high school/rec ball barrier

[Orange Socks]

Texas Rule: There are no rules! I have asked around, and not one person could give me a straight answer. Some said that if you are on varsity you can not play outside of high school ball. Others have said, it's the high school coach's decision.

My DD's team is comprised of mostly 8th graders, but played a tourney with bunches of 9th graders playing on other teams. I know that some of them play Varsity ball for their schools and that many of the '00 14U teams went dark for the spring.

This is what I found in the Texas UIL rule book.
Q: May athletes participate on non-school teams during the school season?
A: Yes. UIL rule does not prohibit students from playing on non-school teams during the school year. Local policy
may be more restrictive than UIL rules.

 

[MsDinosaur]

Same in MI. TB hands off from tryouts till the day your school team is eliminated from state tourney.

Yep, it's this way in Missouri too. This fall was our difficult season where half the team were HS freshmen and half were 8th graders. The TB coaches temporarily merged the 8th graders with the 8th graders of another MO team so that they could play a few tourneys while waiting for the older girls to return.

We did have a meet and greet early in the fall to have girls sized for uniforms, but the coach wouldn't let them touch bats or balls.

 

[BobInMadison]

The no competition rule is really drilled into the students at the local HS. (As I mentioned, practices are OK, but not games.)

The big cautionary story they give at the kids' HS is this: the HS almost always wins the conference in basketball, almost always goes to the state tourney, and sometimes even wins, so basketball is a big deal. One time, years and years ago, one of the star basketball players was practicing in the local YMCA gym. It turns out that their was a rec ball tourney that day. While the kid was practicing, some of his friends on a rec ball team came in to warm up, and asked him to practice with them. So far, no problems. When it was time for the game, they asked their friend to play with their team for just that one game. So, he did.

Big mistake. The star basketball player was suspended from the HS team for a few games for playing one game with a rec ball team.