We got our first phone call on last week’s Buzz item regarding the GBHS varisty girls soccer program. Two seniors were cut from the team – one who has a major college scholarship offer. When the two-year team captain tried to discuss the dismissal with the coach, she too was cut and her father was asked to resign from the team’s booster club.
Apparently the coaches didn’t read the article – it was the students who found it and were circulating it around the school.
The caller said the Buzz item was filled with errors and demanded an apology. The two misstatements in the item were one of the girls hadn’t played every game all four seasons and the Pensacola Futboll club has more than one player left on the squad. Both are immaterial to story.
What we’ve learned since we published the item is that one of parents of the cut players had complained last year about the coach’s use of profanity and overall demanding treatment of the players. The Head Coach had also tried to get the parents of the college-caliber player (who was cut) to let him be the sole spokesman for the girl with the college recruiters. The parents turned him down.
Another interesting turn happened yesterday
Atty Terry Gross on his weekly radio show on WEBY blasted the paper for the article. Saying it was a coach’s decision, the seniors were lolly-gagging, the freshmen were better and went on to praise the head coach. What Gross didn’t say – at least in the segment we heard – was that his daughter is one of the freshmen players that made the varsity. And that he has been playing to the head coach to coach his daugher on the Bayside Soccer team….Not quite an independent source.
Sort of reminds me of Luke McCoy & Marty Donovan dominating the WCOA airwaves.
My belief is that seniors who have been on the team for years shouldn’t be cut. Select team coaches – that are paid by parents to coach – shouldn’t also be high school coaches – there are too many conflicts.
