Dear Editor,

I am writing this as a concern for the problem at Wawasee High School with the softball program.

I had the opportunity to go watch some friends’ daughters play in some summer league games. I noticed there was a minor league and major league for the softball divisions and thought that there are a lot of girls playing softball in just summer ball. So I asked questions and found out this is the third year they have had two divisions of softball with over 100 girls playing each year.

Now comes the question of why if there is this much interest we are not seeing that translate to the high school where they can barely field a varsity team each year? Again, I asked questions and did some novice detective work and found out the current softball coaching staff at Wawasee High School as a whole have been having a problem with how they coach the team as well as how they treat high school players.

I asked more questions to dig a little deeper. There is a situation that the athletic department and more specifically the athletic director have had numerous complaints from parents, and it seems that they do not care how the program is being run or that there are families looking for other high schools to transfer their players to due to the current coaching staff. I did some more digging and found out the current coaching staff tried to start a travel program with 10U, 12U and 14U teams with the head coach and her family being coaches of these teams. There were so many complaints from parents of how their 10- to 15-year-olds were treated that the program had to fold. Upon again asking around, I heard there were emails sent to the athletic department and the athletic director and again nothing was done.

As a member of this community, I guess the only call of action is now to the school board as to why is this coaching staff is still in place. I did look at the record of this coaching staff, which has been employed by the school for six years now; combined, they have one sectional title and that was two years after there was a semi-state run that was coached by a different coaching staff. This coaching staff is not from this area nor has any vested interest in our players. If they were invested, they would be checking out the possible girls at these games.

How many more years do families have to suffer or how many families have to leave a corporation before these coaches are gone and a fresh start takes place? I challenge any parent who has had a child who was mistreated by this coaching staff to go to the next school board meeting or flood the inboxes of school board members, because nothing is being done from the athletic department about this horrible situation.

Darren Miller