Setting up HS tryouts

You have your work cut out sir. I applaud you and wish you well. Feed and water and support that MS program, and reap what you sow.
VW

PS: Pitching. Pitching. Pitching. Come up with a long range plan to supply depth at this position for future years. Support and help those MS guys to help you with this!

Sparky Guy said:

They must now compete with all the other schools in the post season playoffs. Since that started no Chicago team has made it down state. Often, several will forfeit their post season games by not showing up. The majority of them who do play never make it out of the first round of playoffs unless it's against all city teams.

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A reasonable alternative if coach could network and get other schools on board would be to forego the IHSA state tournament and put together your own post-season city tourney. Make it a big deal for these less fortunate programs.

reagansdaddy said:

Coach JD - Kudos to you for choosing to work with inner-city kids. This is certainly an undersupported demographic in our sport in many ways, although I know several MLB RBI programs that do an excellent job.

One thought - could you keep them all but only dress 15 for away games? Kind of like a college football team will dress 100 or more for home games but only travel with 45. Maybe have a rotation built for the 14th and 15th roster spot so each girl gets to travel at least once a season?

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This is something I'm considering, but I'm not sure if the girls will stick with it if they're not with the team at games. Parents may not be thrilled, either. I think managing that would take some finesse I'm not sure I have.

I think it would be easier (not necessarily better) to tell the ones who don't make it that we'd like them to keep practicing with the team if they're interested. I'll have to talk with my ACs about that.

I heard this from a volleyball coach once: Put them all on the line and anyone that is wearing a watch or has unathletic socks on gets cut. Now it is a joke, but it has a lot of validity to it.

vdubya said:

You have your work cut out sir. I applaud you and wish you well. Feed and water and support that MS program, and reap what you sow.
VW

PS: Pitching. Pitching. Pitching. Come up with a long range plan to supply depth at this position for future years. Support and help those MS guys to help you with this!

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I'm far from a pitching expert, but because of DFP, I know what needs to be taught, if that makes sense. The junior high HC is on board, and has even asked me for the videos (BM, java, Hillhouse, etc.) so she is teaching the right thing. But from what I've seen, pitching is not particularly strong around here. All I need is a solid pitcher every 4 years (and no injuries ever...) and we can compete.

Doing our own postseason tournament is a good idea. Not sure if IHSA has rules about that, but I'm sure it would come down to money. I'm all for giving the girls some end of season goal to shoot for though, which is why I intend to play in the state tournament even if we're going to be one-and-done. We're not in a conference, so if we don't play in the tournament, we're basically just playing a bunch of games for the sake of doing it. There's some value in that, but I want them to treat the season as preparation for the tournament.

Hawkeyes said:

I heard this from a volleyball coach once: Put them all on the line and anyone that is wearing a watch or has unathletic socks on gets cut. Now it is a joke, but it has a lot of validity to it.

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At the player/parent meeting I'm holding (really I'm holding the same meeting three different times because it's so hard to get parents there), I actually spend some time talking about appropriate attire. You know, I had to put "Tie your hair up" in the team rules this year because I got so sick of girls having three feet of hair wrapping around their heads during windy March practices.

So I get that what you're saying is a joke, but I put in the team rules what is expected of their dress at practice. If someone shows up to tryouts in their school clothes, that's not going to help their chances.

Hey Coach,

Since you are finally seeing growth, I would suggest keeping all the players you can, that you feel could improve and offer merit the next few years. Remember, you are building a program. Now, I understand your concern about the bus size, or rather, the van size, so you can create a schedule where you only take twelve to each game. Try to determine your competition, and take the weaker players to the weaker teams in your division.

It takes three years to develop a decent program. With one under your belt, use year two to size up the rest of your division.

As for tryouts, I recommend this. Have the players move through the stations, not the coaches. Create a scoring rubric for each coach, and create a rostered list. At the end of the evening, have each coach rank each player at their specific station. Your top twelve will come from the top ten on each list, by sheer overlap. It will also help you develop remediation and practice planning. Lastly, it gives you something tangible to speak to the athlete about, the athlete's parents, and select/little league coaches about.

I use a simple 5 point system.
1 - Unfamiliar
2 - Developing
3 - Competent
The other two spots are 1.5, and 2.5 which mean that they are coachable and improve within the drill.

The things you need to see and grade: I tailored these to your comment about being in a gym.
Hit off a T (Lower half, upper half, contact point to extension)
Ground Ball (Approach, field, transition)
Fly Ball (Approach, field, transition)
Throw (Lower half, upper half, release, and movement of catching player - ideally, little of not movement needed)
Run to First (Out of box, stride and arms, breakdown after bag)

Hope this helps,

JD,

You should have two payment accounts, district & team. District pays equipment, travel, etc. Team is yours to accrue your own balance to spend as you see fit. Run a couple clinics for fund-raising. You'll supplement district & can team-subsidize the small bus.

You're in a unique scenario & only you understand the demographics involved.

You could run the tryouts to set precident. Staff fully with coaches who are on board with your vision. Keep all, using your first week of practice as a probationary period. Include a parent/player expectation form. You may even gain players during that first week.

With 20 kids, you automatically have more training possibilities at your disposal. Creativity inter-squad.

Practice max days allowable & schedule inter-squad scrimmages & scrimmages against other comparable programs. Have fun with it, take your kids into the suburbs for a scrimmage or two. Maybe even a day trip up to Bob Tomlinson's Spring Jamboree in Poynette (by Madison) could be a possibility.

Are there any barriers to prevent you from forming your own non-profit summer club team to supplement your goals at the HS level?

Chris

CoachJD -- best of luck to you. Just fyi, check out Bash Sports Academy, which is based in the city and is providing faspitch instruction and working to establish some travel teams, right now at younger ages. See if they'd be interested in helping you or doing some group clinics. Maybe some of your girls could help form the start of a 16U/18U travel team. Reach out to Marisa Bast there, she's great. The Lentis at DePaul used to be involved in city travel softball, not sure if they are anymore...Loyola, Northwestern and UIUC all have strong softball programs and there are a ton of local D3s that might be willing to donate some time to you. Talk to other coaches in your conference and brainstorm about developing softball in the city. That may all seem like overkill but I think if you want to do more than just survive you need to think like that...good luck to you. Above all: be generous with these kids (I believe from listening to you that you will do just that)...IMO, bus and uniform issues aside, don't cut any and show them a path to getting better.

Based on the comments I've gotten here and in another thread, I realize I should've given some more info on the school's situation.

We're a public charter school, so we're kind of on an island athletically. As far as I know, we are the only public charter that's not operated by Chicago Public Schools, which means two things. 1) I don't have to deal with any CPS BS, but also, 2) We're not in a conference, not eligible for the city tournament (state tournament is mostly not worth the time of city schools, from what other coaches have told me), and we have to schedule an entirely non-conference schedule (I did get us 21 games this year, which ain't too shabby for a first year).

Anyway, an update. We had 22 girls sign up. We set up a player/parent meeting to go over team rules & expectations (as much for parents as the kids). 3 girls who signed up never attended one of the meetings (I held FOUR different group meetings and three different individual meetings; I was more than available), so they didn't try out. Two other girls who did attend the meeting decided not to try out. And one player, a girl who I fully expected to make the team, is injured. So in the end we had 16 trying out for 14 spots. After the first day, I talked with my ACs and we decided to just keep everybody and figure out transportation later. I would've made cuts to get to my preferred 14 or 15 with 22 trying out, but I wasn't going to cut two girls. And that was a great decision.

We didn't tell them right away on Tuesday. Instead, we had them do some pretty grueling running. Then, when they were hating us just the right amount, we let them know they all made the team and the rest of the day would be more of a general evaluation as we try to find out who can play what position, starters, etc. One girl who has never played before (and might only be a pinch runner for a while as she learns the game/develops other skills) actually asked me if I was joking. A couple of them looked like they were going to cry.

It's a great group of kids, almost no experience to speak of, but they all flashed something at tryouts that helped us decide to keep them all. Of the 16, there's really only one girl who I think probably doesn't have an obvious skill we can develop, but that doesn't mean we won't try or that I'm giving up. Just a small-sample scouting report. Every other girl has a little something. Maybe she could hit a little, or she had a good arm, or she was pretty fast. Something we can work on, develop, and utilize.

The best part is that we have 8 or 9 Freshmen, and every one of them works hard (and one is already one of our 3 or 4 best players). You'd better believe the Sophomores and Juniors on the team have noticed.

RichK,

Thanks for all that info. There is a local rec league, and since our school is K-11 (K-12 next year), we're going to get a 13U team in that league for our junior high girls this year. I won't be coaching that team, but I am thinking of doing a summer team for the high school girls who are interested.

I've met close to a dozen coaches in the city over the past couple weeks. A few coach teams on our schedule this year. It sounds like many of them are in the same boat as us for the most part. Lots of girls who have no experience, and no pitching to speak of. And from what I can tell, there aren't many -- or any -- good pitching coaches who do private lessons in the city. Not all of these kids can afford expensive lessons regularly, but some can; they just don't have many options. The one person I found who does private lessons nearby teaches HE, so she's out.

I know high school ball isn't always important, and many of the better players play travel ball. I get it, and it makes sense. But what doesn't make a lick of sense to me is just how underdeveloped softball is in Chicago. There's a few teams. A couple high schools aren't half bad. It's not that there's tons of girls in the area who play and just don't play for their schools. So many girls who clearly have some natural ability just never, ever played. It's actually a little bit frustrating to see so much untapped potential.