- Nov 3, 2012
- 480
- 16
My perception is that the good high school teams are getting better and the bad teams are getting worse. Based on my observations of my DD team and scores you see on Maxpreps, the good teams killing the weaker teams. I'm also seeing teams are running up scores more to inflate stats on these weaker teams. I saw a local score last night of 38-0, and i'm pretty sure this was a softball score and not football.
My theory of why is happening is that the schools who are better off socio-economically have more kids playing travel ball because they can afford to do it. As a result, these schools are getting over saturated with good travel players. My DD school and we have over 30 travel players between JV and Varsity and we're good as a result. Our school district in general, is pretty well off. I look at some other school districts in the state, well lets say aren't doing well economically and there softball teams are very uncompetitive. Not trying to be political, there is also a socio-economic segregation in our country were that segregation occurs on school district border lines. Im guilty as anybody contributing to this.
As mentioned earlier, difference between the haves and have not's is extremely accentuated in softball. This isn't something new, as this has always happened, but I think the problem is getting worse. Its also affecting the participation rate. What's also happening is a lot schools are not fielding a JV program this year because they're not getting kids out. Our JV team is good, but they don't have anybody to play anymore. There are other reasons affecting this likes sports specialization. But the overall affect is the high school softball is a lot of boring blowout games and super inflated stats.
My theory of why is happening is that the schools who are better off socio-economically have more kids playing travel ball because they can afford to do it. As a result, these schools are getting over saturated with good travel players. My DD school and we have over 30 travel players between JV and Varsity and we're good as a result. Our school district in general, is pretty well off. I look at some other school districts in the state, well lets say aren't doing well economically and there softball teams are very uncompetitive. Not trying to be political, there is also a socio-economic segregation in our country were that segregation occurs on school district border lines. Im guilty as anybody contributing to this.
As mentioned earlier, difference between the haves and have not's is extremely accentuated in softball. This isn't something new, as this has always happened, but I think the problem is getting worse. Its also affecting the participation rate. What's also happening is a lot schools are not fielding a JV program this year because they're not getting kids out. Our JV team is good, but they don't have anybody to play anymore. There are other reasons affecting this likes sports specialization. But the overall affect is the high school softball is a lot of boring blowout games and super inflated stats.