A former student at a high school in California is suing his coach, claiming he was bullied because he was benched during games.

According to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune:

A former Los Altos High School student and baseball player is suing the school district and his former coach for hundreds of thousands of dollars because the coach repeatedly benched him.

According to the suit, the school’s head varsity baseball coach, Gabriel Lopez, repeatedly refused to let 17-year-old Robbie Lopez, no relation, play throughout his senior year. The suit claims this constituted a pattern of “harassment and bullying.”

The teenager and his parents are seeking $150,000 or more, according to the suit.

The suit claims that for over four months and 14 games, Robbie was benched and never given “the opportunity to show his offensive or defensive capabilities.” His lawyers consider that “an abuse of the coach’s discretion.”

“It’s more of a targeted situation,” the lawyer said. “These are repeated actions by the coach, which we feel, my client and I, as well as his father, feel are intentional. They’re targeted against (my client) specifically.”

That same lawyer tried to compare this lawsuit with a recent case in South Carolina where a cheerleader sued her coach, claiming he made “derogatory comments about (the student’s) private body parts, causing other students to laugh at” her. She ended up winning a $100,000 settlement.

In fact, the lawyer claimed what happened to Robbie was “more egregious” even though his client was only benched and not sexually harassed.

There used to be a time in the United States where players learned valuable lessons by being benched — and fathers reinforced those lessons.