Bad luck

  I played football for four years. From the ages of six to ten. I was the running back of my team and I would say I was pretty good. I did enjoy it for a while until my last year. I had a sexist coach who didn't like the idea of me playing football. He would discriminate against me and would always give me a hard time. Whenever I did something good he would never acknowledge it but as soon as someone else did the exact same thing that I did, he would praise them. It got to the point where my mother got involved and he ended up screaming in her face. The next week I was on a different team. I was also on an AAU team for four years from eleven to fourteen. I was the point guard and I was a damn good one. I was verbally abused by my coach for a long time. She would call me weak, pathetic, and garbage. She would also say things like: “I hope you're good at school cause this will get you nowhere, you’re nothing but a pretty face, you should just give up now.” I can handle a lot of trash talk. I believe I have tough skin. She ended up seeing that what she was saying wasn’t enough to break me, so she ended up benching me. It messed my head up so much that when I did get in the game I started making silly mistakes due to fear of being pulled out. That on top of the trash talk was too much for me. I started doubting if I really wanted to play basketball. Finally, I was in highschool and it was my senior year. I barely played for the previous years because I tore my ACLs. So this really was my last chance. I had a coach who was all about himself and his image. He never listened to his players and always thought he knew best. We had a fantastic team with a whole bunch of talent, but he wasted it all. We even had a senior quit. We had a horrible record and everyone on the team got to the point where they didn’t care and just wanted the season to be over. I lost all respect for that coach because he ruined our senior year. That was our last time playing together and our last chance to be state champs. But guess who still has years left and gets to coach the next group of seniors. He does. After going through all of this experience with all different coaches for different reasons, it made me wonder. What should a coach- athlete relationship be like?