Saying the head of a Connecticut softball league refused to refund fees after dismissing her daughter’s travel team, a New Canaan woman is seeking $1,595 in Small Claims Court.
According to a claim filed April 9, the president of the Connecticut Seahawks refused to refund fees after an on-field argument during a game held in Trumbull in February led to angry exchanges with the coach of the league’s U16 and, ultimately, a decision to dismiss the team. Instead of reimbursing parents on the team, according to the claim filed in Stamford by Nancy Welch, the league president “said the girls could try out for one of the other Seahawks teams.”
“This is not customary,” the plaintiff said in an electronic filing. “When a player joins a travel team, they are offered a spot by a specific coach for a specific team. The player does not expect that her team will be dissolved and the girls split up onto three or four different teams with a coach and teammates they don’t know.”
Furthermore, those other teams “already had full rosters,” the plaintiff said, so the league president effectively had “badgered” U16 team’s coach, “then kicked the team out, then confiscated everyone’s money.”
“There was no oversight to this decision by any other Seahawks officials,” the complaint said. “There was no organizational process.”
In addition to the Monroe-based Seahawks, league president Paul Crisci of Branford is named as a defendant.
