because of the coach! We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him!" We broke up a nice little team to come there, and now I was feeling even worse about that.

One father told them that they were just a bunch of whiners and complainers that were upset because they weren't getting their way, and that they were being really selfish. That was my favorite part.

In the end the head coach said that he would compromise, and that he (the Club Head Coach) would be the assistant coach and the Crazy Czech would still be coach. I thought that was a good compromise. The girls returned from ice cream, and everyone went home.