Didn’t receive these electronically, so, it is just scanned images for use on the blog.
So, some thoughts on the team evaluation.
1) Maybe we have been a little dense; maybe it could have been communicated more clearly to Matthew and us, but, “…a few players below expectation”. Well, that’s Matthew.
2) Which is a little strange (see, I am a little dense!) because when I read the comments I think Matthew does a pretty good job at some of the critical points mentioned. He does try and play quickly (although I think it would be fair to say that the phrase “play quickly AND effectively!” would be something Matthew should look to do).
3) In the Areas of Improvement for the team, I don’t think he has anything to worry about for #1, he is pretty good at challenging, being physical, and tackling. He doesn’t shoot enough by position for me to be too concerned about being ‘clinical’. And I’d love for him to be more vocal on the field….need to have more of a talk with him about that.
And this evaluation isn’t bad at face value; it was seeing, at a glance, his teammate’s evaluations (teammates we think Matthew is much better than!) with a lot of marks for mastered where Matthew had none that really sunk home that, hey, your coach doesn’t think you are the player we think you are.
And we, as a group, were pretty pissed about this at the end-of-year party. A pretty bitter pill to swallow! But Matthew has, I think, settled into a “I am going to prove him wrong” mentality and at least in Day 2 after the evaluation, is hard at work making that happed (even as I type this, he just left with ball in his backpack to go down to the park and shoot on goal). If having this in print is what it takes to motivate him, great. Suzanne and I will get over being disgruntled about it.
