How common is it for upperclassmen to bully the underclassmen on a high school team? On my daughters team several of the seniors constantly yell at the younger players. ONe in particular cusses at them and yells at them. Tells them they suck and need to go back to JV etc. It apparently happens throughout games and during practice. The coach made this person a captain, so the coach obviously is ok with the behaviour. Is this unusual or just another example of girls being mean to each other? Anybody else have a kid go through this kind of stuff?
So the coach thinks that is going to motivate your daughter by doing that? He is an idiot. Ok, then let it motivate your daughter to work so hard in games and in practices that the coach feels he has to start her. So he will have to take one of those bullies from the starting team and put her on the bench. Let that be your daughter motivate when things get rough. I don't have a clue exactly what kind of personality your daughter has or how her game is in general. If she doesn't cry, but get's mad. That is the perfect personailty for her to have concerning this. I would normally tell her to work on her ball skills and she should do that, but this coach probably would not know good soccer if he saw it. So also work on her tackling. So she can get a little satisfaction by tacking her so called bully team mates extra hard in practice. It is a bad situation for your daughter, but if she can over come it. She will probably be able to over come most anything she will face in the future.
Make sure you know all sides to this story. Girls, in general, do not handle or accept or process as well as boys on-field criticism or yelling by teammates. What you describe, if 100% accurate and not slanted by the recipient of the criticism, is not helpful for team dynamics and coach should know that. If the older girls, who actually contribute to the team, are harsh but fair, I got no problem with that.
Thats an interesting point. Some girls do take everything as criticism, wether or not it was intended as such. Maybe this group of younger girls is like that. I am not at practice so I don't know. One difference between club and high school is that in High School you have a wide range of ages playing on the same team. A Freshman girl at 14/15 is alot different than a senior at 18/19. I think it definitly makes it harder for the players to get along.