Here's my opinion on the importance of seniors to a team.
If properly nurtured and groomed by their coach(s) and parents:
- Seniors should be your team's heart & soul;
- Seniors should also be many of your best players;
- We would hope that they'd be the most committed, the most focused, the most dedicated.............heck, time is no longer on their side;
- We expect them to be role models for the 10th, 9th, 8th graders. We want the youngsters to say, "Wow, Kim's awesome. I want to set just like her!"
I expect my seniors to "lead by example."
Here's an example of senior who messed up. About 7 years ago one of my seniors, who was also our team captain, was placed in all day internal suspension by the principal because she left school with her 20 year old boyfriend without signing out of school and without her parents permission. Then about 3 weeks later she did the exact same thing again. That cost her a one-day suspension from school. I gave the team captainship to another girl...the new captain was less intense, but was the role model that I had to have. Well, the busted girl was upset, crying, mad. I told her, "Captains of teams don’t do what you’re doing. You're not being a leader to your team or to the JV's. You're giving the rest of the team and the JV's and the middle schoolers the impression that when they get older, they can simply ignore rules and do what they want. And I won't permit you to teach them that. In a day or two the news that you’re no longer the captain will spread through the entire program, and even the 8th graders will realize that if rules are broken, there are consequences. Now, come on, it’s time for more laps & situps."
NEXT.............why did I cut that one senior?
- She had done almost nothing during the offseason.............significantly less than her teammates;
- She had a poor attitude..............moaning & groaning about whatever happened that day.
- She was a girl who would talk negatively about classmates & teammates constantly.
- She was not a good athlete & hadn’t gotten any p.t. during her years on JV (even though she was a member of the middle school team before entering high school). The only reason she wasn't cut when she was younger was b/c we didn't have enough returning quality players;
- She didn't get any p.t. as a junior on varsity, and her p.t. was not going to increase as a senior;
- THEN as the only senior on the bench who would not be getting any p.t., I could imagine the following scenerio................she'd be slouched in the seat, whining and complaining about jrs and sophs playing ahead of her.
- I may have kept her if she had been a "cheerleader" type of personality..........but nope. She was a pouter.
- PLUS, that year I had a load of other talented girls who needed to be on varsity...............if I would have kept her, then I would have had to push another girl down to JV and that may have meant cutting a youngster.
In fact, I remember the first practice after her name was left off the posted list of girls who'd made the varsity team. The entire team had to have a sit-down at the beginning of practice. Her senior teammates were disturbed..............I can still hear some of them say, "But if you would have told her that you were thinking about cutting her, then she would have come to camps or open gyms." To that I responded, "I didn't want to tell her. I wanted her to come because she wanted to come, not because I threatened her. I didn't threaten any of you, and yet you all came!"
