No Good Deed

Phil has been coaching youth soccer this year. He has a passion for the game and wanted to pass it on to younger kids. He preached being respectful to the league and to the refs all year. well it bit him in the ASS this past weekend.

Saturday, he was coaching the 2nd to last game of the year. Now Phil can be dramatic and he can be loud. But that is Phil. He is who he is. I have talked to several witnesses and parents who were at the game just to make sure what Phil was telling me was the whole story. What he said was the truth. so wwhat is a mom to do? go to the media.

It turns out that Phil was coaching a game and there was lots of rough stuff on both sides and the center ref did not have control of the game. Kids were using elbows, tripping etc. Phil turned to talk to a mom who happened to be an asst coach for him to explain what was happening. Everyone says Phil did nothing out of line but the center ref, who was 16, kicked Phil off the field. No warning, no yellow card, jsut said leave. So Phil did. He talked to the exec director after the game and gave his side of the story. She said don't worry about it.

Fast forward to yesterday. Phil shows up to his last game and has his kids warming up. The exec director that he spoke with the day before walks over and in front of Phil's team and parents tells Phil he could not be at the game because he had been ejected the day before. Why had she not told him this when they talked on Saturday. Parents were furious. Phil and Mike go sit on the tail of Marvin's truck so Phil can at least see the game. Nothing else was said to Phil about it. Today he wakes up to find an email saying he is being 75.00 for being ejected. why was this not mentioned on Saturday. We also found out that the same center Ref kicked a parent from the opposing team out yesterday for cussing. Will this parent get fined? Or the other Coach because he did not control his parents?

Where do they get off fining VOLUNTEER coaches. In my book if you can be fined you are an employee and every coach needs to turn in a time sheet to Sunflower Soccer. Volunteers are hard to find. Good reliable positive role model volunteers are even harder. How many 18 year college students do you knwo who would give up 2 night a week for practice as well as at least one day a weekend to mentor 12-14 year olds?

Sunflower Soccer and Kansas Youth Soccer Association needs to get off their power trip and THANK the coaches from the bottom of their hearts. they also need to make sure their referees are not near the same age as the teams playing. Let 16 year olds ref the little guys and let older refs take care of the older kids. This sounds like one power hungry ref who was trying to throw his authority around anyway he could. And thumbs down to Sunflower Soccer for not backing thier coaches. In this economy 75.oo is a lot of money to the parent coaches - it is a fortune to a college kid who was trying to pass on his love of the sport.