Meh...what's done is done.
In my experience, you can only have two out of the following three:
1. A winning team
2. Good team chemistry
3. Your kid playing / batting where you'd put her if you wrote the lineup
It looks like you only had one of those three. I don't blame you for looking elsewhere.
Not being in this to send DD to play for Patty Gasso, I learned to value good team chemistry above all else. As constant losing also sucks, a winning team was next. With those two boxes checked, where DD found herself in the lineup was of reduced importance. That's not to say that she spent much time on the bench...she didn't. However, her placement in the batting lineup often wasn't what she deserved. For years with the same team, DD performed at least as well as most of those hitting above her, including the Coach's Kid, but Mr Coach didn't like to swap things around. Fortunately, a monkey could have chosen names out of a hat and we'd been fine. Everyone got along pretty well, and that made the games more enjoyable.
DD did pick up a couple tournaments with a team where some of the entrenched players weren't unfriendly off the field, but extremely bossy on it. Worse, their direction was often stupid, and the coach did nothing to fix it. Although that team sometimes won anyway, and DD did bat much higher in the lineup, we quickly tired of the atmosphere.
Although it's tougher to find an established younger team, be cautious with startups. The longest running team in my area was a 10U REC team that went through HS as one of the better teams in the state. I'd say the average lifespan of a team is 2-3 years. There are some college ball players in 10U Rec right now, and lots of 10U studs out of the game by HS. Promises of growing a teenage powerhouse from 8U are a bit far-fetched.
In my experience, you can only have two out of the following three:
1. A winning team
2. Good team chemistry
3. Your kid playing / batting where you'd put her if you wrote the lineup
It looks like you only had one of those three. I don't blame you for looking elsewhere.
Not being in this to send DD to play for Patty Gasso, I learned to value good team chemistry above all else. As constant losing also sucks, a winning team was next. With those two boxes checked, where DD found herself in the lineup was of reduced importance. That's not to say that she spent much time on the bench...she didn't. However, her placement in the batting lineup often wasn't what she deserved. For years with the same team, DD performed at least as well as most of those hitting above her, including the Coach's Kid, but Mr Coach didn't like to swap things around. Fortunately, a monkey could have chosen names out of a hat and we'd been fine. Everyone got along pretty well, and that made the games more enjoyable.
DD did pick up a couple tournaments with a team where some of the entrenched players weren't unfriendly off the field, but extremely bossy on it. Worse, their direction was often stupid, and the coach did nothing to fix it. Although that team sometimes won anyway, and DD did bat much higher in the lineup, we quickly tired of the atmosphere.
Although it's tougher to find an established younger team, be cautious with startups. The longest running team in my area was a 10U REC team that went through HS as one of the better teams in the state. I'd say the average lifespan of a team is 2-3 years. There are some college ball players in 10U Rec right now, and lots of 10U studs out of the game by HS. Promises of growing a teenage powerhouse from 8U are a bit far-fetched.
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