Help/HSBB Advice *Very Long Read*

 Note: I Created a brand new account just for the purposes of this thread alone, so in case anyone who may know my situation or issue would not be able to identify who I am.

I’m posting the long version, and a just summarized version. I completely understand if this is too much for anyone to read but in order to help with my problem I feel as if the reader needs to know every major detail. All types of comments, questions and suggestions are welcome. I want the 100% truth when it comes to the responses to this. And I appreciate anyone taking their time to actually read this and assist, Much Love.

This is my senior year of high school and my coach is refusing to give me an oppurtunity to play and I really need help trying to find a solution to this problem.

The Background: The school I am currently attending I’ve been attending all four years of high school, I played on the freshman level as a freshman, JV level as a sophomore, and then was placed back on JV as a Junior along with 12 other juniors who I had also played JV with in the season before, due to an overwhelming number of Seniors returning from the previous season’s varsity team.  

  Following my junior year at the school,a number of numerous gang related situations involving the basketball team prompted my mom to make an attempt to pull me out of the school to my dismay. Noting that I had never played a varsity sport officially and knew I’d be at a even bigger disadvantage at a new school, during the summer I worked out with the school I was set to attend during their series of summer basketball workouts. (Transfer had not been official yet, but I had not been enrolled at my previous school) Towards the end of the summer, I had been told that there was a possibility that my school division may deny my transfer as it is my senior year and the gang violence had been there for all four years, they pretty much said I knew what I was getting into by attending that school for so long. I had missed 3 weeks of my Senior year waiting for the county to make a decision and immediately after the county said no, I was back in my old school with no hesitation.

        Before I had returned to the school I had notified a few of my former teammates that I was returning, where they had told me that no one has really earned any spots on the team and I hadn’t missed much, but I never let that get into the way, I came to every workout, every open gym and eventually made my way onto the fall league team. (Getting fired from my job in the process, but it was a sacrefice I was willing to make if it meant getting the oppurtunity to show out in my last year of high school basketball) During the fall league season, I had noticed that I was getting not one minute of playing time though. The sophomores and freshman on those teams who were clearly way less skilled than me and even provided a headcase to the coach were still playing more than me. But I never complained, I continued to miss work to attend the games and still showed up to every practice, workout, and open gym.

     Tryout time comes, and all of the sophomores and freshman who had been on the fall league team had moved to try out for JV. The tryout was virtually empty, it had been roughly 17 kids; with two kids clearly lacking the ability to compete with the rest of us who had been there. Only 9 of us had been on the fall league team while the rest had been football players, 3 of which played JV with me the previous year. Tryouts came and I had done horrible the first day, but did fantastic in the final three days.( Although tryouts wasn’t really tryouts it had been de facto practice for the players he had obviously put on the team) The friday of that week, the list of the team had been put up, and my name had been excluded from the list. Following this, everyone had asked me questions as to why I hadn’t made the team, my teammates came to me apologizing telling me to go speak to the coach and demand and answers. Although, I thought it was a pretty bad idea I went ahead and waited a weekend out, then proceeded to speak to him that monday.

The Coach: My coach is a pretty good man in my eyes, he understands what occurs at my school and the situations fincancially and emotionally that we go through. He has sent numerous kids to play basketball in college regardless of their skill level, he finds a way to put them in a college and do something their parents were not able to do. Go to college and play the game they love dearly while having their college paid for. The man has a fantastic heart and really does the greatest things for these kids who are struggling in the environment we are in. Although, I believe at times he gets blinded by the many pressures he faces at once, and doesen’t realize many are by his side. He honestly reminds me of myself in many ways, two people from rough backgrounds wanting to make things better for people but not finding many people trustworthy in the process. With this being said, It’s quite clear the man isn’t too fond of me. It has never been said, been it is very palpable anytime I am around him.

From the time I’ve been at my school I been pretty much trying to find myself as a person. As a kid who was horrible in middle school, coming from not the best family background where I’ve seen family members hurt and arrested. I tried to stray myself away from that in high school and kind of put a funny identity to myself. Where I was goofy and a very joking kid, I even went as far as getting into a friendly insult match with a local hoops star turned NBA Pro. I was aware that all this annoyed my coach as he already felt like I was acting like I was something I was not, (he was my brother’s gym teacher for 2 years so he kind of felt as if he knew what to expect out of me already) But to make matters even worse, rumor had it he had been furious not even at the fact that I transferred, but at the fact that I had transferred and returned.

That Monday following tryouts, I had went to his office at the end of the day asking if he had a moment and he seemed very open to discussing me getting cut from the team. He had asked me how I was feeling and I used that as a platform to discuss the whole backstory behind how I felt about what was going on and my cutting from the team. Esentially I said retold my whole story and said everything that I had written above. In all my four years of high school, I had honestly never had this type of personal talk with him. In this talk he announced the the already obvious idea that he thought I was annoying. He also went on to say that in fall league I didn’t play because I left the school for a better basketball oppurtunity and just returned thinking I wasn’t going to work for anything. Which I had found very confusing as my reason for leaving the school was not basketball related and I never ever spoke about not playing while maintaing to attend every workout, practice and open gym. He also spoke to me about my trash talking on the court, how he thinks I’m below the other guards on the team skill wise and such. Which was also really confusing to me as that was just who I was as a player and it had been proving that I was at the top of the pack on the basketball team from the series of 1 on 1 drills we had done during tryouts and workouts. In the end, he told me I was never cut from the team, he wanted to see my reaction to getting cut from the team, because him and the coaching staff feel as if my personality was fake and I was a "kiss ass" but he told me I handled it well and invited me to the practice later that night.

He also told me nothing is going to come easy, and anything I get I’m going to have to earn it.

The Issue: I was quite aware that I was going to get a pretty rough treatment from everyone, players and coaches alike because it looked like I was a practice squad player. But I didn’t really care about all that, I was just glad to be back doing something I loved, because those three days I wasn’t on the team really put things into perspective for me. I was somewhat taking the privledge of playing high school basketball for granted. My mentor who was a former State player of the year back in the 1980’s continued to tell me over and over again that basketball is temporary and no oppurtunity is essentially the same as some oppurtunity because some oppurtunity is little oppurtunity and little oppurtunity is no oppurtunity in the terms of basketball. He was basically saying the chance of playing big is so little there is no point of stressing over it. But I don’t want to hear it. I just want the chance so I couldn’t second guess what I could’ve done with basketball for the rest of my life.

I don’t know if maybe I’m overthinking, but I think its still clear my coach isn’t a big fan of me. I am constantly told that if I want to play I need to prove it in pratice. But no matter what I do, I’m still playing about 30 seconds per game. I’ve done things such as, scoring 4 3’s consecutively in an intra-squad scrimmage along with the game sealing 3 pointer. Force numerous turnovers on the preseason All-Region selection on my team during practice and heroic defensive efforts on a rivals all-time leading scorer albeit in garbage time. But I just do not get any play time. And my coach does not really get upset at people asking for playtime, he just always tells them to prove it, but I am proving it and still not playing. I’d be very unconcerned about this if we were winning games. But the sad reality is we keep on losing. In order to remain anonymous I won’t say our record but we are currently posting a 40% win percentage and have lost all of our games by an average margin of 33 points. I have done self reflections as to what I can do to play but there is really nothing I can diagnose. My grades are great, I don’t fued with teammates, and I’m not a headcase. Players who have payed JV have moved up and played more than I have. Players who fued and argue with him play more than I do. I have talked to my teammates and asked them why I do not play and they are honestly as confused as I am. I’ve felt like I’ve beeen bothering them with too many questions so it prompted me to come and write this. My lasting question is, what do you guys think I should do? I know I can make a great impact on my team but I am not getting an oppurtunity, how can I get that oppurtunity with all factors considered?

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TL;DR: I am doing everything I am being told in order to get an oppurtunity from a coach who clearly doesn’t really like me. We are not winning and I feel like I can be a big help if I am given playtime but it’s almost as if he is refusing to play me, is there anything anyone thinks I can do to force him to play me? I’ve done extensive damage against other players in practice but come actual gametime he just refuses to play me, any ideas?

Since I never described how I am play style wise, I’m a 6’1 wing with decent athletcisim, decent ball handling but a very high basketball IQ, My shooting ability is very streaky. I have great vision and passing skills and am a very elite defender and a great rebounding ability.During my junior year the varsity players compared my play style to Lance Stephenson which is pretty accurate, we also share a similar building but I don’t blow into people’s ear lol