Diaries of a Dysfunctional Travel Ball Season

[Cannonball]

Ok, so if I understand you correctly the following is normal travel ball:

- team formed in September but never receiving an equipment bag until May and never getting cleats that were promised and paid for;

- qualifying for an end of the year national tournament (which was a goal at the beginning of the season) but deciding not to play because the competition is weak or it's too much money?;

- in the middle of the season adding both young players (10u and 14u) without consulting the 12u families who are shelling out $150 a month dues,

- complete lack of communication including no email or text that the season is over. These girls have been playing together for 10 months and not a single email acknowledging the end of the season?

Again this is well established travel ball org with 20+ years of experience.

Maybe my expectations are too high? But when I coached I took the job seriously and didn't leave parents and players hanging but maybe this is the current status of travel ball.

I agree with softballphreak that this list in condensed version is a "Wow Factor." I would have to say that this is dysfunctional at best. As an FYI, I am a jerk when it comes to me paying money and not getting what I paid for. If I had paid for cleats, they had darn well better show up. DD guest played on a regular basis for a team when she was 12 and they were 14. It was really like she was on their team every other weekend. They qualified for a national tournament with BB pitching and then, opted to stay local at a "Northern National." It was not pretty when the various parents became involved in what they thought that they had paid for and what they received. So, yeah, that does happen more than it should. (Side note, the national qualifying game was the "spider bite" game for BB. I'm sure some of you might remember that. Adding players is always a sticky subject and especially when long time team members have to sit. In short, I ain't hip. Finally, there is no reason for a lack of communication.

 

[grcsftbll]

I'm not a fan of punishing errors in general. Definitely make them run for lack of hustle or not giving it 100%, but not a genuine mistake. My kid is pretty sensitive, and she's really hard on herself. If she messes up, she knows it. She doesn't need to be browbeaten for it. We wouldn't last long on a team like that.

 

[Rocketech1]

I'm not a fan of punishing errors in general. Definitely make them run for lack of hustle or not giving it 100%, but not a genuine mistake. My kid is pretty sensitive, and she's really hard on herself. If she messes up, she knows it. She doesn't need to be browbeaten for it. We wouldn't last long on a team like that.

Agree, and thankfully the coaches got the message and stopped this "running for errors" after the first few months of the season.

I did want to say that I really do appreciate all the volunteer time these coaches put into the season, I just think they were over their heads and had some misguided coaching style that didn't make for a good season for anyone involved. I really doubt these guys will be coaching in the future. They can't be happy how the season unfolded.

 

[Dusty]

Ok, so if I understand you correctly the following is normal travel ball:

- team formed in September but never receiving an equipment bag until May and never getting cleats that were promised and paid for;

- qualifying for an end of the year national tournament (which was a goal at the beginning of the season) but deciding not to play because the competition is weak or it's too much money?;

- in the middle of the season adding both young players (10u and 14u) without consulting the 12u families who are shelling out $150 a month dues,

- complete lack of communication including no email or text that the season is over. These girls have been playing together for 10 months and not a single email acknowledging the end of the season?

Again this is well established travel ball org with 20+ years of experience.

Maybe my expectations are too high? But when I coached I took the job seriously and didn't leave parents and players hanging but maybe this is the current status of travel ball.

I'll qualify my previously quoted post by saying that having all those things happen to your particular team is fairly unique but a few of those have happened with my dd and I've heard of similar events happening with other teams in my dd's age group (sounds like you'll have a lot of good stories to tell at tryouts next month). As far as similarities we've experienced vs hear of:

Ok, the equipment order in September not being received until the following May is not anything I've experienced or heard of happening. What happens all the time though is equipment orders in the Fall when the team is formed don't come until winter and some parents who left the team after the fall season complaining about getting stuck with useless gear.

Qualifying for a national tourney and not going: Yes, it happened to my dd in our first year of travel and was the result of much parent/coaches drama that reduced our team to 9 by seasons end. Worse still, this happened to my older dd's 12u team and my younger dd's 10u team in the same org was going to nationals. I got lucky and found a different 12u team that was going to the same nationals that needed a pitcher so they took my dd. Although this team wasn't as good as my dd's team that didn't go it was a good experience for her and she enjoyed nationals.

Adding players in the middle of season: It's happened to my dd's teams but for us it's usually been for valid reasons such as injuries, replacing players who left the team, etc. One year my dd's team had a frequent guest player and a few of us approached to coach discretely and asked him to either add her to the roster and have her family pay dues or part ways. He replied that her family was going through divorce induced financial hardship so we agreed to let her guest play with us as much as she wanted. A lot of teams will add players to their roster in an attempt to get better players but they always seem to fall apart the following year (see the cutthroat teams thread).

Lack of communication: Yes, all the time. Oddly enough though the coach that was horrible in many ways for my dd in her first year of travel and blew up the team rather than take them to nationals was very good at communications which gave me time to find a team for my dd to guest play for at nationals.

Established Orgs: These are usually the worst offenders of the things you've detailed. They always have multiple teams, often a few in the same age group and a constant flow of coaches going in and out of the organization as kids age up or quit playing. I had both my kids in our areas most high profile org in the same year at 12u and 14u and it was a great experience for my older dd and the worst for my younger dd. This org routinely gets 40-60 kids at their tryouts but when they had tryouts the next year for this particular team one returning player showed up (not counting the coach's dd) and 4 rec players attended.

 

[gator5]

Enjoyed your post. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.