You never know what's going on at home

A couple of games ago, I had a parent come over during a game and tap me on the shoulder to ask why her daughter wasn't playing. There was three minutes left in the game and her daughter (and about 3 other girls) had not gotten into the game even though we were down by 15-20 points. I must admit that I was a bit taken aback. I told her very quickly that we were not going to talk about that right now. A few minutes later, I cleared the bench and the player went into the game.

One of the interesting parts of this story is that the girl was horrified. She knows the rules and I had a parent meeting specifically to talk about things like playing time. Her mother didn't come to the meeting, but signed the contract stating that I will not talk about playing time on game days.

Well, I had an interesting talk with the player today when I asked her "Do you get along with your mom?"

She responded by saying "When she is drinking."

It was stunning. This is the sweetest, hardest working girl on our team. She is not very good, but she is a great teammate and person. Unfortunately, he mom has a drinking problem and she goes crazy sometimes.

My hope as a coach is that I can be one adult who these girls trust and respect. I want them to see my stable life and family and want to copy it. I want them to see that I deal with my mistakes and deal with my families issues and I still love them.