SCN 'acquiesced'

From Renee Miller, Walled Lake Northern High School Head Volleyball Coach:

I am writing in response to the article in last week’s (Jan. 11, 2012) sports section adding a player to the All-Area Volleyball team (“Mutrynowski added to All-Area Volleyball team”). The article was brought to my attention by another coach who questioned me about how this occurred. The athlete added is a quality player and was an important part of our team’s success last season. There are other quality, talented volleyball athletes on teams in the area who also were not selected to the newspaper’s All-Area team. It is impossible to select such teams with unanimous agreement; players, coaches, parents will always be unhappy with the results.

By acquiescing to an upset/angry parent, this paper has set a precedent in that every parent of a student-athlete should feel entitled to contact the paper when they feel their son or daughter did not receive the recognition the parent feels they should and have their son/daughter added to All-Area teams in the future. Coaching high school athletes is such a rewarding experience and yet many quality coaches are stepping away from the sports they love to teach due to overbearing parental interference.