- Jul 20, 2013
- 71
- 8
Long story short, my family had DD in a top travel team for the past 3 years and slapped pretty good. She played up with girls almost 3 yrs older and we reached the point of diminishing returns and DD was already demotivated by hitting balls in the dirt over and over. She's over it. I have to disclaim I was also a coach past 6 years, my couple months not being involved and I don't want to right now.
So, we moved clubs and to help with the new life we went full speed ahead into letting her hit away. We're investing lots of money in lessons (she's now 11 playing 12u) because since she was 8 she never had a chance to hit away and all the fun that comes with it. She was prev a righty then slapper so coach would never let her hit away or train her hit away for those 3 years.
Anyway, past 9 months have gone well with her new team hitting away, home run, triples, doubles, etc. Then out of the blue Mr. Coach starts calling slap all double header long. DD has long forgotten how to slap - been almost a year since shes done it. She had to make it up on the spot.
Mr. Head Coach says to me he's offended because in high school players can't say what they don't want. He keeps ranting about bunting and how my DD only wants to hit away - and I keep telling him she will do every REQUIRED SKILL of the game like bunting. He just can't let it go - keeps talking about bunting and doing what she's told.
I explained to Mr. HC that slapping is a specialty skill that is optional in this sport. No player should be asked to slap if they aren't doing it, don't know how to do it, and have no interest to do it - it's an optional skill.
Just like how every player shouldn't be forced to learn pitching or catching. If you're interested and want to try it, go ahead. On the other hand, I think every player should more or less play every position if they can safely do so with a chance at reasonable success.
Every player imo should learn how to bunt, steal, slide, warm the bench, etch. Other thing that irritated me more is none of those coaches have ever developed a slapper. DD says in the games they just gave a "Slap" signal - our travel club would've signaled the type of slap and where. These new coaches understand the result but to me, fail to understand the process to achieve the result they want isn't what they are facilitating for my DD.
Still no agreement on that - but at least they agreed to stop signaling slap. In turn I budged and said I'll kind of keep her greased with walk through hitting drills and that if they need it - only call power slap. I'm trying to be fair...but DD still doesn't want to do it.
So, we moved clubs and to help with the new life we went full speed ahead into letting her hit away. We're investing lots of money in lessons (she's now 11 playing 12u) because since she was 8 she never had a chance to hit away and all the fun that comes with it. She was prev a righty then slapper so coach would never let her hit away or train her hit away for those 3 years.
Anyway, past 9 months have gone well with her new team hitting away, home run, triples, doubles, etc. Then out of the blue Mr. Coach starts calling slap all double header long. DD has long forgotten how to slap - been almost a year since shes done it. She had to make it up on the spot.
Mr. Head Coach says to me he's offended because in high school players can't say what they don't want. He keeps ranting about bunting and how my DD only wants to hit away - and I keep telling him she will do every REQUIRED SKILL of the game like bunting. He just can't let it go - keeps talking about bunting and doing what she's told.
I explained to Mr. HC that slapping is a specialty skill that is optional in this sport. No player should be asked to slap if they aren't doing it, don't know how to do it, and have no interest to do it - it's an optional skill.
Just like how every player shouldn't be forced to learn pitching or catching. If you're interested and want to try it, go ahead. On the other hand, I think every player should more or less play every position if they can safely do so with a chance at reasonable success.
Every player imo should learn how to bunt, steal, slide, warm the bench, etch. Other thing that irritated me more is none of those coaches have ever developed a slapper. DD says in the games they just gave a "Slap" signal - our travel club would've signaled the type of slap and where. These new coaches understand the result but to me, fail to understand the process to achieve the result they want isn't what they are facilitating for my DD.
Still no agreement on that - but at least they agreed to stop signaling slap. In turn I budged and said I'll kind of keep her greased with walk through hitting drills and that if they need it - only call power slap. I'm trying to be fair...but DD still doesn't want to do it.