My daughter is dreading high school ball approaching

How good can a catcher be if she doesn't have her own gear?

flash277 said:

How good can a catcher be if she doesn't have her own gear?

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I'm not sure whether to give that a thumb's up or a laughing smiley ... it won't let me do both. Which do you want?

I was a poor kid who never had his own gear. But then I also played in a day and age when it was rare for people to even have their own bat. If you had your own batting helmet, you were a rock star. (And yes, I walked up hill both ways to get to and from practice, fighting off dinosaurs with my loose-leaf Trapper Keeper.)

Honestly, I feel like HS was the first time my freshman DD actually played real softball. I told her before tryouts for the Fall season, "this is the first time I am not paying for you to play. You have to earn your spot on the team, and earn playing time on the field." And that is what she did... earned a spot on varsity squad, pitched about half the innings for the season, and when she wasn't pitching, earned a starting spot in the infield.

Lol, I remember those days, playing little league, you just had to show up with a glove. The 'LL provided the team with 4 banged up helmets, ancient catcher gear, about about three dented bats....we somehow had a great time playing with that "junk"

flash277 said:

How good can a catcher be if she doesn't have her own gear?

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Not very. I would not have allow her to lend her equipment. She should have put it on and caught. Show her chops. Force the SOB to try and ignore her.

Sounds like a sad / sorry excuse for a HS program.

Yucky to share catching helmet...sweatty face pads...
Agree with cost and safety and fitment.

Simply say, No.
If they ask why...tell them what your reasons are.
Uncomfortable is the position they are in or put you in to borrow.
Not uncomfortable to have an answer they may not like.


* This week had a student dad tell dd in 10u not to let other catcher use her gear. Because the straps get moved and changes fitment.
And other catcher just threw gear in the dirt on duggout floor while kid who owns equiptment takes care of it.

Unfortunately not all HS programs are the same. Good luck to those in these bad situations.

Yeah no this isn’t happening again.


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flash277 said:

If your DD serious about playing in college, play with a good travel team. You’ll get more exposure for college than high school games. If DD wants to play HS ball, just look at it as practice everyday. Plenty of girls play in college off of TB, never playing HS. Good luck

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Agreed. The director of my 2025 DD's travel team is a college HC. I was listening to her talking to one of the U16 parents about transferring schools because the team is poorly run and isn't good. She said not to bother because she'll get the exposure in travel and camps and that a coach wouldn't change her mind on her because her team isn't strong. Also said that she only really goes to HS games to see girls she's already interested in from camps and travel to see how they act and prepare. Thought it was interesting when I heard it.

Definitely a non starter on the gear sharing, have her politely pawn it off on you. My parents said they spent too much money on the gear and won't let me share anymore. If she doesn't like hanging out with the rest of the kids on the team and doesn't enjoy playing not sure I would stick it out. I would though make 100% sure you aren't doing the rose colored glasses thing and that your DD really should be starting and these "girls that don't play TB" aren't really good players that just are focused on something else but are just great athletes ( while we all like to assume a TB player is better than a non-TB player it is not always the case, we had a girl that had never played softball who made varsity as backup catcher and OF, she was just a great athlete skied competitively and Dad just didn't want to split time between his kids so she played LL baseball with her brother who was a year older than her.)