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Consequences - posted by kah at 04/21 09:38AM Last night I had to go to an Athletic Awards Banquet for my son's school. I watched this event turn into one of the more disturbing things I have witnessed in a long time. I sat and watched awards given out based purely on nepotism, awards given out to "who was my favorite", the baseball team publically humiliated and thrown under the bus for a losing season by the Coach (who I affectionately dubbed "Buttermaker" from the Bad News Bears last year). Then it just got worse. I watched coaches make negative and embarrassing comments about individual players. I watched as a lady who is a volunteer who devotes countless hours to all sports and kids at the school, go unnoticed or acknowledged for her work. 3 of the 4 "special" awards to baseball team players were given to kids who have a parent/family member working at the school. I was stunned. I can assure you I was not the only one. One glance around the room revealed a bunch of stunned looking people. It was just flat disturbing. One the way I home, I had to have a conversation with my son about how sometimes life is just not fair. That sometimes the world and its people are often quite wrong. I talked to him about forgiveness and allowing others to be wrong sometimes, just as we are wrong sometimes. I made sure to let him know that what he witnessed was wrong. I would never want him to think it is ok to treat people the way we saw people treated last night. Here is my question. I absolutely beleive the right thing to do is to take a stand on how bad last night was, send a letter/email to the principal and coach and express my thoughts on the public humiliation that took place. Yet, I am well aware that any fallout or consequences that could take place would not be on me, but rather on my son. These same coaches are also his teachers. I dont know if it is fair to "take a stand" and let my son deal with the fallout. The flip side is I would never want my son to think you should witness what we saw last night and do nothing. I would hope to raise my kids to stand up for what they beleive in and be willing to pay the consequences for it. I just dont know if that is my decision to make, when the consequences really could affect someone else. Any expereince, strength and hope out there would be much appreciated. I have been praying since last night about all of this and thought it might help to get some input from some of you.

re: Consequences - posted by Norma Desmond on 04/21 03:19PM Dear KAH, From what I recall of raising a son who played organized sports from the age of four years old through his senior year in high school, I know it can be grueling on everyone involved for all manner of reasons -- long hours, short attention spans, over-zealous parents, unruly crowds, irritable referees, drill sargeant coaches, misguided boosters, personality conflicts, wildly divergent abilities, favoritism, etc. Given all of the above, I wouldn't have had him miss all those years of learning how to work cooperatively and play well with others in a competitive team setting for anything --regardless of others' motives, actions and attitudes. Today, my son is an incredibly flexible, resiliant and resourceful man, and I directly credit his baseball, soccer and basketball years for instilling these attributes. He learned more on the playing field about how to demonstrate respect and tolerance for himself and others than he ever could learn in either an academic setting or in his homelife. If the offenses committed at last night's banquet still seem egregious after letting the dust settle for a while, certainly it would be appropriate to address them. However, my own experience shows that adopting an attitude of respect and tolerance is the best way to gain the support and cooperation of those with whom I wish to negotiate a solution. Honestly, it sounds like the adults in charge confused the banquet with a "roast." That is always a possibility in these types of situations...even in an AA meeting where someone picks up a birthday chip, the meeting usually turns into a roast. People can be incredibly dumb and insensitive, but rarely are deliberately malicious. It can happen, but I'm usually happier and get better results when I give people the benefit of the doubt. I understand that right now you probably feel like a tigress who must defend her cub. I hate it when that happens. And although my cubs are 40 years old and 32 years old respectively, I'm still ready to fight to the death for them. I believe the maternal instinct probably is the strongest instinct I have...it can even overpower my survival instinct. I try to remember that instincts on rampage balk at investigation. A cooling off period always helps me out, but I'll support you whatever you decide to do. Love, Norma

re: Consequences - posted by wade l on 04/21 10:55PM OK, so my daughter started swimming on the year round team, very competitive and a lot of work. She does great and has shown some great improvement. This year she was very close to making a time that would qualify her to be able to swim in the state championship meet, but she didn't make it. She was able to swim in the state meet on a relay team, which earned the team points. They gave meet T-shirts out to people who qualified for the state meet. My daughter didn't get one because she didn't have a qualifying time. We were livid. What the hell was this, she is good enough to swim on the relay and contribute to the point standing, we have to volunteer to help run the meet and they couldn't even give her a lousy t-shirt (which the parents end up getting charged for). We were going to raise all kinds of hell. I was to the point of pulling her out of the meet, just so the team wouldn't have enough members for the relay and take a point loss. We asked her how she felt and she said. "It's just a t-shirt, I just want to swim!" It kind of let the air out of my balloon when I realized that my daughter had more humility than me. I was the one with the hurt pride, she just took it in stride. Look, I'm a poet and I didn't know it. Peace and Grace Wade

re: Consequences - posted by privateparty on 04/21 11:23PM start a website and critisize em in a forum behind a screen name

re: Consequences - posted by privateparty on 04/21 11:48PM I was not being serious.on the last post.even chuckled.

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While we hope that all our guests share their experience as it relates to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, we remind everyone that the contents of these message strings are strictly personal opinions of the authors. When in doubt about the nature of statements made please consult the Big Book and other AA reference materials... our motto: "If its not in the book, it doesn't count." Thank you all for sharing.