- Oct 22, 2009
- 1,779
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I told my local league I'd come out for skills day and work with the girls that wanted to be pitchers.
A little back story about my local league.
Small town, (actually it encompasses two small towns) league has one boys field and one youth field it serves the T-ballers, and girls softball.
Big softball girls have to use the boys field with a mound. The boys field is the only one with lights.
So over the years there hasn't been much interest in softball. 3 years ago it was almost abandoned when only 8 girls signed up.
Then this wonderful parent decided this shouldn't happen and he went around the communities bringing awareness to the program. Along came some other interested parents and through tons of hard work over the last 2 years the program is coming back to life.
They got volunteers to repair the press box, fences and fields. Got a lot of local businesses to sponsor the program. Got the county to repave the road. Set up a social network page and this year got registration flyers included into the water bills.
88 girls signed up! from 8 to 88 in 3 years! --only about 54 boys signed up.
MOST of these girls have never played before. The entire 14u team has never played. They don't even have a coach right now, but have some parents that said they'd help out.
At skills day, they set up the girls by age groups and I went around each group asking who pitched. I got 3. 2 were my students and one from another instructor.
There are 2 10u teams and 2 of the pitchers are on one team.
SO 1 10u has NO PITCHER
1 12u team has one pitcher
1 14u--NO PITCHER!
So I worked with about 16 girls on Saturday trying to get some interested.
So far I've had one call. But at least it was from a 14u!
Still a little nervous about the other 10u team and no pitcher.
Going to need a good pitching base to keep this program going, just hope I can get somewhere with this Saturday pre-season program.
I'll let you know how it goes!
A little back story about my local league.
Small town, (actually it encompasses two small towns) league has one boys field and one youth field it serves the T-ballers, and girls softball.
Big softball girls have to use the boys field with a mound. The boys field is the only one with lights.
So over the years there hasn't been much interest in softball. 3 years ago it was almost abandoned when only 8 girls signed up.
Then this wonderful parent decided this shouldn't happen and he went around the communities bringing awareness to the program. Along came some other interested parents and through tons of hard work over the last 2 years the program is coming back to life.
They got volunteers to repair the press box, fences and fields. Got a lot of local businesses to sponsor the program. Got the county to repave the road. Set up a social network page and this year got registration flyers included into the water bills.
88 girls signed up! from 8 to 88 in 3 years! --only about 54 boys signed up.
MOST of these girls have never played before. The entire 14u team has never played. They don't even have a coach right now, but have some parents that said they'd help out.
At skills day, they set up the girls by age groups and I went around each group asking who pitched. I got 3. 2 were my students and one from another instructor.
There are 2 10u teams and 2 of the pitchers are on one team.
SO 1 10u has NO PITCHER
1 12u team has one pitcher
1 14u--NO PITCHER!
So I worked with about 16 girls on Saturday trying to get some interested.
So far I've had one call. But at least it was from a 14u!
Still a little nervous about the other 10u team and no pitcher.
Going to need a good pitching base to keep this program going, just hope I can get somewhere with this Saturday pre-season program.
I'll let you know how it goes!