Son made the team after two try-outs. After football season, there was a third try-out and 9 of 11 players were replaced.
Mom is suing school district for deprivation of right to a complete education which (she says) includes sports participation. Naturally, the lawyers for the school district are asserting students have no right to extracurricular activities.
My problem is that the student was already on the team and was used as a placeholder until presumably better athletes were available. It’s not as if they’re suing to get on the team in the first place.
I tried out for my high school team. There were 15 people better than me. I didn’t complain. If, however, I am already on the team and now you want to have more tryouts because better players were tied up in another sport, I’m gonna have a problem with it.
Don’t those football players have a right to try out for the basketball team too? If I were a booster for that program, I’d expect the coach to play the best 11 athlete’s he’s got.
If there are 11 other students who are better basketball players than this woman’s son, I’m dubious of his chances of getting a scholarship or pro career anyway.
I’d be upset if I were a student who got cut that way, but that doesn’t mean anyone did anything wrong. The coach’s job is to have the best team, and the best players are the ones who have the most right to be there. If the coach played favorites with his football players and didn’t pick the best players, there is at least grounds for complaining (if not grounds for a lawsuit). I am not sure the school can do anything about the way the football and basketball seasons are scheduled since that is going to involve a slew of other area schools, and they could look into creating some kind of rule to deal with this situation. But it doesn’t sound like grounds for a lawsuit.
It says nothing about becoming a professional.
I’m skeptical, but you’re making assumptions. She didn’t say her kid was going to be the #1 pick in the NBA draft - she said he’s losing a shot at athletic scholarships. If he was a superstar player, this wouldn’t have happened. That doesn’t mean he had no shot at a smaller scholarship someplace.
I just remember that when I tried out, everyone tried out the same time. There were a few weeks of conditioning and the football players showed up later. Then tryouts began. I don’t remember if the FB team still had games left or not.
It sucks for the people being cut, and I think the coach is a jerk for doing so, but being a jerk isn’t unconstitutional. Take it up with the school board and try to get the coach replaced, don’t start a frivolous law suit.
Regarding the damages of due to losing college scholarships, I bet that if he were good enough to win a scholarship he would still be on the team.
This does make me wonder if the coach does this every year. If so, the family knew what it was getting into or should have known. And it’s hard not to laugh at the idea of an appeal process to a player who gets cut from a sport. Who exactly is supposed to make that decision if the coach can’t?
Is having the best team the coach’s absolute priority? I’m not familiar with the system in American schools. But if that’s the case, maybe that should be her complaint. In the end the coach should be a teacher and so the actual students should be high on their list of priorities. I’d expect those already on a team to have some advantage over those who, for whatever reason, didn’t show up to the original trials. I’d also expect some consideration to be given to those who especially want to be on the team even if they’re not necessarily the absolute best. It seems to me there should be a balance between the winning and the taking part. I know when I was at school if you wanted to be on the football (soccer) team it was mostly a case of showing an interest and not being awful, and the coach would fit you in as a sub or whatever. But sport (and in particular winning at it) really doesn’t get quite as obsessive as it seems to in American schools.
But the idea that anyone can be successfully sued over this is pretty ridiculous. Surely whoever loses their place to the student in question would have an even bigger case, since presumably they’re the better player.
No-when tryouts are over, they are supposed to be over. The other student/athletes knew when football tryouts were going to be at least a year ahead of time, and they choose to go for something else instead. Let them, and the coach, live with that choice.
On the playing field, of course. In the classroom, education is the first and only priority. It may (circumstances and context depending) be kinda jerkish for the coach to run multiple tryouts in an attempt to get the best players, but students aren’t and shouldn’t be guaranteed a spot on a team unless they make the cut by merit. If a coach thinks that his/her program will be augmented by having multiple tryouts and replacing original participants, then ah well.
I will concede there was a valid loss here. Colleges look at extracurricular activities when they decide on admissions. Other things being equal, a student who participated on a sports team is more likely to be accepted by a college than a student who didn’t.
So the issue, as I see it, is whether the student had a right to stay on the team once he had joined it. I can see the argument that places on the team should only go to the best athletes so if a better athlete becomes available, a lesser athlete should be cut to create an opening.
On the other hand, there’s opportunity costs. The student may have had an opportunity to join in several different extracurricular activities. He was offered a spot on the basketball team and committed to that activity and forewent his other options. If he had known that being cut from the basketball team was a possibility, maybe he would have joined the chess club instead.
I’d want to know if the policy on cutting players from the team was established and reasonably known at the time the student made the choice to join the team.