want opinions

LL softball coach, 10U, our league has combined with neighboring league, 6 teams in division (4+2). Last night we played hands down best team in minors division, lost 17-6 (first time face them lost 10-2). This team is the reason there are 4 teams in minors of 11 each, and 2 majors teams of 14 each (my older DD plays majors). He has a little clique that all request him, play travel soccer with him, and all basically decided that none of their 10 year olds would try out for majors (12U) so they can all stay together. 6 or 7 10 year olds move up, each division has three teams of 12 (ideal number for playing 10 in field). They even have an 11 yr old to accomodate one family in this clique's request that all for of their kids (blended family) be on same team (ages 8-11). He has like 5 assistants, while i have 1.5 basically. At draft, the one family of four girls (three will probably be allstars) basically only counted for one draft pick, he still picked again in second round, then once he had his ages all filled up, he let us pick the leavings.

I pitched one pitcher entire game (I really only have two, and I like giving them whole game as long as they do not seem to get tired, not enough help to warm a girl up properly mid game). He pitched 4/5 different pitchers. His one ace he pitched in the third (my girls scored one run in second, they 4 runned us each at bat in the 1st, third, 5th, and 6th), then again in the 5th and (my girls 4 runned them in the 4th), and 6th (last batter then top of the order coming up for my girls). Basically, if my girls got at all competitive, he threw the ace in, knowing it would pretty much shut us down (3 innings, two walks, 5 strikeouts, couple of weak grounders). We couldn't even win mathematically in 6th (8 run limit in last inning). He also had girls bunting to get on base with a 9-1 lead.

i will say I do not think he liked when in second, with two out and one of my best players on third, I basically had her keep taking bigger leads to bait a throw to third (we had used all our steals, we have limits), runner went home for our only run of the first three innings.

Basically, his clique runs (or ruins depending on how you look at it) whatever division they are in. Cherry on top is last year (I was still in 8U), 5 10 yo's played up in 12U, including my older daughter. At beginning of season, they were told they would still be eligible for 10U all stars. Well you know who was coach, the girls who played up all got screwed, because all the coaches in the division (who were the ones voting) basically colluded to make certain that as many players of theirs were on all starts, and froze out the girls who played up (who would presumably be the best 10 yos from tryouts, and playing up would only make them better).

Point of all this is next year, he has to move up (his GD is 10 this year), and he always acts friendly towards my daughter, and last year said he was looking for her and dissappointed she was not availalbe (majors drafted first, so she was off the board). My daughters coach this year and last will be moving on (if her girl decides to play at all next year, 50/50), I am afraid this a$$ will draft my daughter. I am thinking of cancelling our last game against them and holding scrimmage with someone else or do parent/daughter game, Not certain I can shake his hand again (and I will not play and then not shake hands). I don't want to move older daughter, because younger daughter has shot at all stars next year I think (and may look to travel ball in next couple of years, she is league age 7 currently), and we logistically cannot have them in different leagues.

??????

You are a role model as a coach, finish the season as scheduled and shake the guys hand. From your description, the only thing he is guilty of is having a stacked team, the game play you described is not particularly evil. He used multiple pitchers, didn't start his ace, let the girls work on bunts with a big lead instead of hitting away. Nothing there screams cutthroat rec league win at all costs coaching to me. As for what to do with your daughter, most leagues have a mechanism for allowing kids to avoid playing for certain coaches.

The other thing I would do is bring this issue up to your board in a civilized way. If this team is as dominant as you say then you will have support from other coaches they beat up on in trying to put rules in place during the draft that levels the playing field, even if parents had requested this coach.

Welcome to the club....pretty sure we have all been there. No matter how upset you are play the scheduled game and shake the other coaches hand, unless there are other incidents you are not describing this guys sounds like your classic knucklehead coach they are a dime a dozens you don't have to become best buddies just act professional and don't let him get you to do something out of your character..yes this will be hard but it gets easier the longer you keep at this.

First thing I would do is get a copy of the BY LAWS and read them especially the part about drafting.

1. You have a league president and player agent with Zero backbone or is this guys buddy...because this is exactly what brings down local REC leagues
2. This happened to me first year I was a coach but next year......NO WAY you don't get to fool me twice. Absolutely put your foot down AT THE DRAFT, as the coach you can protect YOUR DD and we usually made allowances for ONE assistant, that is it everyone else is on the table period. The only allowances we made were the parents who requested NOT to play for a certain coach and this had to be the exception usually for previous incidents.
3. We also instituted pitcher evaluations as part of tryout day and we also had a pitcher first draft rule so everyone got the best pitchers available...and if the was your DD she counted first, every pick counts; if you draft 3 sisters your have to wait 3 turns until you draft again (we did make some exceptions but case by case).
4. For the sake of the league make sure the 11 yr old does not play All Stars while local president may look the other way regional, state and national directors will not sanction it and will disqualify the whole team and may penalize the whole league.

Are you the only who feels this way? Does your league have a commissioner? What do other coaches think? If there's really this one trouble-maker, but 5 other coaches, surely you can generate some support for positive change...

It seems like you could solve a lot of the problems you bring up with better a better draft process.

The rules of your draft allow a coach to take 4 players (including 3(!) all-stars) but it counts as just one pick? That is crazy... why even have a draft? Our league's solution for special family circumstances was that each player counted as an individual selection and the paired players had to picked in immediately subsequent rounds. So a pair of sisters who if unpaired might have been a 3 round pick and an 8th round pick would usually wind up going in rounds 4/5 or 5/6 since they were a package -- So in this case, if he picked the group of four in the first round, his next draft should have been in the fifth round... don't want to burn your top 4 picks? then don't pick the package deal, or pick them in the second or third round.

For assistants, the players you draft determines your pool of potential AC's. No "saving" 5 players by claiming five ACs. Want a lot of assistants? Draft kids whose parents help out.

As for the game description, I agree w/ JJ -- what would you have them do up 9-1? By your own description, it seems they throttled back a bit if the game ended up 17-6 (i.e. the last three innings were 8-5).

If what you're saying is true about the OTHER coaches not voting the best players to the All-star team, then it's time to move on.

There's nothing unusual or especially unethical about parents wanting their kids to play with the league's best players or wanting them to play with their teammates from other sports. It may not be good for the rec league, but is often beneficial when the town team travels as the kids get older.

he wasn't avoiding having good hitters swing away by working on bunting, he was having the few poor hitters on his team do this, because our pitcher while slow, was throwing strikes 50% of the time. his girls that could hit were still swinging away. yes, team is stacked, but that is because his clique (his travel soccer team basically) all basically bands together to have it that way (ie not going to tryouts, requesting him, signing up late, etc.), same thing happened in my first year in 8U coach-pitch (again, most of his team was ready for 10U, but all stayed down so they could stay together), his team crushed us all three games that year.

As far as his ace, he didn't start her, but as soon as we showed signs of life (ie a whole whopping one run in second manufactured by two steals then baiting throwdown to 3rd), she was in next inning; they got to 9-1 next inning, his GD pitched;, we got to 13-5, his ace came right back in for 5th, stayed in at 17-5 n 6th when we could not win (8 run limit in 6th).

as far as playing next game in couple of weeks, schedule changes week to week anyway, our division rep is pretty inept at scheduling (original schedule had a three week gap between my last two games, never even checked local school calendars for concert nights, etc.), so corrections are being made constantly, so not certain if it will get played anyway, but if it does I will play it. but every girl who can defend herself and reach home on a roll even will pitch an inning; I will tell girls to try to throw out every runner, even ones they have no chance of getting, secretly hope their 4th batter each inning gets LL home run (i e on overthrows or missed throws)

don't think those on the board who even think about SB will do anything, as it stands now this team will be half the all star team (and deservedly so, even if some had played up, the girls deserve to be all stars), and basically the board always caves to parents for fear of them leaving (never mind the parents who don't try to have everything there way but who leave without saying anything because the girls or parents get turned off). I had board approved 5 yr olds placed on my 8U team who belonged in tball (but DD could not play coed tball, so they let her play 8U). Had 5 yr old not even ready for tball (spend all time in dugout filling other players helmets with sand) placed on my 8U team because 8 yr old sibling was, and parents demanded they be together.

My point is I could see the dejection in my girls faces and their body language by third inning, they know they pretty much have no chance. to me this is INTOLERABLE at this level, and it has gone on for 3-4 years now. Our other losses, all but one or two girls did not know if we were winning or losing during the game. don't mind losing, don't even mind if I am pretty certain we will lose going in, as long as girls have some chance (ie we hit really well, other team has off night, whatever). against this team no chance. my older DD wanted to tease them at school today (she goes to school in same grade with several) about great job they did beating her little sister's team. Had to put kibosh on that.

Sounds like you are just done with your rec league. Time to move on to a neighboring league or TB.

bmakj - I know you are venting and this is a good place to do it but it's really not the coaches fault but the way the draft process is in the league. When DD played rec, the only time you could request a particular coach to play for was 6U and it wasn't a guarantee. At 8U, we had tryouts and all players are ranked. Pitchers were round #1 and each coach got one pitcher in the first round (based on a lottery). The coach with the lowest rated kid after round 1 picked first in the second round and so on. In general, this worked pretty well to get parity among all the teams. Of course some managers sand-bagged their kid in tryouts but everyone knew this and rated the kid accordingly.

momo's dad said "If what you're saying is true about the OTHER coaches not voting the best players to the All-star team, then it's time to move on." This is hilarious because I have never been in any all-star draft that 100% chose the 12 best players. It's an unwritten rule that all the coaches who can vote will horse trade votes to get their kid on the all-star team. For example, this just happened last week. The 12U all-star coach wanted his best friend to be an assistant coach (AC) but the AC's kid is a terrible player and should never be on any all-star team. Well the coach made a deal with the other coaches who vote for the all-star players that if you vote my AC's kid, I will make sure your kid also makes the all-star team. Probably 4 of the 12 players should not be on that team. Not right but when you have parents voting for kids, it's always political and corrupt. When you can't handle it anymore, you turn to travel ball (which has its own unique and inherent politics) Welcome to the world of youth sports.

Not a lot of options in our area, mostly a LL area, and also elder DD is not good enough for travel (she enjoys game and tries had, does decent job, so I want her to keep playing as long as she enjoys it, but drive to make it something more is not there). however, younger daughter is potentially good enough for TB (league age 7 right now for LL softball), but only 10U travel team in area is run by inept (at organizational matters, he knows softball) division rep for our LL. going to wait a couple of years I think and if she is still progressing and wants, may give low level TB a whirl. finances and time (we also have teenage son) are not sufficient for high level travel ball.

My main issue is by doing what they think is necessary to retain this clique, the league does not see they are killing the leagues softball. families get disgusted and leave, without a peep. going to suggest a feedback form for end of year to be filled out by families to evaluate several aspects of experience (competition level, coaching) would love the feedback on my coaching (at least to my face most parents are positive, would love to see what they say when it goes to third party and I cannot see who said what).

I don't care about Ws and Ls, and I am clear about that with parents, I primarily want to see team and individuals develop. If I see that, I am happy, and I am happy with my team this year; I told them post game I was happy with their play last night; made a few plays, including really good play by P/1B on bunt, (I initially thought they had no chance), several other plays were close, just a tad late on the throws, couple of times they got throw happy with the ball, but overall they did well. I just don't want to have girls/families get discouraged and leave because they are not part of the clique. It feels's like it is jerkface's league (at least for whatever division he is in), and we are just here as tackling dummies/sparring partners. Not certain what he thinks he is accomplishing, most years, given the small sizes of our divisions, we do not even crown a champion. 20, no wait not even 5 years from now no one is going to remember how great his 10U girls LL team was (well maybe except him and his clique)

True indeed, Rocketech. But that's not supposed to happen until you get down to those final roster spots. The top group of players ought to be on the All-star team without dispute. Leagues that play parent politics at the front end of the roster will typically be knocked out of the competition early. Whenever it happens, those doing the voting usually regret it.

I just witnessed one of the wackiest All-star votes in our league's history. I know it's only 10u rec softball, but it has me strongly considering whether the selection process ought to be changed.