DD had me furious

[coach james]

DD was invited to play with an all area team. Its basically a hand picked team of travel team stand outs. They were only looking at playing two or three tourneys but they were all very large showcases. I paid for a couple uniforms, contributed tourney dues, and spent a ridiculous amount of time scheduling my travel team around these showcases. Not to mention all the time emailing her top schools with her that were to be in attendance and setting up bio and profile pages and skills videos.
Last night at 8pm she decides to inform me that her knee hurts and won't be playing in this weekends showcase!
On one hand I don't want her half assing at a showcase, but I also think its extremely irresponsible to wait so long to make that decision. I was then given the task of calling the HC of this team and inform him that we weren't coming today. (Which put him at 8 BTW)
He made some calls and did find a last second player thank God.
DD has avoided me all day, but we need to discuss this. I'm wondering if this softball ride is running out of gas, and the knee injury is just an excuse to not play with a team that she feels inferior to... Any advise is appreciated.

 

[SCDad]

There are a couple of things going on here, in my opinion.

DD likes being coached by her Dad. She is afraid she may not perform, or be stuck with the short stick on a team, without her Dad backing her up.

I applaud coaching dad for setting up and encouraging her to play for a top notch team, "on her own".

It will pass. Understand she is probably afraid of failure, right now. She probably knows the talent and concerned she will be put in RF maybe. She may be concerned with the pressure dad may put on her. She loves playing for Dad it sounds. She now has to decide if she loves the game of softball. Is she playing for herself. Or playing for dad.

Give her time and space to figure this out. At one point in about every softball career, the player has to eventually be playing for herself. Even parents go through this without being a coach.

Just from my experience only. Eventually my DD chose strictly HS softball, though she has enough talent, and has been offered. As a parent I had to adjust to loving my DD without softball being the driving force. As a dad, i accomplished my goal of working hard with her so she got good enough to have choices that softball could bring. She earned the choices, but chose to not aggressively pursue.

 

[CoogansBluff]

... but I also think its extremely irresponsible to wait so long to make that decision.

Is she injured, or not? Hard to comment without knowing that.

Also, I wonder if the fact you're furious and the fact that she waited so long to make that decision (or announcement) are related. Is she afraid of your reaction?

And are you furious because she waited so long? Or furious that she's not playing? What specifically are you furious about?

 

[coach james]

... but I also think its extremely irresponsible to wait so long to make that decision.

Is she injured, or not? Hard to comment without knowing that.

Also, I wonder if the fact you're furious and the fact that she waited so long to make that decision (or announcement) are related. Is she afraid of your reaction?

And are you furious because she waited so long? Or furious that she's not playing? What specifically are you furious about?

I think its some of both. I'm disappointed because I know she's got the talent to really shine, but fails to realize it. Her knee was hit with a rocket come backer while pitching last year, and it has never fully recovered. She still babys it a bit. Last weekend she and my catcher both went for a shallow dinker... no one called it. And boom! Catcher dove head first to make the catch and inadvertently smashed her face right into dds bad knee and hyper extended it. She has said all week that she was good and her knee was fine, and she was looking forward to playing. It was after I got home from the grocery with tourney supplies (gatoraid, fruit, and snacks) that she told me.... the last min. surprise and embarrassment of calling the HC at 9pm is what got me fired up.

 

[CoogansBluff]

Main reason that kids don't tell us more stuff is fear of parental reaction, whether it's anger, disappointment, etc. That's why we have to use poker face more often and fake the fact that we want to strangle them.

Sounds like you might need to have a chat about what she wants from softball, but you might need to wait until this particular situation has passed and you are less annoyed and she is less defensive. Harder for her to be candid when she knows you're pissed (and you are justified to feel that way, btw). Somewhere in this future conversation might be a line that goes something like ''are you afraid that I'll be upset if you ... ''

 

[Amy in AZ.]

She is old enough, to have called the coach herself.

I don't know about the rest of it. Is there boyfriend trouble?

 

[Doug Romrell]

Well, I'll tell you this...... Having a "boyfriend" certainly does cause the player's brain disappear.

 

[riseball]

Shoot the first one and word will spread.

 

[Ken Krause]

She may have waited until the last minute because she was trying to see if it would feel better.

 

[riseball]

If it was one of my DD's I would definitely be throwing the BS flag on this one. You don't go from "...all week that she was good and her knee was fine, and she was looking forward to playing." to deciding the night before a contest that you cannot play. The night before is when you decide you do not want to play. If it is truly important you go out the next day, suck it up, and give it your best effort. If at that point you can't perform you have at least tried.

Something else, be it confidence, boyfriend, or whatever is going on. Best to find out now or there will be issues with that knee in the future. Maybe tell her "fine I understand you can't play but you will dress out and support your team". If she protests, you know there is more to the story.