To answer your specific question - Yes. DD plays 3B and always wears a facemask. She has verbally committed to a top 25 D1 school.
Pitching Mask and College
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To answer your specific question - Yes. DD plays 3B and always wears a facemask. She has verbally committed to a top 25 D1 school.
- Nov 18, 2013
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There are plenty of good reasons to wear a mask and girls should be able to without fear of being picked on or worrying what coaches will think. I also don’t think we need to question parenting skills or think people aren’t concerned about safety if they don’t make kids wear them.
- Jul 4, 2014
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Congratulations 29dad. That's great to hear! If those players on our team know this info, I'm sure at least half would change their mind about not wanting to wear the face mask.
If a kid has their face crushed while they are trying to be recruited they'll likely have less success in their pursuit than someone wearing a mask. My kid has been hit in the face and has no desire to go through that again. She chooses to always wear a mask on the infield now. Her cheek bone was flattened and her sinus fractured, and she knows how lucky she is. She wouldn't want to play for a coach that cares more about looks than safety.
My DD asked her coach directly about the mask as she is weaning her way out of it.
Her college coach told her if she gets outs, why should it matter
Her college coach told her if she gets outs, why should it matter
Our TB team had 4 pitchers this summer. Three pitchers wore masks and one didn't. One of the pitchers that wore a mask pitched in college this past spring. She wore the mask during the college season as well as TB. The other two pitchers wear masks and are being recruited to pitch in college.....one of them is being heavily recruited (D1).
- Feb 22, 2013
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This seems feasible. Heck, this same logic is probably the reason that I didn't date more in high school, because I worried more about how I thought other people perceived me as a person than I did about taking risks and asking out the girls that I wanted to get to know. It wasn't until I attended my 10 and 20 year reunions that I found out the same girls that I wanted to ask out were the same girls that said that they had wished I had asked them out. Perception of how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us is definetely different.
Too bad these girls didn't watch the Softball WCWS for the last two years, because if they had, they would of seen a team where the 3rd base coach enters the field and wears a protective helmet while coaching 3rd base. The same team had the majority of their hitters, if not all of their hitters, wear protective cages on their batting helmets. It wasn't long ago, that we were talking about how no good college hitter would wear a protective cage on a batting helmet because of reasons like, it would distract the hitter from seeing the ball, or the extra couple of ounces on the helmet would slow the batter/runner down. I think these perceptions have been debunked, as I have seen protective cages on batting helmets in the Softball NPF league this year.
Perception that wearing a protective mask is a sign of weakness is probably just a perception in todays game of softball. I am betting that the reality is that a college coach wants his/her elite athletes to be available for the entire season. Losing a player because of an injury can be a season changer. If a college player wanted to wear a protective face mask to increase her ability to be available for an entire season, I don't think many college coaches would mind. Good college coaches are looking for a competive advantage.
Male machoism keeps the protective cages off of the batting helmets in the college and professional leagues in baseball. Luckily, college softball and the women's softball NPF don't have to deal with the stereotypical male machoisms. The protective face mask is part of the TB, HS and college softball game. College coaches are recruiting girls who wear masks every year. I think that they recruit foot speed, hitting, arm strength and several other athletic attributes, long before they ever look to see if a girl is wearing a mask or not.
Just my perception.
Email college coaches and ask their opinions directly. Don't guess what they think.
obbay
Banned
The safe response to that email question from a complete stranger would be to say that it doesn't matter- no matter what your actual opinion is.
