High schools losing programs

[CrazyNani]

It's sad to say, but several high schools in our county, all playing in the same league, are suspending their softball programs for next year due to lack of interest. This is incredibly disappointing as you can imagine. Only one high school has both a Varsity and JV team but the JV team has only teams from out of the area to play. This school may get the few players from another school losing their program as the kids have an option to attend either school. With Covid affecting all teams this year, who knows what things will look like next year, but I'm guessing it will be difficult for freshmen to break onto the JV team now if other girls transfer over. My question is, is anyone else seeing this problem in other areas? We do have the travel teams here, but they end after 14u for the same reason. It's an affluent county so the girls have many options, even outside of sports to focus their attention on. It's just sad for the interested players that may not have any team to play on. Is there a better way to generate interest? Is it the travel teams not instilling enough joy in the game? Bad luck? What? It isn't just softball being affected either. I suggest better outreach from the athletic directors and perhaps, organized summer programs.

 

[BT3100]

What state?

 

[CrazyNani]

What state?

North of San Francisco, CA

 

[Big Daddy Michigan]

Not in Michigan...

 

[sluggers]

Baseball/softball, more than any other sport, depends upon the parents. I don't think parents are interested in it...the affluent burbs are multi-cultural, and a lot of the cultures don't have softball/baseball.

Parents don't want to spend time teaching the fundamentals. Coaches don't have the time to work with a kid on throwing or catching. A parent has to play pitch and catch for hours with these young kids, or they will never learn to play the game. We underestimate how hard it is to be even mediocre at throwing, catching and hitting a ball.

 

[625ender]

Its definitely something lurking on the horizon.. Youth athletics across the board are being effected.. You can be whomever you want to be on the phone, so why actually sweat or get hurt?

The female athletes that have desire seem to be gravitating to volleyball, lacrosse or basketball

 

[radness]

Travel ball will continue.

 

[CalvinBall]

Our county school system just announced that they are moving to online only learning after previously stating they were going to let families have a choice between in-class or online. Have not yet heard how this will affect fall sports (we play softball in the fall in Georgia).

Depending on the school in our county, the school is either loaded with so much talent (ours) that it can bring 50+ girls out to tryouts and field Freshman, JV, and Varsity teams or will have relatively few girls trying out and thus will have girls playing JV and Varsity. I have no idea yet how moving to online only is going to affect those school that don't have a large player pool to draw from.

Our travel coach has stated we will be looking to practice and possibly play tournaments if school ball gets cancelled.

 

[InsidePitch]

Baseball/softball, more than any other sport, depends upon the parents. I don't think parents are interested in it...the affluent burbs are multi-cultural, and a lot of the cultures don't have softball/baseball.

Parents don't want to spend time teaching the fundamentals. Coaches don't have the time to work with a kid on throwing or catching. A parent has to play pitch and catch for hours with these young kids, or they will never learn to play the game. We underestimate how hard it is to be even mediocre at throwing, catching and hitting a ball.

After DD went to college I was asked to coach a team for the old REC league she started in. When she was there there were 1 or 2 South Asian kids. When I looked at my team there were two caucasians and the rest South Asian. I had to teach them everything. Their parents didn't own gloves much less how to use them. It was an eye opener for sure but 3 years later I see some of them moving into middle school and have a firm grasp on the game. AND a few fathers have taken a bigger interest.

Overall interest is down for SB and BB. We used to field 6-8 10U girls teams. This year we were down to 3 and those had 10-11 girl rosters.

 

[Nimrod]

Fastpitch is a great sport, but not an easy sell. It's kinda scary, with balls coming at you out of the hands of young pitchers that don't often know where the ball is going. And it's a sport where most of your time is spent waiting. It can be 90 minutes for 2 at-bats and 1 fly ball. And if it's rec league, you might be lucky to get 2 pitches to hit. And as others have mentioned, it can't easily be practiced on your own. So many obstacles. And now so much competition. Baseball was America's pasttime decades ago when there were fewer alternatives. I don't mean to be negative, as none of this is a criticism of a great sport. It's just its nature. I don't know the answer.