To the Marauders Board,
I would like to express many concerns of mine in regards to Lance Fischbach.
To begin with, my daughter Miranda Cosand has been with this organization for four years. My concerns are that Lance appears to be under the impression that he does not have to acknowledge the concerns of the parents. When he took this team he said he was an open door, any problems or concerns just come and talk with him. And yet when Jill, Miranda's mom, tried to approach him with her concerns, Lance tells her that if this were a College team she could not talk to him, contradicting what he had told all parents in the beginning. If Miranda had a problem that SHE was to go to him and only her. When Miranda talks with him he intimidates her and bullies her to the extent that Miranda cannot communicate her concerns.
An example of this is at the Las Vegas showcase additional ODP players were taken to fill vacant positions. During this tournament Miranda who has been one of the most consistent defenders, was sitting more than usual to give playing time to the ODP players that were brought along. Vegas was a high profile showcase - Miranda played only half the time. The other half she sat and watched ODP players who did not belong on the team, and had hardly practiced with this team. When Miranda has asked about her decreased playing time, she was told she was not winning enough balls out of the air. Miranda is one of the shorter players playing defense. This is the only thing Lance stated concerning Miranda's play as a reason for ODP players seeing more playing time though at the same time, he concedes Miranda is one of the best - one on one players on the team. Remember this was a showcase that was to showcase the abilities of our players that have paid Lance's salaries and his flights and his hotel room while he was there supposedly to have the girls get their exposure to college coaches. Yes, if you have an exceptional pickup player {say a midfielder} to put on the field that can make your players look better that is what you do. But the idea of the showcase is to showcase the players that have gotten them there and Miranda is one of those players. She is not a substitute on this team yet that is what Lance is trying to convince her of {only because he starting to rotate the backfield to keep his extra ODP players on the field}.
After the Vegas showcase because of the way Miranda was treated. Jill e-mailed Lance and asked to meet with him to discuss some of these concerns. Lance did not respond to her e-mail. She e-mailed a second time and still no response. The third time he responded with "I don't have time to meet with you but I can free up a little time to talk on the phone." When they had this conversation, he was not receptive at all, when she brought up Miranda's playing time he said that Miranda is the 5th defender, she has just gotten a lot of playing time. When Jill asked what has made her the 5th defender it was because she did not win enough balls out of the air. Jill said so if she works on this part of her game that this would put her back into the starting line up Lance said he thought it would. When she questioned the fact that Miranda was paying in order to be there, why isn't she playing more. His response was, the better the team plays the more attention the team gets from the scouts. So Jill said, but wouldn't the players who have been paying all along have more of a right to be on the field and showcased and have exposure to the colleges than the pick-up ODP players. Lance said that was his decision.
So at the following practice - Lance requested that Miranda stay after practice so he could have a word with her. The first thing he said to her was, "Don't ever have your mom talk with me. If you have a problem with me come and talk with me." So Miranda at this point was still trying to remain positive { which is hard for her because of the way he intimidates her} and she asks, "so if I become more aggressive at winning more balls out of the air I can get back into the starting rotation?" And he said, "I don't know." If no one else improves and you do then you might make it up to number two." "You will never be number one because number one is so much better than anyone else here that you have no chance". Lance continued with -he asked a coach who had seen her play what he thought of Miranda? Miranda said, "was it Fresno?" {the Fresno coach likes her, still trying to make light of all this} - Lance says "It was one of my college coach buddies, he said you were too small and he would not take you." Now Miranda is starting to get upset. So Miranda, who is still trying to understand what it is he wants from her, asks, "So if I just be more aggressive in the air she would be back in the line-up." He replied, I don't know, I have tried to teach you all of this { which he has not} but you still haven't learned this and as a matter of fact I will be putting on your review that you haven't learned this and that you are basically uncoachable. {Keep in mind this is a player that is 6th in her class and has a 3.95 GPA and is terribly concerned about grades and anything that might be a negative on her record, ask her about her one A-}. Lance asks her if she has anything else to say, at this point Miranda doesn't dare talk because she will start crying so she doesn't say anything - he asks again DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING ELSE? She says - no. You people have no idea how hard it is for me to not go "have a chat with Lance" {you dads know}.
This is the most coachable player you will ever meet, all he has to do is ask or show Miranda what he wants her to do and she will bust her butt to do it. Lance is not helping her as a coach. He is belittling and bullying in order to justify keeping ODP players in the game. He is trying to gain control over the players by striking fear in them instead of having control because the players respect his abilities as a coach - his position is that he is the coach and he is not to be questioned by his players or parents and he was driving the point home to Miranda by intimidating her. As long as I am paying his salary and paying for plane tickets and his rooms, he does have to answer to me, he is accountable to me, He may not have to do what I want but he does have be courteous enough to listen.
Lance has proven in 2 years that this is all about him, how it looks on his resume for furthering his coaching career. Has anybody noticed that the Marauders record has not improved? He has not taken the girls to the next level, he is replacing girls with other players, this team had some very talented kids, that had just picked up some bad habits that a mature coach could have remedied. Instead we got a buddy to girls. He sits with his "favorites" and puts his arm around their waist or pats them on the side of their hip or holds their hand while he talks to them. When he picked up a player from Royals to go to a tourney and on the flight back sitting off by themselves seeing who can stick the most Gummy Bears in their mouths. Or playing little kick the ball through the leg games with a player, just the two of them. I am not suggesting that there is any sexual impropriety BUT as a dad I do not think it is appropriate or professional.
Lance "our trainer" has been cancelling practices regularly, usually because ODP players have other commitments. He just did a week ago, then offered a small group session, which a few players including Miranda accepted the practice time. He then said at the last minute that he had another commitment and cacelled that practice. He went to the ODP event. How many coaches take the two weeks off prior to State? Cup {we were still billed for his "training services"}.
Kari fowler one of our better players, who just left to go play for Royals, left because Lance wasn't challenging enough {cancelled practices might have something to do with that}. On a side note - When lance took over this team, during one of the first games - he corrected her on the field, she {Kari} yelled back - no! {not in so many words}. I told my son {who had played soccer for years} - it's already started, He should have benched her to show her she does not talk back to the coach, he never got control of this team. At tourneys there have been numorous occasions when the ODP players have sworn at lance and called him every name in the book, along with other players and chaporoens because they would not be starting the next game.
Let's back up a little, the reason Bill our previous couch, was asked to step down was because bill had lost control of this team, the girls told bill what they wanted to do, they actually talked back to him on the field regularly during the games if he corrected them {cute when they were 10, to some I suppose, but not when they were 15, {not Bill's fault Just a relationship that developed over the years, that wouldn't change with then current people involved} not on a P-1 team. I was talking to the board about how a U-16 P-1 team needed a mature A level coach to take these very talented girls to the next level. The board agreed and said that they had a list of 5 or 6 coaches that they were talking to, all A and B coaches. I suggested that I knew a coach locally that would be a good fit, and would they at least look at him. I said he didn't have an A license but they said send his resume and his letter of recommendation and they would take a look. The next day I was told that my candidate was not considered because he didn't have his A license and that's really what this team needed.
The very next day we received an e-mail that the board had chosen Lance, a D level coach ready to take his C license. We were ticked about this. The board didn't even put any effort into finding a qualified coach, yes I was disappointed that they didn't consider my candidate, but the board flat out lied about what they were doing, they gave us Lance. I know there have been numerous complaints about Lance, but the parents took their kids out of the program or were forced out, {they forgot who owns this team} so the problem of what to do about Lance has gone away. But Lance is bullying one of the more respected players on this team and he will not justify his ego by hurting a player to suit his quest to be a college coach.
I would like Lance to explain to me how one of our best one on one players, one of the least scored on players, girl with one of the best attitudes, has never talked back to him or shown any disrespect to him, easiest going kid on the team, who started and played every game, "has always been the number 5 defender that just happened to get a lot of playing time and is uncoachable" .
The following weekend {this weekend} in- Pullman, Miranda played half of the first game, less than half of the second game, and seven minutes of the third game. After that game, after the players had left the area, Jill mentioned to Lance that a couple of coaches would be coming specifically to watch Miranda play this weekend, could she get a little more playing time in the next game. He got quite angry at Jill, telling her that she was embarrassing him and that she needed to get off of his case. He was playing to win and advance. Jill questioned the fact that Miranda could not be seen if she were on the bench and was told that the other center defender would be playing full time as she made everyone else look so much better and that the other defenders, all ODP players, were all used to playing together and weren't confident with other players on the field. He also demanded the name of the college that was interested in Miranda. She told him that we would rather keep that to ourselves. Lance got agitated at the comment and again wanted the college name. He could talk to the coach for us. Jill told him that they were afraid of two things: one is that it is a D3 school and he would not play her at all if he knew it wasn't D1 or D2 and two, is that he had said such derogatory things to Miranda and labeled her as "selfish" and "uncoachable" that he would taint her chance with the D3 coach. Jill would rather have the coach judge for himself. Lance did not like this answer. Jill thanked him for his time and left.
As Miranda and Jill were walking through the parking lot Lance asked to speak with them. He told Jill that college coaches would not allow parents to talk to them unless the player had had no success with the coach. He asked her not to talk with him again and let Miranda handle the situation for herself. Jill apologized and stated that since they had not had a parent meeting yet, that she was going by last year when Lance said there was an open line of communication between the parents and the coach. Jill also stated that Miranda had attempted to deal with this issue herself and got very harsh, hurtful comments in return. She also stated that this wasn't a college team but that it was a building team and she wasn't being built up but being torn down and not promoted as promised. He asked her to allow Miranda to deal with the things herself and not get involved.
How does he gain their respect? Let's see, in Dallas 3 girls were caught shoplifting, they sat half a game, then played the rest of the tourney. In California 7or 8 players were caught drinking 4 were out after curfew with boys, 3 were passed out before curfew and they all played the rest of the tourney, ask Lance about the suspensions, then reduced suspensions, then none depending on who the kid was. At a game near the end of our last season we had a few scouts there, the opposing offense was outnumbering our defense at about the 40 so Lance starts yelling at the defense {which is ok} because they weren't matching up. So just to show the scouts he taught the players better than that he turns and kicks the medicine box open and sprays the contents 10 yards. The team wasn't even close to scoring and didn't. If you watch and listen to what Lance yells at the girls it isn't constructive criticism. {I don't mind a coach yelling if it's constructive} He is yelling for them to pull their head out, to wake up, that he taught them better than that; all comments are ultimately to make him look like a better coach than his players are playing.
Due to Miranda's experiences with Lance, she almost did not tryout . After thinking about it, she decided to go to the tryouts to see her friends and see how things went and then go to other teams' tryouts as well. The tryouts went so well {because Lance was on his best behavior} that Miranda had a good time; she didn't have any indication that her position was in jeopardy or that she would be used as a substitute so she did not go to any other tryouts.
In my assessment, Lance hasn't done his job. Let's see…..When we played Royals 2 years ago, right after their breakup, we beat them 3 to 0. When we met again the last game this season they clearly beat us 3 to 0. Sure some will argue that we had some injuries but they may or may not have made the difference. The weakness we have is our ball handling {come on now, we all know it, the whole state knows it} and the injured players, while quite talented and capable of scoring, are not superstars. The Royals controlled the ball the whole game. Two years ago any knowledgeable coach in the state wondered how a P-1 team could have such poor basic soccer skills, we knew this, Lance knew this when he took the team. Our coach knew our weaknesses and did not work to improve them. The only reason we look better is because of the ODP players. He has had two years and our record has not improved since he took over. At tryouts this season we had one new player try out, one new player, they didn't sign, what does that tell you about our program. I don't know about you, but every time Lance is trying to convince players and parents he is somehow the equal of a college coach and he is doing some of these things to prepare the players for college. I would like to remind him of what happens to a college program when expectations aren't met, they don't replace the players, they replace the coach. Where has the Marauder program watch dog been in all of this? this has been going on for 2 years. Lance has not done his job, he is not doing his job, he is not going to do his job in the future! Why, you ask? He has a caustic, closed door policy that is not developing players, but rather, replacing them with outside players that have no investment in the club!
P.S. I would like to remind the board that as this becomes known, especially to Lance, if he remains, you will be condoning his actions.
:angry:
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just one more
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