Do I Need to Tell Coach?

JAD said:

Keeping 4 "pitch and sit" pitchers, and their parents, happy is difficult. Do any of them play other positions? If you split the time equally they are pitching 25% and sitting 75%...

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As I said, all 4 of the pitchers plus 3 of my 5 catchers are utility players also. I only carry 12 on the roster so everyone sits roughly 2 innings per tournament. All they want to do is play and hopefully get recruited to play in college. We are the team of, and I'm going to date myself here, the island of misfit toys; but in our case, players. All of my players came from teams and organizations that did exactly nothing to get them recruited even though they promised them the moon and called themselves "elite" organizations. Our organization OTOH, call ourselves a developmental organization since we prefer to develop our own players as opposed to going out and trying to recruit. We also actually do what we say. My coaching staff as well as myself, are reaching out to every college coach we know and their contacts if we're referred in order to get them out to watch our players. Of course they have to do their due diligence as well. Hopefully we can get them all placed with a college that will match them both academically and athletically.

ETA: At this stage, when most of my players are Seniors and the parents "know" their daughter not only wants to play at the collegiate level but is good enough to do so (which all of my players are), they are more than happy to just have them on the field knowing that their coaching staff is actually helping for a change and not sitting on their thumbs. As long as we know a coach is coming to look at a player, that player will be in their primary, or "best" position.

YOCOACH said:

As I said, all 4 of the pitchers plus 3 of my 5 catchers are utility players also. I only carry 12 on the roster so everyone sits roughly 2 innings per tournament. All they want to do is play and hopefully get recruited to play in college. We are the team of, and I'm going to date myself here, the island of misfit toys; but in our case, players. All of my players came from teams and organizations that did exactly nothing to get them recruited even though they promised them the moon and called themselves "elite" organizations. Our organization OTOH, call ourselves a developmental organization since we prefer to develop our own players as opposed to going out and trying to recruit. We also actually do what we say. My coaching staff as well as myself, are reaching out to every college coach we know and their contacts if we're referred in order to get them out to watch our players. Of course they have to do their due diligence as well. Hopefully we can get them all placed with a college that will match them both academically and athletically.

ETA: At this stage, when most of my players are Seniors and the parents "know" their daughter not only wants to play at the collegiate level but is good enough to do so (which all of my players are), they are more than happy to just have them on the field knowing that their coaching staff is actually helping for a change and not sitting on their thumbs. As long as we know a coach is coming to look at a player, that player will be in their primary, or "best" position.

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Excellent approach, but you may have to talk to Ken K about borrowing the IOMT moniker!

YOCOACH said:

As I said, all 4 of the pitchers plus 3 of my 5 catchers are utility players also. I only carry 12 on the roster so everyone sits roughly 2 innings per tournament. All they want to do is play and hopefully get recruited to play in college. We are the team of, and I'm going to date myself here, the island of misfit toys; but in our case, players. All of my players came from teams and organizations that did exactly nothing to get them recruited even though they promised them the moon and called themselves "elite" organizations. Our organization OTOH, call ourselves a developmental organization since we prefer to develop our own players as opposed to going out and trying to recruit. We also actually do what we say. My coaching staff as well as myself, are reaching out to every college coach we know and their contacts if we're referred in order to get them out to watch our players. Of course they have to do their due diligence as well. Hopefully we can get them all placed with a college that will match them both academically and athletically.

ETA: At this stage, when most of my players are Seniors and the parents "know" their daughter not only wants to play at the collegiate level but is good enough to do so (which all of my players are), they are more than happy to just have them on the field knowing that their coaching staff is actually helping for a change and not sitting on their thumbs. As long as we know a coach is coming to look at a player, that player will be in their primary, or "best" position.

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Kudos to you and your coaching staff for going "above and beyond" the call of duty to get your kids recruited, but at the end of the day the player and her parents need to take ownership of their recruiting process, especially after Sept 1st of the players junior year of high school - the date after which college coaches can contact players directly.

Amy in AZ. said:

Hi. Any communication with the coach needs to come from your daughter.
Good luck. Most of us have been there.

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I would respectfully disagree. This is middle school (12U) and he has already lied to the parents. What purpose does it serve to have her address it. At this age the parents need to continue to be the parents.

lvthegame said:

I will try to condense my question as much as possible...

Daughters coach is same for middle school and select. This is our first year with this coach.

Coaches daughter is a pitcher, she's good. My daughter is also a pitcher, but less experienced. They are the only pitchers on the school team.

At the beginning of the school season I respectfully asked if my daughter needed to continue with pitching lessons. At the time I asked we had had around 6 games and she had seen 2 innings. (She did well during these innings.) I didn't want to waste time and money if he had no plans to use her. My daughter was losing confidence and interest. I was told to keep her in lessons because he would need her, he just hadn't been able to give her any time during practice. I did keep her in for a few more weeks, which was probably around 5 more games.

Now, we only have a few games left and he hasn't pitched her again since the last two innings. His daughter pitches EVERY GAME, EVERY INNING. It doesn't matter if it's 2 or 3 days in a row, she pitches. I have stopped lessons and practicing at home. My daughter knows that pitching is a lifestyle and she's not interested in it anymore. She lost confidence because she's not being developed. She understands it's her time to sit the bench and is willing to do that in order to learn/play other positions.

Do I need to tell the coach she's no longer interested in pitching? I am torn. I don't want him to all of the sudden throw her in a game and she hasn't pitched in a few weeks. But I also feel like why do I need to tell him? He is not interested in her for that position.

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Ouch. Sorry. Long reply. Sounds like a sucky coach to play for. Not knowing your middle school schedule, it sounds like high school where he can get away with using just the best P. I get that. But if he is also the select coach I don't get why he would not want to develop one of his select pitchers, unless he also had no intention of using her in select? Sounds pretty sucky. But, I also don't get why the pitcher that is not being used would not want to keep on practicing, keep developing on her own, so when the time comes she is more prepared for the team that does need/want her at P, especially if she sounds pretty good already?

My story, that I keep repeating, is when 9 year old dd joined a newly formed 10u team she asked at the 2nd practice when they would practice pitching. She wanted to pitch. We had said she was a pitcher with lessons etc at tryouts. HC said she already had SEVEN pitchers. 2nd practice and she already had 7 pitchers? Turned out she had been the allstar coach the previous year and had taken the team to competitive the next year, so she knew most of the kids. DD wasn't overly happy she could not pitch or even tryout to pitch for the team but she continued lessons, continued to practice with me when we could and also played rec to get reps. First tourney, no action and not even asked to warm up. Though only FIVE of the seven pitchers actually warmed up. In my mind, at nine, she was not a finished product p) so she was going to have to keep developing, whether she pitched in games or not. As we became more aware, we realized she was behind four coaches kids that pitched. Eventually, she got her chance and has not looked back getting the most innings this year.

I don't think most situations normally turn out this way. I know things can change and this numbers game could easily turn problematic. All these pitchers get paid instruction, all these parent coaches work with their kids and there is a passion that they want them to be at a certain level. Which is how it should be. If it doesn't work out for dd at this team, she still wants to pitch. If her innings go down, up, she still has to practice to get better. Practice to win or keep her innings by being able to stay ahead of batters today and as they get older. DD has thrown well over 25,000 pitches this year with 140+ innings in games. So, roughly, throws 10 times more balls in practice than games. Don't get me wrong. Games are fun! Games are the best motivator for the kid to really push in practice. But at some point the kid has to want to practice to get better if she wants to pitch.

Good luck to dd!!

The thing is it is the same coach and pitcher for travel ball so she is not likely to see many more innings. I think she could be better than the coaches DD if she were to get the innings and that's exactly why she didn't. I agree with you in that things can change in an instant.

Thank you for your story. At this point, she has lost confidence because her coach never gave her the time he said he would so she thinks she doesn't have what it takes and maybe she doesn't mentally - that's where she struggles. I am taking a break from talking about it with her and will address it again very soon to find out if she does want to continue for the reasons you and others have stated.

I am clueless as to why he doesn't want to develop her for school or for his select team. I'm not a parent to hound the coach about anything; this was my first time even approaching him. But I will say the select team has four pitchers, so we don't see her getting a lot of time considering what he has demonstrated already. This just adds to her reasons of not wanting to continue.

In the end, if she doesn't want to pitch, we (parents) are fine with it. It's just the principal of what he said and did that does not sit well with me and has me wondering if he even has a clue. I have heard about "Daddy ball", but this is the first time I've seen it. And don't get me wrong, coaches DD is good, but IMO that doesn't mean you don't take the time to develop other players because anything can happen and if his DD were to get hurt, then what?

Semi-OT, but what state are you in? I'm asking because here in Texas, the UIL (our governing athletic body) forbids school coaches from coaching non-school teams that are the same age group as their school team. So, a MS softball coach here wouldn't be able to also coach TB for that age group.

JAD said:

Kudos to you and your coaching staff for going "above and beyond" the call of duty to get your kids recruited, but at the end of the day the player and her parents need to take ownership of their recruiting process, especially after Sept 1st of the players junior year of high school - the date after which college coaches can contact players directly.

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Exactly. That's what the comment about Due Diligence was about. We told them that we'd help them anyway we could and put them in the positions to be recruited (i.e. Showcases) but they have to narrow down the colleges they want to attend, email the coaches, attend their camps and everything else that entails. We will help them word the emails, help with making the skills videos, make player profiles for them, etc. etc. as well as email the coaches with recommendation letters and contact the coaches we personally know or their contacts they forward.

There isn't a lot of middle school softball around my area that I know of, but I am familiar with one league where they have a 3 innings per game limit on pitching just to avoid that situation. Two of my pitching students (sisters) played on a team in that league for their Dad, and it could be challenging at times. He had his two daughters and basically a volunteer lobber. Most teams had zero pitching and were a cakewalk, but there were a couple of others that had two good pitchers as well. In situations like that, inning limits make a lot of sense. I know rec leagues have them for that reason too. At least more than one kid gets innings.

I got to see an exciting game when I went out to watch the two girls pitch for that team. Older daughter (8th grade) who just dominated pitched the first two innings. Younger daughter (7th grader) pitched the next three. All good so far, but now there's a dilemma. Games were supposed to be 7 innings or 2 hours, and if the coach puts the 8th grader back in during a close game they might lose it in the last inning. He decides to gut it out and put the volunteer in there. She struggles quite a bit, gives up three walks to load the bases, with many of those pitches quite wild. Luckily, the league didn't allow stealing home.

The one good thing is her wildness took up a lot of time. Now it's obvious there won't be a 7th inning, so the 8th grader comes in with no outs, bases loaded and shuts down the other team, who was their only serious competition for the championship. The coach made sure everyone knew the hero of the game was the girl who came in to pitch that one inning in a very nerve-wracking situation.