To end the speculation here is the story.
I share with genuine desire to shield others from at least one bad actor. I feel somewhat responsible for leading others to the same watering hole.... as we were fooled. It is a minefield out here.
My daughter is a 2023 that joined UF early last spring. Two months into training both of the midfielders they had brought in tore their ACL’s exactly one day apart. My daughter was one of them. She has had a good recovery with no complications at this point, but she is 9 months in and has not been cleared yet. Last week the team started its spring fitness testing and my daughter missed the mark the coach had set on the beep test. The coach pulled my daughter aside and informed her she was off the roster, sighting that she couldn’t let her standards be weakened.
For background, my daughter had earned a starting role per the coach before getting injured. She had some pedigree coming in and she is this coach's recruit. This is not about play time or coaches favorites; it is just about basic human decency. A role on the team must be re- earned and we get it. Being game fit takes well….playing. Spring is a great time to get there. While missing an arbitrary number on the beep test is regrettable, a reprimand and a remediation of lets say a week to retest would be the appropriate level of response. I think that is what you would find throughout college soccer, not considering a recovery off an ACL. In late November when my daughter had her post-season meeting there was no indication that she would not have the opportunity to earn a role on the team or that she should enter the transfer portal because there was no future at UF. It would have been a no-brainer to cut her loses and find a new home.
Once getting hurt my daughter saw just how disposable every player was to this coach. It started at the beginning of the season when all the Nike swag got handed out. The two injured players were not given as much as a T-shirt. They were told they had not earned anything (someone must have thrown a stink because they were given some items a few weeks after) Way to boost moral coach! During the last 9 months the coach did not once ask how my daughter was doing either physically or emotionally. We should have taken those two pieces of information and cut and run in December but my daughter is a fighter and a proven winner, she figured that she could not be ignored once she got back on the field.
Maybe there will be some of you who will see this through the eyes of the coach. “I have to win at any cost!”,” My livelihood is at risk!” “There is no room for the weak!”. "Maybe the coach had to free up some money."
We like to win like the next guy. My daughter never caused one problem for this coach and was loved by her team. She was literally thrown away just as she was about to finish recovery and move towards her full potential. There was only upside down the road. There is no universe where players/people should be treated this way.
My daughter is temporarily defeated but not broken. One week later she is finally able to talk about the reality of her situation and chart the course forward. If you have a kid at this level you know it is everything to them so I stand my statements of unimaginable mental and emotional trauma. Being told you are not good enough or you will never play a team, that she could handle. Having your legs cut out from under you as you are just battling back from an ACL is whole other animal. Probably the most disgusting aspect of how she was handled by this program is that she could have been in the transfer portal right now if there was the least amount of transparency and decency. Instead she is on campus alienated from the one thing she has dedicated her life to.
If this sounds right to you so far then please go on and hate, we share different ideas on justice and moral decency. I believe schools should stand behind their athletes when they are injured in the game.
I hope you find this post useful. It would not be hard to figure out who my daughter is. I would never want my actions to hurt her and her dream but to be silent just seems wrong. I have posted the facts and it is up to God and the Universe to do with it what it will.
