Parent Complains about Loaning Players to avoid Forfeit
Hey! Had a wild one tonight!
I manage a minors team that my son and nephew play on. I’m a board member and have been coaching little league for 7 years.
The last two games our team has had the other team has shown up with only 7 players to play. There has been some illness going around the schools in my area so that’s why these teams have been short.
Before each game both managers asked me if I could loan them two outfielders so that we could play and they wouldn’t have to forfeit. They also asked if they could bat 7 or if I wanted my kids to bat with them. I agreed to loan them the outfielders and told them they could bat 7. Ive always felt bad for the kids I send over to bat against their team. I rotated the kids I loaned them based on the last two kids in the order each inning. They then asked if I wanted them to take an out for the 8th spot in their lineup and I told them that wasn’t necessary (in retrospect I may agree to this if we are ever in this position again).
The last thing I would want is for my team to show up and not play…
Anyway, we lost both games by 1 run. We are a good team and both the teams we lost to were good teams. The kids were down on themselves a bit and me and my coaches took to encouraging them to lose gracefully just like we win. We emphasized the good plays and the ways we need to work to improve. The game tonight we lost on a legit inside-the-park homer and on that play we had a perfect relay from deep left that almost threw the kid out. I’m talking milliseconds away.
Anyway, got this text after the game… and a slew of other complaints from the same mom.
I called her immediately and she hung up. I told her I would prefer to talk in person or over the phone. She didn’t want to talk on the phone. I encouraged her to post her complaint to our parents chat and see if anyone else agreed (I knew everyone would think she was crazy).
TLDR: Parent complained that I loaned other team outfielders to avoid a forfeit.
CLARIFICATION: Wins and losses have no bearing whatsoever for end of season tournaments or all star selection processes. Otherwise I would have taken the forfeit and played anyway.
UPDATE:
She blew my phone up after the game and I kept telling her I would prefer to speak in person about it later. Just absolutely wild texts telling me I was an awful coach, she’s played softball all her life and never seen a coach like me… This should hang in my conscience, lol. I kept encouraging her to post to the parents chat but she didn’t.
So I called my board president and apprised her of the entire situation. I told her I would like to personally address the parents with the complaint and explain what’s been happening with having to loan our boys out. She told me she thought it was a good idea so I did it after consulting my two coaches as well.
The rest of the parents were 100% in agreement with the coaches and thanked us for playing the game.
We have another game tonight so we will see if she’s there with her player, lol.