Twitter blowing up about 7th grade rankings

[_MIA_]

I could guess at several morals to that story. Is there a main one for you? Or just a story.

Your view of your self worth should never be based in any way about how good you are at something or how good others think you are. Because of this my happiness was tied to how well I was playing..that should never be. I know it sounds cliche..but that is the reality. I felt like everybody thought a certain thing of me (eg I was good) and then when I failed (as everybody does) I wasn't living up to this expectation. In HS if I had a bad game I would be miserable for days..The only way it would go away was if I went and practiced..it wasn't healthy.

Like I said, my parents did nothing to foster this other than my Dad passing on his love for the game to me. It was a combination of my personality combined with early success combined with hearing and liking (who doesn't...) the praise. It isn't necessarily as easy as saying well the parents can control this by keeping their kids grounded..my brother and sister were both really good athletes (my sister much,much better than me) and never had these issues. Some people are wired differently.

I am sure 95% (eg some high number) of people will deal with all of this fine. In reality I was fine eventually (well depends on whether you think I am fine or not now..debatable). However is whatever benefit these lists give worth the negative effects on some (perhaps small) percentage of people?? I guess the question is how would kid's enjoyment,development, etc be negatively effected if they were to go away?

 

[PapaBear]

Your view of your self worth should never be based in any way about how good you are at something or how good others think you are. Because of this my happiness was tied to how well I was playing..that should never be. I know it sounds cliche..but that is the reality.

Like I said, my parents did nothing to foster this other than my Dad passing on his love for the game to me. It was a combination of my personality combined with early success combined with hearing and liking (who doesn't...) the praise. It isn't necessarily as easy as saying well the parents can control this by keeping their kids grounded..my brother and sister were both really good athletes (my sister much,much better than me) and never had these issues. Some people are wired differently.

I am sure 95% (eg some high number) of people will deal with all of this fine. In reality I was fine eventually (well depends on whether you think I am fine or not now..debatable). However is whatever benefit these lists give worth the negative effects on some (perhaps small) percentage of people??

Agree with ones self worth not defined by the sport. Unfortunately today's kids feel they are defined by likes or followers or in softball which team they play for and now what were you ranked.

 

[joe720]

Funny part are those rankings are a joke. It's a popularity contest. I know kids that have been ranked in the top 50 that aren't in the top 20 in their age bracket within the org they play for.

 

[El Oso]

Everyone keeps saying mental health, but those same coaches have no issue cutting a player if they can't help them win. Which is more direct, being told you're not good enough for this team or a national ranking of thousands?

They can both be bad. They aren't mutually exclusive.

 

[_MIA_]

There are some negative things that happen to players that can be viewed as perhaps a necessary evil needed to move forward in terms of development (both for the player and the game as a whole). Cutting players, having super competitive teams, etc can maybe be viewed in that context. I am not sure that ranking MS players can be viewed that way. In other words, if they went away how would the softball world be negatively effected (other than EI losing money...)?

 

[Rolling Hard]

Bold prediction: 30 of the top 75 on the list will not be playing ball when they are 17 years old. Just a guess.

 

[_MIA_]

BTW I don't begrudge any parent for being proud that their kid made a list. Most parents spend a lot time and money and their kids work hard. However most parents would be proud anyway, list or not, and I would like to believe they would (and do) convey that to their kids regardless ...

 

[PapaBear]

They can both be bad. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Agree, but it's the old saying for the finger pointing you have 3 pointing back at you. Can't make rankings the bad guy when you built a 10U or 12U team and made cuts.

 

[jfitch12]

As a parent of a high school 2022, my kid was on the tail end of 7th and 8th graders still being recruited and committed to college. Now that was nuts, and in terms of having a negative psychological effect, I think it was worse than the EI list (or at least had the potential to be).

My bigger issue with the EI rankings is that they really are just another outlet for marketing by particular (often very good) organizations, but they are promoted as “factual.” It’s the selling of the rankings as having a correspondence to reality that I find objectionable.


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[PharmerBrown]

My kid probably isn't even on there and she threw a perfect 3 innings against a first-year rec team in the fall. I also have a 5th grader, so there's still hope.