How to start a new 10U travel team?

I have a student right now, on a TB team. They are new. We were all surprised when this girl made it. But, anyway 60 days have passed and "they" say that they can't find a practice field. Really? Grab a corner of someone's parking lot (with permission) and throw some balls.

Amy in AZ. said:

I have a student right now, on a TB team. They are new. We were all surprised when this girl made it. But, anyway 60 days have passed and "they" say that they can't find a practice field. Really? Grab a corner of someone's parking lot (with permission) and throw some balls.

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Have the coaches tried to contact the school district on MS or HS field availability. Or there's always field rental at Mike Jacobs Sorts Park...

First step is to recruit pitching. You need at least two good pitchers in the fold before you even think of doing anything else.

If you don't have at least two good pitchers (and a third "decent" pitcher is also helpful), you won't need to worry about procuring anything else (at least, not for very long).

I'll give you real costs for my team. I'm in Western New York.

Cost per player - base is $550 - as mandated by the organization. We let them pay in 3 installments - September, November, February. This $550 includes your uniform (2 pants + home & away jersey), 5 tournaments, travel league fees (these dues includes Insurance, ASA, NSA and USSSA registrations). New uniforms are issued every 2 years.

Average cost of tournaments in the area is $500. League cost is $400. Umpires cost for 12 league games is $480.

I also play in 3 additional additional tournaments, rent indoor fielding space (it snows here 5+ months/year), play a 16 game indoor league, require practice jerseys to be purchased and we donate a few baskets to charity events because I feel it is important for the kids to give back to the community.

So my all round costs look like this for a roster of 11:

Base: $6,050
Practice Jerseys: $225
Indoor Space: $3,000
Extra Tournaments: $1,200
Baskets: $200
Indoor League: $800
Outdoor League: $400
Umpires: $480
Total: 12,355

We also have our own batting cages so we practice 2-3x's a week 10 months of the year. I don't get paid as the coach. Wife is bench coach and handles all of the administrative stuff. Assistant coach is a former TB player.

Catchers see the same catching coach as my DD1 sees. She's phenomenal! I handle day to day pitching and we see JavaSource a few times a year (all at pitchers own cost) but I typically drive them there...it's 3+ hours round trip...

My 8 year old made TB this year...so now there are 3 of them playing. We could hit 200 games between the 3 of them this year...are you ready for that kind of committment both in terms of time and finances?

This should give some credence to Eric F's post about just burning $ LOL

Personally, I think it's a blast...Wouldn't change a thing...CP

My advice would be to get involved in a local rec league, see if you can coach the All Star team and use those players to form the nucleus of a travel team at the end of All Stars.

JAD said:

My advice would be to get involved in a local rec league, see if you can coach the All Star team and use those players to form the nucleus of a travel team at the end of All Stars.

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Great point.

Effectively that's where our travel teams start. We have 400+ girls aged 5-18 in our rec league...CP