Thread: Does commitment go both ways?

Originally Posted by RichK

In what aspect or area of life could you get away with treating *people* like this?

Why would it be allowed/condoned with a bunch of 12 year-old girls playing a sport?

Easy answer to this question was stated before: run.

There is a core of 4 or 5 players that will be carried. The new players are soaking up the playing time and are quite happy for now. They don't know the people that have been forced out and the team reputation hasn't gotten out to a wider circle just yet. Their children are playing and they are buying into the idea of building a winning program. They don't yet understand the cost. It won't be long before he grows tired of the new girls that struggle at the plate or in the field and they are quitely replaced.

SoGA, no need to panic just yet. Maybe the coach was trying to see what kind of players the new kids are. If there isn't a lot of action in the outfield it can be tough to tell. Pretty much anyone can stand around. Especially if this was a scrimmage, as you say. The coach needs to know what he has before you get into tournaments.

If it continues then you have cause for concern. Normally I would say outfield is an important position, not a punishment. But at 10U, yeah, it's kind of where you put players you don't think are very good.

Back on the original topic I heard a story from the mom of one of my students. The girl was 10U-eligible, but the 11U coach (who is also president of the organization) said the 10U team was set but he'd like her on the 11U team. It is a town travel program, and the parents felt pretty good about their daughter being asked to play up.

Well, at least until the summer came along. She would pitch as #2 pitcher, but was getting only minimal field team. I watched her pitch one game and she did pretty well. The other team was hitting the ball, but not hard. Unfortunately the defense wasn't very good and they botched a number of routine plays, even at 11U. Most of the outs she got were strikeouts.

Throughout the summer she got less and less field time. Then came the capper this past weekend. The coach brought down a 12U pitcher, and basically gave her all the innings while #1 and #2 rode the bench. Needless to say the parents of my student were unhappy, and I doubt the parents of #1 were too thrilled either. The team took second in whatever local tournament they were in, and the coach was delighted. He said the smiles on the faces of the girls made it worth screwing over the two pitchers.

I guess his strategy worked, but I can't help thinking that another strategy would've been to teach all the girls to play better. If you have to bring in a ringer to win you're not much of a coach.

That team has one more tournament this weekend. My student will not be there. She was told she will pitch a pool game but then no more, and she's already been told she won't be playing the field much so not much point in going.

What a shame that adults care so much about winning that they'll screw over young girls whose only desire is to play softball.

We avoided a team because of this. The coach ran great offseason workouts, paid a lot of attention to DD. We were really sold on him, but he started promising everything and set off my cr@p detector, so we declined.

By March, there were 16 girls on the team and they were alternating a core of 6-7 at every other tournament.

By June, girls started to notice they hadn't played in 3 tournaments. At this point there may have been 18 or more on paper, but the original girls started bailing when they caught on.

Here are the consequences of being on a team where winning is everything and the players are not relevant:

The top 4 to 6 players
- They will have an outstanding experience. They will bat low in the order and they will play every inning and get lots of practice at their positions
- Positive assessment of mistakes: Their errors or poor plays will be explained away as anomalies
- Definition of the top players will be somewhat arbitrary and solely up to the head coach
- Confidence will improve

For the players that are not in the top 6
- They will end the season worse off for the experience and they will be much less well rounded
- Every play they make they will fear making a mistake, because a mistake means they are subject to being benched or being replaced by anybody that can be found
- Negative assessment of mistakes: Every error will be just further proof that they are not a top player
- Their options will be drastically limited, leaving their strongest position. They will get little if any practice at other positions and limited if any field time
- Guest players will have more at bats and opportunities in the field
- They will constantly be concerned that the coach will find someone better at any time and without notice
- Since they are reduced to a part-time player to the team, wins are something accomplished by others
- Confidence will diminish

A player may change from being considered a top player to not being a top player based on the whim of the coach