kids not attending awards nights

We always encourage all the players to attend the awards night and tell them it's going to be a great night whether they were a star or a scout player.  At the programs I've been in we always talk about every single kid, JV and varsity.  Somebody puts a video together and every kid is included in it, whether they play a lot or a little.  Every kid is acknowledged in some way.  Still, there are always some kids that don't show up.  In my experience, those kids are the turds that weren't really dedicated during the season so it's not surprising that they don't show up after the season.  There's really not much you can do about it other than encourage them to be there. 

But dude, if you care about something, you might fail, and if you fail, that makes you vulnerable...So instead, we all pretend like we don't care about anything!

The ONLY other thing we have done is:  After they are awarded their FIRST monogram (in any sport), they do not get another.  IF they win another, they get a small pin (football, baseball, etc.) that they can attach to the original letter.

NO TROPHIES, etc.!

NOTE:  Cannot remember a player NOT attending a banquet!

Free food and T shirt.

Look on the bright side...goes a lot quicker!

We had our banquet the other night. We had a few not attend for whatever reasons. Head coach just skips over them.

Ones that assumed they weren't getting anything. selfish guys. maybe we need a cage of culture

We haven't given MVP's or MIP's for years. Takes the parents out of it. Like Ace, just letters and pins if they already had gotten a letter. I talk about each kid, though, and skip ones not there. There usually aren't many and if they just didn't come, I mentally catalog that for the future. We used to have a big deal meal at my previous school. This first year at this school was Pizza. They loved it. Every family brought a pizza or drinks or a dessert. Simple and quicker. Yea !!!!!!!!! (I hate banquets)

One year as a head coach I canceled the banquet after a gang of parents made things toxic during the season. I refused to do anything that brought them into the same room as my coaches. I had a pizza party after school for the team and coaches and handed out the awards. When a grandparent asked me why I didn't have a banquet I told her it was because of people like her son treating the coaches, like trash. She said that was a real slap in the face to parents, and I said exactly. Now next time don't treat my coaching staff like the dirt your animals piss on.

As for the kids who skipped our banquet the other night. One was a starter but he had a hockey tournament far away. Another one skipped so much practice it was just par for the course he missed the banquet too. Why a kid would want to skip the banquet I don't know. It's catered. It's at the country club, and it's free food for them.

I had a dad refer to his son's skills as "similar to Denard Robinson" at a banquet once.

A mom once told me if I really loved her son he would have been first team all conference.

The final award of the evening was voted on by the coaches and their wives and goes to the most bat {censored} crazy parent of the year.  The winner (again) is _______________.

alright....trying not to get too specific to stay anonymous...I know a lot of guys in my area read this board, and I've probably said some off the wall chit on here from time to time...but I'll do my best with the short version

we won a lot, but there were some parents with an axe to grind about the typical BS and the HC didn't play politics all that well figuring that he was winning enough to not have to kiss much a$$

another coach in the area has won some titles at a smaller school nearby (they are a small school with several D1 athletes) but because he's got the rings he is seen as a bit of a local legend, this dude (we will refer to him as "the legend") leaves the local school under weird circumstances...he then proceeds to take that season off from coaching, he spends that season hanging out and watching practice and ours and few other schools. Floating it out to people in those communities that he would be interested in those jobs if they were to magically come open.

when "the legend" was around, we joked constantly about how he was our next boss, we only thought we were joking

long story short...HC gets pushed out.......job is open but it's time for the banquet
the parents treat us as if we have been beating these children and shouldn't be around them under any circumstances while the search for the new Head Coach is happening, but we all know it's going to be "the legend"....there isn't any doubt

so then some parents come up the grand Idea of turning the banquet into an opportunity to introduce the newly hired HC to the world...obviously we feel like this is bullcrap because it's supposed to be about the team we just had, not the new HC, so we complain to the superintendent, he's agrees but is spineless, so his solution is the tell the parents that the new HC won't be official in time for the banquet so just have a regular banquet...the parents decide to push the banquet back a full month so they can have their big reveal party as part of it...it was amazing

anyway..banquet night comes, normal years we did it in the cafeteria, no big deal....parents decide this one is special so they organize a black tie affair at a nice hotel in town...ugh...it's pretty emotional for a lot of the coaches who had been there a long time and all knew that we were getting replaced. A good percentage of the parents won't talk to us or even look at us. They put us all at table far away from everybody like we were lepers....I mean it was crazy

so they do all the awards and introductions and blah blah blah...then instead of a highlight video the moms do a "mom's" video of them asking questions of their players..and also the moms doing a choreographed hip hop dance..it contained more cringe than anybody had ever experienced in their lifetimes..I mean just bad..wish I had a copy...anyways...banquet part ends, and now comes the big introduction of "the legend"

only what people haven't realized yet..is that "the legend"...who they organized this entire shabang for...is a really really crappy public speaker. So he comes up and gives a talk....I've tried to remember it verbatim, but I'll hit the highlights here just so you get the gist

things that he said:
he can bench press 300lbs
he once played a baseball game with a broken jaw
when they were in high school they ran 24 110's the day before a game
we are no longer going to settle for just making the playoffs (we had been to the 3rd round or better the past 4 years)
we are no longer going to play a soft non district schedule (that season we played two teams in non district that went to the state semi-finals)

...it was just unbelievable..one of nights where you think at any moment somebody is going to jump out with a camera and you find out it was all just a big practical joke

good news about the whole thing...we all moved on and got really good jobs at different places, and the team under him has yet to come close the success we had while we were there.....good freaking times

been there done that, I hate banquets, they should be outlawed,

I've never been a part of a program where the parents organized the banquet, even the boosters had to answer to run it through the coaching staff.

If the coaches organized it then they could've just said, "No" to all the shenanigans and did it right initially. You may have had low numbers, but you were out the door anyways and wouldn't have had to sit through the 'reveal party'.

True, but what a great story!

Sometimes it's fun to just sit back and watch a sh1tshow, especially when you know you aren't going to be a part of it!