"
Frank, I need to
cut someone from
the team. It won't necessarily
be you, but you're
one of the ones I'm considering."
It's been a
hell of a year.
At the
first team meeting of the year, we noticed the
conspicuous absence of our
throwing coach. Long story short,
he was fired in a long, drawn out
legal struggle that took 2.5
months to
resolve, for
reasons that were never explained. This didn't stop us. We
trained hard all through
the long, frustrating fall, and saw limited
improvements in our
technique. We got lucky, and
quickly were able to hire one of the most knowledgeable
coaches for
hammer,
shot, and
disc in the
United States, and possibly even
the world.
Step forward to
now. We've been training with
our new coach for
about a month. Unfortunately, he's decided that there are too many
throwers for him to be
able to do his job well.
Where do I fit into this? I am the
lowly freshman. In addition to being the
weakest guy on the team, I'm also the most
technically raw and
uncoached.
Two weeks into this, he told me that he might
cut me from the team, because I had a
lower chance to do well then some of my
teammates.
Luckily, the
cuts came and passed, and
I stayed on the team. However, what am I gaining right now?
Coach barely pays attention to me,
instead,
paying attention to some of my
more illustrious teammates. He knows more then I
can shake a stick at, but
that doesn't solve all of my problems all of the time.
Yesterday morning, I got a
surprise phone call from my coach. If I don't
improve drastically by
June,
I'm gone.
I know that I'll improve. I just wish for more
patience from my coach, some
more attention, and to not have this
dark cloud over my head. I'm
redshirting this entire year, so
how I perform is not an
issue. All I know is, I'm pulling 18
credits in
college,
practicing about 20 hours
per week, and I have to
worry each day about my
future status as a
track athlete.
I'm not paid enough to deal with this. Hopefully,
the black cloud will lift
soon.