Problem.Dispute.Soccer trainer

     Paula Fernandez, a high school teacher who moonlights as a trainer for youth soccer clubs, has sought your advice.  In April of last year, Ralph Towson, parent manager of the Cheetahs under-16 girls soccer team in Los Robles, called Paula and asked her to be the new trainer for the Cheetahs.  The two met over coffee at Starbucks and orally agreed:

    (1) Paula would conduct tryouts for the team in May and select players for the team.

    (2) Paula would train the team two hours per day, twice a week, starting the beginning of July through the end of the State Championship the ensuing April (and through the Regional and National Championships if the team qualified), but not during the high school soccer season.  

    (3) Paula would attend and coach 50% of the team's approximately 30 games before the State Championship and would attend and coach all of the team's State, Regional and National Championship games.  The National Championship occurs on the weekend closest to July 20 of any year.  

    (4) The Cheetahs (that is, the informal association of parents of team members) would pay Paula $100 for each training session and $50 for each game coached.    

    Ralph and Paula both talked about hopes for winning the National Championship and both agreed that it would take two or three years of Paula's player selection and training to realistically hope to attain that goal.  

    Paula conducted tryouts in May and began training the team in July.   In the middle of July, Roger brought Paula a printed form agreement prepared by the Los Robles Soccer Association (the non-profit association in charge of all youth soccer teams in Los Robles), telling Paula that the Association strongly encouraged the parent managers of its teams to have a written agreement between the team and any soccer trainer that the team hired.  Both Ralph and Paula signed the agreement.  See the written agreement (an agreement purchased from a stationery store that was actually used by a girls soccer team and its trainer in California in 1997).  Do not consider the agreement a model for contract drafting exercises elsewhere in these materials.    

     During the State Championships in April, near the end of Paula's first year as trainer for the Cheetahs, Ralph and Paula talked frequently about the tryouts for the Cheetahs under-17 team:  which girls would likely be carried over from the existing team, which girls were likely to leave the team, which girls from the area were likely to try out.  Without ever talking about a contract for the year, Ralph and Paula picked dates for the tryouts and Paula conducted them and selected the new team.  Ralph and Paula also talked during the summer about the soccer tournaments that the team would enter starting in August.  Paula began training the new team in July and Ralph paid Paula for the July training sessions at the same rate as the previous year.  The Los Robles Soccer Club had sent Ralph another form written agreement, but Ralph did not approach Paula about signing the agreement because Ralph harbored some concerns about whether or not to retain Paula as trainer.  Paula had forgotten about signing an agreement the preceding year and didn't inquire about signing one.

     Paula continued to train the team through the middle of August and coached the team at two early August soccer tournaments.  Ralph then called Paula and told her that the Cheetahs were hiring a different trainer and that her services would no longer be required.  Paula was shocked and angered by this decision, because it hurt her reputation as a soccer trainer and because, on the assumption that she was going to continue to train the Cheetahs, she had turned down an offer in July to coach another team (for about the same amount of money).  Paula assumed from all of the circumstances that she had a contract with the Cheetahs for another year.  She wants to know whether her assumption is correct.

     Consider R.2d Contracts 1, 2, Marvin v. Marvin.