Comments on: TEMPEST in a San Ramon Dugout

By: B Philip

B Philip — Sat, 15 May 2010 18:32:22 +0000

How do you all feel about a coach that has his own children playing on the team? Lets say the assistant coach also has a daughter playing on the team. And it clearely appers that the coaches kids and thier friends on the team, get preferetial playing time over others with comparible ability. Is this conflict of interest? But waht can be done about it? To complicat maters further, what if the coach was married to your wives sister and because of some untold sibling rivalry your average+ JR. kid sat the bench or was even kicked down to JV. and humiliated by this and other inappropriate actions. Is this on going issue(3rd year) grounds for a civil Suit?

By: coach

coach — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:17:38 +0000

I have coached baseball in San Ramon for 15 years and have coached many different levels. I have personally coached the boys that were cut many years ago, and have coached at Cal-high. One of which was hitting extremely fast live pitching at 5 years old, succeeded in Little league, won the Babe Ruth World series and was Home run champion at the Babe Ruth World series. This kid is an athlete as he is a varsity starter in two other sports. He is extremely fast, a hard worker, in shape and has athletic smarts. I have seen high school tryouts and personally I don’t know how they select anyone. From my tryouts 6 years ago, I don’t remember exact times, but I know who was faster than whom and by how much. For this coach not to know how fast this kid ran is ridiculous. I have also read his dialog with the parents, and he was extremely conceited and unprofessional. Perhaps this coach not only needs a lesson on how to run a team, he needs to know how to hold a conversation with adults. As far as the athletic director goes, I agree with several of the other bloggers, that the AD at Cal is a joke. Many problems start and continue with his incompetence. There are high school fall leagues, that are inexpensive and open to all high schools in the league. I know Angelo Scavone of Foothill used to have two teams in the league virtually trying out 30 kids for about 5 or 6 double headers. The kids pay a minimum amount to play and by 10 or 12 games you get some idea of who can play and who cant. There is no limit to the number of teams, so you could literally try out 75 kids against high school talent. Much better than giving a kid a pop up, grounder and 5 swings off a batting practice pitcher. This kid has hit well for 12 years and you can look up his stats on the JV team. He was one of the better hitters and played most of the time, yet this high school coach picked kids that were bench JV players. I just wish Cal could play the best kids. To say these parents are just upset because their kids were cut is unfair. They are upset because their kids were not given a fair tryout and evaluation. Cuts are tough, I have done many over the years. I also tried to make sure that the team I picked was the absolute best available. It is much easier to coach good athletes than poor ones. It is a truly remarkable coach that can take less talent and win. Obviously Cal didn’t have remarkable coaches as their record in league speaks for itself. For the record none of my kids were involved in this incident and I have no stake in this. I have known these kids and parents as well as several that made the team. I do not have any ill feelings towards people that made the team, other than Cal truly didn’t field its best team. Please do not crucify these parents as they are nice people with nice kids who truly got treated unfairly. No one knows everything about baseball, except this coach believes he does. As he gets older he will learn quite a bit about baseball and managing a team that he doesn’t yet know.

Coach
San Ramon

By: Carol

Carol — Sun, 18 May 2008 19:05:21 +0000

Amazing like to read prep blogs. if parents think paying makes the athlete this is the parent that thinks their kid will go pro save your cash and pay for college cuz you are paying a babysitter coach.

(Note: This comment has been edited to remove offensive language.)

By: Kimberly

Kimberly — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:35:05 +0000

Baseball player:

I realize that the news paper published names; however to pin point him out and make the article solely about him is unfair. I feel that his family is very brave in trying to make try outs fair for all, so that others do not have his same experience. Let’s keep in mind that he was not the only child cut from the team and not the only child whose parents think that try outs were unfair. This Childs name was an example, but not to be used as the headliner. It is not this one child that is being treated unfair it is many students who go to try outs and one day might be you.

Assuming you play the summer program because most of the teams does; how would you feel if you got cut from the team because you could no longer play during the summer? Wouldn’t you want a teammate to stand up for you!

I think that if you heard this child’s statement directly or indirectly you should have stood up for your old teammate knowing that this was out of character for him! Everyone handles disappointments in life differently. He is also in the spot light as you suggested. How would you yourself handle that kind of pressure from your peers?

Let me ask you this; Has this player ever let you down before? Do you think that he would have helped out your team this year? Do you think that the coach made a mistake? In your opinion did he deserve to be on the team?

By: Baseball Player

Baseball Player — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:11:30 +0000

Kimberly:

I apologize for singling out this child, you are absolutley right that this thread is about unfair tryouts for all, but i know the young man, and have played ball with him since I was 13, he is a very competitive person without a doubt which is why i found it so confusing when he told me that. I know what i heard and i know that it is unlike him, but it still raises question as to whether or not he would give it his all when his teammates needed him when he apparently didn’t give it his all at tryouts. Also his name was published in the Newspaper so if we are talking about singling him out, everyone knows his name now and it doesn’t make much of a difference

By: brandon

brandon — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:26:12 +0000

I know the kid who was ‘cut’ from the baseball team this season and I know a lot of kids including myself who have been cut from teams. The difference is that when me and some of my friends were cut from an rugby team in Berkely we had a chance to prove our abilities. There were objective tests that proved we weren’t good enough relative to other kids there. The kid that wanted to play at the Public High School known as California High was not given an equal opportunity to meet standards that would prove or disprove his talent relative to the other kids out there.
I’ve talked to kids on the team that know that he has game and even people who don’t know him can get an idea of the kind of athelete he is considering he has won 2 defensive player of the year awards on his basketball team. He was on the Varstiy football team as a sophmore and returned kicks for the team that same year. As a junior he was a starting wide reciever while part of the EBAL championship football team, whose recieving corps was arguably the best in the league. To this information some might say, well that doesn’t necessarily correlate to his abilities on the baseball field. While I disagree, because I think that some parts of athletics translate well from sport to sport, I suggest people still in question as to whether or not he is good at baseball read the post above this one that states his error percentage relative to others he played with last year and who got the opportunity to play this year.
These facts alone don’t prove that he is good nor should they have gauranteed him a spot, but wouldn’t an explanation as to why he didn’t make it be due considering how shocking and unexpected his release was? It’s not like he was on the border talent wise and a decision had to be made based on how many kids could fit on the roster. This kid could have helped the team so why wasn’t he given a chance? This is a sad story, but not for Baseball or Cal High. This is a sad story about individuals who behaved unethically and when given the chance to rescind their positions decided to push on despite obvious and unnecessary hurt to a kid who just wanted to play ball.
I know him to a certain degree and despite misleading attempts to make this player seem like there was a just reason to not give him an honest shot at making the team, we who are concerned are left with another story with the reoccuring theme of: the abuse of power when there is no incentive to honor fundamental codes of conduct. Some can brush things off despite the impact that their decisions have on kids just trying to play ball, I hope that in time these people involve themselves in acivities that they can handle.

By: Kimberly

Kimberly — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:44:11 +0000

To baseball player:

I am not comfortable with your approach to singling out one child and make this blog about them. This has nothing to do with any one particular child. The subject is “Was this a case of unfair try outs for ALL”
“And for the record” I’m pretty sure that anyone that received the alleged response you received didn’t know this child very well. Your statement is off base and not inline with people that know him well.

It is clear to me that “WOW” must have been a child themselves. I don’t believe any parent with commonsense would post a statement like that.

Which brings me back to my first point; we need to be aware that everyone has access to this blog and it should not become a bashing ground for any child let alone one.

By: If you really knew the young man

If you really knew the young man — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:36:58 +0000

If you knew this young man, you would know his comments were a coping/ defense mechanism.
If you really knew this young man you would know he is a fierce competitor and isn’t lax on the field. He had the best batting average and one of the lowest fielding error %s last year which proves he is very skilled. He started every game and never missed an inning of play. In basketball he was awarded the Best Defensive Player Award both his Freshman and Sophomore year. He earned these awards because of his competive spirit.

That is the kind of young man any one would want on his team.

By: Concerned Parent

Concerned Parent — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:21:09 +0000

As a parent whose child goes to school in the San Ramon Unified School District, I am outraged to read about unethical behavior by athletic directors and coaches. Any hint of impropriety or unethical behavior is unconscionable. There should be a “zero tolerance” policy. The administration has a fiduciary duty to provide the best education to our children, not to act in their own self interest. All school districts are facing the biggest budget cuts we have seen in decades. To know that we will be losing some of the best teachers, but retaining coaches whose behaviour is in dispute is irresponsible. Our job as teachers, parents, coaches, etc, are to teach our children to have ethical behavior, to act responsibly and to have integrity beyond reproach.

By: WOW

WOW — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:19:11 +0000

The family and the kids should stop crying and move on. I wonder how these kids are taking it at school. I could just imaigne what the ball players are saying about there little Mom.