The State of Softball with Sue Enquist (Jan. 15, 2015)

[SB23]

Our little league's registration is down 10% in the last five years. Travel sports have killed all of the local sports organizations. Sad part is I do not think there is any turning back now.

 

[SoCal_Dad]

I was searching docs, not statements in html, but I'm glad you found this. Aspen does hundreds of projects. I'm sure the coach got more stuff than I get, I work in other research. It bothers me that the underlying research is not there that I can easily find. It also bothers me that is was done by only surveying parents, apparently. I doubt they went into filtering respondents with rec versus TB, with all those sports to survey about.

The first paragraph in the article indicates the participation rates came from a survey by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA). Their reports are not hard to find, but most will cost you if you're not a member - https://www.sfia.org/reports/all. These reports are done by a professional research group and are higher quality than most done for a publication. Here are links to a couple of free ones:
- SAMPLE_SFIA_2012_Single Sport.pdf (Baseball)
- The Journey of Sports Participation in America

 

[riseball]

...Beyond this, you have to look at what you or others did to make the sport cause so much burnout. Sorry, but it is time for a look in the mirror...

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Your contributions to the sport through your postings on DFP are nothing short of legendary. If the state of softball is so screwed up maybe your best contribution would be to walk away.

 

[Me_and_my_big_mouth]

It may be that this early specialization that is hurting youth sports. Kids who used to play in 2 or 3 different sports are now only playing 1. Our HS gives out a certificate to kids who participate in 3 or more sports. its of course the 3 sport athlete award. When my son was a junior in 2010 there were dozens of kids in 11th and 12th grade who qualified. I went to my dd's honors night last year and there were maybe 5. When kids specialize, the numbers of participation for all sports go down. Its not necessarily that there are less youth athletes or that lazy parents who are younger then us don't want their kids to participate... its that kids don't get to play more then 1 sport.

I know that it's been hard on the girls on DD's team who play other sports, because sometimes other parents (not the girls) cluck a little about it, questioning their commitment to the team. It's a shame, really, and it makes the girls feel like they are spread so thin, especially with teams that play year-round on a hardcore travel schedule.

 

[NorthMS]

Here's my speculations on the reason for decline. I've been involved in the youth softball for several years now at our local level.

#1- The lack of parent involvement. Mainly the lack of the Father involvement. ( I know, a certain member here will consider this sexist since Dad's have ruined the sport.) I'm not judging by any means, but over well over 50% of the girls that I've dealt do not have a father living at home with them. They don't get any work at home. For many, their natural ability allows them to compete at the early ages, but it's no longer easy to them by 10u. Most do not get private lessons and the only softball they have is at practice or games for 2-3 months out of the year. So, the eventually quit. The ones getting work in at home, generally move on to TB.
#2- Lack of pitching. The 10u division is awful around here. 5 run max and it's usually reached by walking in the runs. You can go a whole week and see 3 balls put in play. This is a terrible game to watch.
#3- "Those parents". You know the kind. The ones that make it so bad that the DD doesn't want to play anymore. They just take the fun out of a great game.

I don't have the answer to any of these issues, but it's what I've witnessed over the past 8+ years.

 

[Orange Socks]

The local league that I am a part of had 550 registrants last spring. Up from 320 4 years ago. We are seeing a huge wave of players in the 6U/8U divisions moving up. 12 teams 6U and 15 teams in 8U. We are hoping to have 13 teams in the 10U division this season. Now for 14U we are hoping to field 2 teams. I will admit this year I am part of the problem since I took my DD out to play TB full time. I had a core group of girls that I worked with from 10U Allstars for the past 4 years and many are now playing high school ball or have moved on to TB or worse..soccer.! I am still involved on the board and will be coaching a 10U team with my less athletic DD2.

I owe a lot of the high numbers due to the way our organization is structured. For girls we offer Soccer in the fall, Basketball in the winter and softball/lacrosse in the spring. For the boys football/soccer is offered in the fall, basketball in the winter and Baseball in the spring. We basically have families that participate in every sport like a conveyor belt. The kids don't want to miss out playing with their school friends, and I will admit it gets a little nuts at the 8U divisions with parents jockeying for teams with their buddies. But we have grown all of the programs (1500 for basketball!!) with exception to baseball. That is where TB is really taken over. We are also fortunate that we are not competing for players with TB teams with softball. Parents have to seek out a team, and it is a fair drive for any decent organization where we live. So we usually field some really good summer all-star teams since we don't lose them until the older ages.

We mandate coaching clinics for the coaches which helps with the newer coaches. ACE certifications as well help. Nothing replaces bucket time though. We have had Joe Erhman speak to our entire organization's coaches. Look him up Keynotes, Workshops, Seminars - Coach for America - Winning in Life is Everything - Meet Joe which I am sure it a pretty penny too, but we are fortunate to have leadership with great vision.

There are many little things that can be done to help with player retention, but the parents and players need to have a good experience to keep bringing them back. Cooler uniforms, carnival/festival, rule modifications for 10U, good umpires-working on that,
organized all-star program are some things that are important. Keeping the coaches from taking the all-star teams out of the program will help with retention as well. That should be addressed before they are invited to coach. Talent purge really hurts. Especially when only 2 or 3 of the players should be moving to the next level.

I don't think anyone has the answer, but it starts with the parents and leadership within REC and TB organizations to get it right.

 

[Jojo]

Looking at the bright side for my local league.

Since they never could field more than one team in an age group they were always asking for inter-league play for leagues in the area. No one wanted to ever play them so they would just get maybe 1-2 teams that would.

Now that team #'s have dropped for everyone around here, it's easier for them to get more teams willing to play inter-league now.

For the boys now I think they have 5 leagues playing each other.

 

[vikingcoach]

Here's my speculations on the reason for decline. I've been involved in the youth softball for several years now at our local level.

#1- The lack of parent involvement. Mainly the lack of the Father involvement. ( I know, a certain member here will consider this sexist since Dad's have ruined the sport.) I'm not judging by any means, but over well over 50% of the girls that I've dealt do not have a father living at home with them. They don't get any work at home. For many, their natural ability allows them to compete at the early ages, but it's no longer easy to them by 10u. Most do not get private lessons and the only softball they have is at practice or games for 2-3 months out of the year. So, the eventually quit. The ones getting work in at home, generally move on to TB.
#2- Lack of pitching. The 10u division is awful around here. 5 run max and it's usually reached by walking in the runs. You can go a whole week and see 3 balls put in play. This is a terrible game to watch.
#3- "Those parents". You know the kind. The ones that make it so bad that the DD doesn't want to play anymore. They just take the fun out of a great game.

I don't have the answer to any of these issues, but it's what I've witnessed over the past 8+ years.

The local rec league in my area has the same problem with pitching. I think 9-10 years old is young to start kid pitch in rec leagues. We lose many kids because they hate the experience. The game is slow, boring and they learn nothing during the game because an AB results in either a K or a BB. Families committed to pitching can make it work because they invest the time for the daughter to learn how to pitch correctly. For the average girl that age the commitment does not exist. Rec leagues should provide players with the opportunity to learn to love the game itself. In the future, they may then decide to invest more time to improve. What's the magic age to introduce it? I'm not sure. For my area it needs pushed back. Other problems include poor experiences with coaches and money per game ratio. The biggest complaint by far is how boring the game is.

 

[BuckeyeGuy]

The local rec league in my area has the same problem with pitching. I think 9-10 years old is young to start kid pitch in rec leagues. We lose many kids because they hate the experience. The game is slow, boring and they learn nothing during the game because an AB results in either a K or a BB...The biggest complaint by far is how boring the game is.

Heck, my rec league has that problem at 12U! Last year, in a 3 game span, we scored 13, 12, & 15 runs on 1, 0, and 3 hits respectively - and we start with an 0-1 count. We finished runner-up in the end of season touney with 6 players and a couple of 10U's to fill in because I had a TB pitcher who was too bashful to try out the year before.

I don't know what the solution is. Maybe it needs to go the other way, maybe we need to get the kids pitching earlier. Our 10U division has the girls pitch 4, then the coach finishes the at bat with a 3 pitch max. It works OK until the girls figure out to just take all the kid pitches.

 

[Ken Krause]

One thing you might try doing is holding pitching clinics for multiple girls at one time to teach them the basics. I did that for several years here with our local rec league and a couple of others when I worked out of a facility that encouraged it.

You're not going to make them aces, but you can at least them going and help them become competent at getting the ball in the strike zone without resorting to bowling or just chucking it in there any old way. A few might want to move on to individual lessons, but even if they don't the games should be more fun for all the girls, and pitching should be a positive rather than negative experience.

Group lessons help keep the cost down.