Ventura Softball Controversy Isn’t Exactly Cut and Dried

Imagine this. . . .

Not three months after signing a letter of intent with No. 3-ranked Fresno State, you get cut from a high school softball team that is 11-33 the last two seasons.

How is this possible?

That’s what Ventura High’s Amanda Menez, a three-year starting outfielder, would like to know.

On Monday, Menez and former varsity players Aisha Gonzalez and Carrie Pulido, found out they didn’t make Coach Felix Cortez’s final cut after two weeks of tryouts.

Cortez, who was unable to attend most of the tryouts because he is also the boys’ junior varsity basketball coach, said 107 players tried out for 35 spots on the varsity and junior varsity squads. Roughly 70 more girls than last year.

Still, how does a potential NCAA Division I player not make a lousy high school softball team? Apparently, her ability had nothing to do with it.

“You have to do a lot of other things besides be a good softball player,” Cortez said. “In general, I picked the best 15 girls that I could work with the best.”

Generally speaking, Menez would like Cortez to be more specific. Obviously there must be another reason, but he isn’t talking.

Two players who made this year’s cut and played with Menez last season said there are several reasons. The players, who wish to remain anonymous, said Menez is disruptive, has a bad attitude and often makes the other girls feel inferior.

“She knows how to push buttons and get to you,” one player said.

Rebecca Rees, a friend of Menez’s who played for Ventura last season, said, “A lot of people didn’t get along with her.”

Menez agrees that it wasn’t one big happy family at Ventura last season, but said that it shouldn’t have to be.

“Just because you don’t get along with somebody off the field doesn’t mean you can’t play with them,” she said.

Meanwhile, Tricia Menez, Amanda’s mother, paints an entirely different picture.

Tricia Menez says this is retaliation against Amanda because last year Tricia and her husband, Martin, went to the superintendent to allege members of the Ventura staff were drinking alcohol at a pizza parlor in the presence of players at a tournament in Santa Maria.

Nothing ever came of that meeting, until now, she said.

“This is about the kids, it’s not about Felix,” Tricia Menez said. “This is Amanda’s senior year. She’s supposed to have fun her senior year. How dare he take it away [from her].”

Phil McCune, the school’s football coach who is in his first year as athletic director, supports Cortez’s decision.

“We hire him to make cuts with the understanding that he will put together the best team--the best 15 girls--who will represent this school and this community,” McCune said.

True, the decision is clearly Cortez’s. He is the coach. It’s up to him to get the most out of his team and to promote the best experiences for his players.

But Menez needs to hear from her coach exactly why she didn’t make the team. What did she do or not do that would cause her to miss her senior year?

“I don’t want to [answer that]. . . . I don’t want to hurt [Menez’s] feelings,” Cortez said.

Too late, her feelings are beyond repair.

To get some answers, Menez and her parents met Wednesday with Cortez, McCune, Principal Hank Robertson and Dr. Jerry Dannenberg, the Ventura Unified School District assistant superintendent.

Forty-five minutes later, the Menez family was still baffled.

“Every time we brought up these questions, the principal cut us off and said, ‘[Cortez] is not on trial here,’ ” said Martin Menez, who is a police officer.

“They could never really give us an answer why she was cut.”

Until Menez gets answers, she will always have questions. And that’s just plain wrong.

Ostracizing a teenager from a group she belonged to for three years can cause irreparable harm.

And besides, isn’t high school supposed to be about learning?

*

McCune and Cortez refused to believe Menez signed a letter of intent with Fresno State.

“I know that when our athletes are being recruited, the colleges work through the schools,” McCune said. “If [she’s] getting recruited by a college, it’s news to me.”

Actually it was news in November; today it’s olds.