Thread: New Team and new coaches

I am currently the HC for a 10u TB team. My Ac's and I come from LL and started the team from scratch, needless to say our first tournament we went 0-3, but the coaches, girls and parents had fun, and learned alot. We also seemed to improve each game. From getting skunked the first game to actually scoring runs and almost competing by the last game. My question is, should we expect the same quality at every tourney we play at, and whats a good way to keep the morale high for our next tourney (Which is Sept. 9th)?

Speaking as a parent with a DD that plays on Teams that do not win very much, the natives start getting restless if you keep losing. If we are going to lose anyways my DD should bat 1st sort of thing.

You need to stay positive and stick to your plan. Communicate your plan to both the parents and the players.

Mine started at 10u exactly like yours. Don't know if we won a game all season. All parents understood. first yr 12u won some games never placed. This yr won a lot of games and placed but never won the tourny (may change this wkend I hope) We are a low mid B level. Big thing try to find tournys were the teams are equal. I got into some and found out after it started we were outgunned everywhere. Also don't be one of "those" that sand bag and enter weak tournments just for a trophy. I have seen it and neither team gets anything out of it. One gets ton of BP and the other some feilding practice but mostly watching ball bounce off the fence.

We are playing NSA, how would you go about finding tourneys where you are equal? We are trying to schedule tourneys where we think we might be equal, but our talent level is probably below the average TB team. Sorry if I sound whiny, we're still new to the travel side of softball.

Quincy is correct. My dd has been on two teams who only got into national tournaments by hosting a qualifier. They had no busness being there. By the end of each national tournament (PONY and USSSA) the parents got restless and started blaming each others' girls and the coaches for doing things wrong. The coaches chalked it up as a learning experience, but players left because of the friction.

With that said, as long as your team keeps improving, I think the parent's and players should be happy with the team. 10U is the age where the girls are learning the game, trophies are secondary. Practice, practice, practice.

Originally Posted by Lothar241

Quincy is correct. My dd has been on two teams who only got into national tournaments by hosting a qualifier. They had no busness being there. By the end of each national tournament (PONY and USSSA) the parents got restless and started blaming each others' girls and the coaches for doing things wrong. The coaches chalked it up as a learning experience, but players left because of the friction.

With that said, as long as your team keeps improving, I think the parent's and players should be happy with the team. 10U is the age where the girls are learning the game, trophies are secondary. Practice, practice, practice.

Last year we actually were doing pretty good won 2 tournaments, placed 2nd and 3rd in others. From the begining we were planning on attending ASA Western Nationals. 1 Tournament before State the wheels began falling off and that went into State; we committed 17 errors in 3 games. I had a parent come to me concerned about attending Western. I told him (and the rest of the parents) we were going for the experience, we cannot compete with teams that play 100+ games a year. Make it a mini vacation, enjoy the games, and have fun. The girls still talk about Opening Ceremonies and what fun they had. Sometimes it's not about the wins!!!! (We went 1-3 BTW