Friday, January 4, 2008

Life as a Royal

Happy New Year! As part of my new years resolution I want to share experiences, and maybe even educate new travel baseball parents, about what lurks in the waters around Long Island...

Try-Outs: You inquire about the team, perhaps because of a recent newspaper ad, you will go thru the telephone interview, you will be checked out thru the baseball grapevine, and then you will be privately invited to work out with the team. Your tryout is their mandatory practice. What you don't know is that players are required to pre-pay the upcoming season or year deposit. Deposits will be cashed promptly, plans for the upcoming year will be forecasted and existing players believe they are actually going to be on the team in upcoming season or year. NOT!

Attitudes: After a player has begun playing with the team in the new season, the coach’s positive attitude toward growth and increasing athletic ability turns into brute humiliation and placing fear in players. Condescending comments and benching players if their parents don’t act accordingly. That's right parents don't get too close to the dugout, don't try to talk to players during any playtime, don't listen to what's being said on the field, because if you don't shut up and eat crow like you are told to then your child will be targeted.

Fundraisers: what a great way to collect cash with NO paper trail. Work your hardest because the 1/2 of the kids will soon be gone.

Team Rules: required to be read by all players and parents. Study them closely because some will have to obey them while others will just look the other way. And be very careful when making your deposits because you won't be getting a refund if they make you quit. You will want to quit after your child has been sitting on a bench all season and worse all year. Which is nothing to the brute intimidation techniques used almost like a Bill Parcells syndrome.

Website Access: website is only administered by one person. That one person personally makes all updates, revisions and changes to the North Shore Royals website. To access the website both parents and players are issued passwords. Certain areas of the site will be restricted randomly claiming it is a need to know basis only. That means today you can view all of the players stats and tomorrow you can't. Here are some of the previouly used website passwords: "homo" "fatboy" Is that appropriate for children?

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