AMERICA'S YOUTH COACHES ARE HOUNDED BY PARENTAL PRESSURE

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

 

A Texas high school coach was removed from her 1st place team. It’s a ‘language’ issue

BY MAC ENGEL

UPDATED MARCH 08, 2024 9:03 AM

 

Rennie Rebe is “seeking legal council,” so she is measured about why she was removed from coaching the Katy Jordan High School girls’ soccer team but is still allowed to teach her senior government class at the same school.

 

A few of the specifics about this situation are unique, but the general concept is so common that most youth sports coaches in America can relate to her problem. America’s youth sports has a language barrier, and it’s not NIL or transfer portal. It is what language and behavior now qualifies as verbal abuse. As bullying. As intimidation. Or, what was previously housed under the umbrella of “coaching.”

 

Of the many concerns in education is somewhere in the last however many years parents stopped believing the coach, or teacher, and the relationship too often is adversarial.

 

Before I served as an adjunct professor both at TCU and SMU, the best advice I received came from an associate dean who warned me: “All they care about is the grade, and they will lie about anything.”

 

Of course they will. They’re kids.

 

Somewhere in here we collectively believe the kid who says, “My teacher is mean to me.” Or, “The coach doesn’t like me.” Suuuuure, that’s it; here’s an idea, put down your phone, try harder and figure it out.

 

I proudly tell my teenage daughter, “You will always be my favorite player, but that does not mean you are the best player. The game will tell you that.”

 

(Here concludes my Parent of The Year award acceptance speech).

 

“With the kid, you are getting (from the parents), ‘My kid is a senior so they should play.’ There is no perception of earning it, so the coach becomes the bad guy,” Rebe said in a phone interview this week. “Districts are not going to argue about playing time, so the (parent or the student) says, ‘The coach is affecting my mental health.”

 

“Mental health” has become an over-used term as broad as the Atlantic Ocean, and covers everything up to and including why a kid won’t clean their room.

 

No one should espouse some Bob Knight methodology of “teaching.” A teacher or coach must have room to teach. To coach. To tell a young person without fear, “This isn’t good enough.”

 

The easier move is to placate the pouty parents, and dump the coach.

 

Katy ISD provided no reason as to Rebe being removed as the soccer coach; she said that she has filed an open records request for the specifics.

 

Rebe had been the head coach of a program since the school opened in August of 2020. The team was 39-17-7 in her tenure, with a playoff win. Before she was “transitioned,” the team was 12-2-3 and in first place in District 19-6A. The team was 9-0-2 in district play.

 

It bears repeating she still teaches her class at the same school.

 

She said in a statement to the Houston Chronicle, “A lack of backbone, entitled parents and entitled players has affected the decision to allow me to continue to help lead my team to their first ever district title and beyond.”

 

Katy ISD officials did not return a call to the Star-Telegram for comment.

 

Something about this makes zero sense, but in youth sports it makes perfect sense. “All it takes is one person with a vendetta and the (teacher/coach) has no recourse,” said Rebe, who has been in the game since she was a kid, and was a varsity player at Texas A&M.

 

She added that she believes multiple parents were involved in helping influence her removal from this team.

 

She has coached at Franklin, Round Rock Stony Point, Kingwood, Austin Westlake and Pflugerville Hendrickson. She has won more than 400 games in high school as the head coach, and a state title with Hendrickson in 2017.

 

“Districts are ‘investigating,’ but they don’t want the hassle. I have done this for 25 years very pridefully,” she said. “I have worked hard at this, and that is the part that is so frustrating. You need an advocate because you work for a school district that has its own interests.”

 

Typically, when it comes to every sport but football, the primary interest on the part of 109.99 percent of the school districts is finding the path that is a pebble-less, sandy beach.

 

According to Rebe’s version of events, it sounds like one parent was upset. This is typical. Neither is the next part.

 

“In a community (like Katy) the unhappy parents find each other; the parents of the kids who don’t play enough,” Rebe said. “This is not unique to soccer.” Nope.

 

“This is part of the reason why so many teachers and coaches are leaving the profession,” she said. “The burden of, ‘Why isn’t my kid passing; why isn’t my kid playing?’ It’s a real problem, and it falls to the educator, or the coach.’ It’s how the term “grade inflation” became common term in high schools, and college. What was once a “C” on a report card is now a “B.”

 

The pressure to pass. The pressure to play. The pressure to enhance reports card so the student can get into the “name” college. It’s all passed on to the teacher and coach.

 

“I have so many friends who left doing this because they felt like they can never win. I have stayed in it because I want to keep coaching, but (parents) make it hard,” Rebe said. “Nobody wants a squeaky wheel. Educators are about the kids; we want them to succeed.”

 

She would like to coach, whether it’s in Katy or another district.

 

Before that, she waits to see why she was removed from coaching a first place team but allowed to teach at the same school.