Growing Softball in the area

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Dec 17, 2015
118
16
Chesapeake, VA
Long time lurking first time poster....

Recently I was elected Softball Commissioner for my daughter's rec league. It is my hope to grow our softball program from barely getting enough girls to form one team in each division to at least having two teams per division. Has anyone have some advice or gone through this before?

Current:
Fall 2015 - 1 8U team (first one in a long time), 1 10U, 1 12U with some 10U, and 1 14U with 12U players.
Spring 2015 - 2 10U teams, 1 12u, and 1 14U with some standout 12U players.
Fall 2014 - 1 10U and 1 12U
Spring 2014 - 1 10U and 1 12U

I manage the 8U team and my wife is the 14U manager with me helping out.

Deep Creek Baseball Association is a PONY and Cal Ripken/Babe Ruth affiliated rec league. With our recent partnership with Babe Ruth we have seen our numbers continue to grow. We expecting the same this spring. The local high school just went to the semi finals of state. The manager is happy that we are getting the division going again. He'll need girls to replace his senior filled team.

The Board is looking to expand softball. Staring in the Spring season I have contacted all the girls in the Tee Ball and Rookie/Pinto divisions. I believe the word is starting to get around. I've started a Facebook page just for softball (DCBASoftball). Signs will be going out after the holidays.

Any other thoughts?

Ninja Edit: Our pitching stinks, in all divisions, need help there as well

Chris
 
Last edited:
Jun 27, 2011
5,089
0
North Carolina
I ran a league several years back after my DD signed up for a fall league, and she was one of only 15 players in 8U. Spring was always bigger, but it was shrinking. THat fall, we had one 15-player team that played another park's teams on Saturdays, and we played each other (7 vs. 7) during the week. Not wanting to see the program dry up, I volunteered and made it my goal to boost numbers. About 1.5 years later, we had four 10U teams. I can't recall the total growth, but we had enough under-8 that we could form a 6U team. We used to combine them.

Things we did- Made flyers and put them out at all the elementary schools. When we could persuade them, we got school officials to send flyers home w/ kids. Made road signs and put them all over town. Reached out to the families and players that we did have and talked up softball and our plans to increase numbers. Got them to invite friends. Gave them discounts if they did. Wasn't too savvy w/ social media or I would've jumped into that.

My daughter played in a co-ed YMCA basketball league that winter, and there were only 8 girls playing in that, and I talked 6 of them into playing softball that spring. Since it was a small league, I got to know everybody. If somebody hadn't signed up yet, I'd call them and talk them into it. I would coach one of the teams, and I'd be friendly w all the players on every team, knew their names, their parentsTried to make sure they had fun. The emphasis on the league was make it enough fun to where they'll come back the next year.

One advantage we had was it being a large metro area, and our part of town had a lot of active kids, and parents putting their kids into activities. So we had plenty of potential players. Just a matter of selling them on softball.
 
Dec 17, 2015
118
16
Chesapeake, VA
We have the signs going up after the holidays. Also we put our ad out in the school flyers. Discounts have been made available since Fall ended. My daughter will be doing YMCA cheerleading in the winter so I'll talk up softball there as well. Our area has a lot of Armed Forces transfers. Makes it hard to keep good players and coaches. We are the smaller league of the area. There is a league that has four teams per division. But we are making headway.
 
Aug 26, 2015
590
16
We have the signs going up after the holidays. Also we put our ad out in the school flyers. Discounts have been made available since Fall ended. My daughter will be doing YMCA cheerleading in the winter so I'll talk up softball there as well. Our area has a lot of Armed Forces transfers. Makes it hard to keep good players and coaches. We are the smaller league of the area. There is a league that has four teams per division. But we are making headway.

Last year, our league had a big "Opening Registration Day" kinda thing. They went all out with a couple inflatable bouncers, free food, some kind of video game truck, mini drills setup around the park, things like that. There were quite a few new registrants that only registered because of that. Now, I'm not on the backend of that, so I don't know if they were in the black or red on that. They got more girls in, though. They promoted this like it was an event for like a month and built anticipation.
 
May 5, 2014
93
0
Pacific Northwest
I run a softball LL program we have around 220 players every year with several teams in each division. For our state this is a pretty big league, however I know there are some folks who post here that run leagues much bigger.

Last year we offered our T Ball program for free and ran it much like some of the local soccer programs do. We did 30 minutes of drill stations and then played a quick 30 minute game. I capped it at 50 players, we broke them into 6 teams. Divided one field into 3 small fields. One of the drill stations was kick ball, one was a hitting station, the other was fielding. We did it with foam safety balls and plastic bats, players didn't need to bring any equipment. We did it for 6 weeks, meet one night a week and I always made sure there was an older division game on the field right afterwards so the girls could see the older girls show up in uniforms and play a game. The key was to get them out playing softball at an early age, make it fun, focus more on fun games that build basic skills, and keep them moving. Sign ups for this year are way up for the next division after T Ball. Done right T Ball can cost very little to run and is a great way to introduce girls and parents to the sport and get them hooked before soccer gets them. We also have a lot of cultural diversity in our area and by offering it for free and no need to buy equipment we attracted a lot of girls who might not normally play softball.

Pitching is very important in the upper divisions. We do a couple things: We encourage those #3 and #4 TB pitchers to come play LL it works for them and the LL girls get something to hit and more plays to make on defense. We have a pitching instructor do 8 weeks of pre season training in a local gym once a week (we do this with hitting as well). He has a couple high school and TB girls help him. The league picks up half the expense and the parents pick up the rest so it works out to be $80 for 8 group lessons for the parents. We have at least 6 girls in each division who participate in these clinics. We also have local pitching rules at the lower levels to encourage the coaches to develop multiple pitchers.

Growing a league takes time, this is my 4th year and we have increased about 5% a year, last year was closer to 10% this year might be as well. Just be prepared for the fact that the better the program you run the more girls you will loose to TB over time. This is a good thing for the sport in general.

Good Luck.
 
Jul 10, 2014
1,283
0
C-bus Ohio
For our state this is a pretty big league, however I know there are some folks who post here that run leagues much bigger.

This is me: my rec league had 689 girls last season (68 teams; 10U alone had 16 teams). If you add our Select and Tournament teams, we're well over 700. Last season was my 1st as commish, so I'm still learning about the league itself (though I coached in it for 7 years).

Woody has some interesting ideas on T-ball. Our 6U is the real deal. We limit the teams to 8 players max, all players in the field, 45' bases, continuous batting order and all players bat every inning. Games are Tue and Sat, and we have an end of season "tournament" where all the teams play at one of our multi-field venues. It's really just a full Saturday of games, but we encourage the families to make a party out of it. That said, I like what Woody is doing, and I think we'll be incorporating some of those ideas.

We will be offering free weekly pitching and catching clinics this season for 8U and up - battery is so friggin important, you really need to teach both positions. I'm working on finding an affordable hitting instructor.

Losing players to TB is a real concern, so having Select and Tournament teams within the league helps keep some of the talent local, plus they're a good stretch goal for the rec girls, who get to see the better players play on a regular basis.

But as far as growing the league, I'm only here for the ideas!
 
Dec 17, 2015
118
16
Chesapeake, VA
Pitching is very important in the upper divisions. We do a couple things: We encourage those #3 and #4 TB pitchers to come play LL it works for them and the LL girls get something to hit and more plays to make on defense. We have a pitching instructor do 8 weeks of pre season training in a local gym once a week (we do this with hitting as well). He has a couple high school and TB girls help him. The league picks up half the expense and the parents pick up the rest so it works out to be $80 for 8 group lessons for the parents. We have at least 6 girls in each division who participate in these clinics. We also have local pitching rules at the lower levels to encourage the coaches to develop multiple pitchers.

Growing a league takes time, this is my 4th year and we have increased about 5% a year, last year was closer to 10% this year might be as well. Just be prepared for the fact that the better the program you run the more girls you will loose to TB over time. This is a good thing for the sport in general.

Good Luck.

With T-Ball, that is our largest division for the league. We offer the lowest registration fee in the region. Now we just need to keep everyone. We don't have a 6U (Tee Ball) softball division. Looking back at our stats from Spring 2015, we could have fielded 4 teams of 8. But we did that we would lose teams on the baseball side. Just have to find balance.

We always schedule the younger teams before the older ones. By the time the young games are done, they can check out the action. This also depends on if the older girls are away.


This is me: my rec league had 689 girls last season (68 teams; 10U alone had 16 teams). If you add our Select and Tournament teams, we're well over 700. Last season was my 1st as commish, so I'm still learning about the league itself (though I coached in it for 7 years).

Woody has some interesting ideas on T-ball. Our 6U is the real deal. We limit the teams to 8 players max, all players in the field, 45' bases, continuous batting order and all players bat every inning. Games are Tue and Sat, and we have an end of season "tournament" where all the teams play at one of our multi-field venues. It's really just a full Saturday of games, but we encourage the families to make a party out of it. That said, I like what Woody is doing, and I think we'll be incorporating some of those ideas.

We will be offering free weekly pitching and catching clinics this season for 8U and up - battery is so friggin important, you really need to teach both positions. I'm working on finding an affordable hitting instructor.

Losing players to TB is a real concern, so having Select and Tournament teams within the league helps keep some of the talent local, plus they're a good stretch goal for the rec girls, who get to see the better players play on a regular basis.

But as far as growing the league, I'm only here for the ideas!

Thank you for bringing up a great point about the battery. I'm so focused on pitching, completely forgot our catching needs improving as well.

We have an issue with TB on the baseball but not so much with softball. There are a few programs in the area but they focus on the larger league in the city. This last fall we lost the best pitch in the league to a new travel team. No big deal as it was her last season in the league (age). I suspect this to change once we get things going. The local high school coach has his own travel team and is looking. Might be part of the reason he is helping us out.
 

JAD

Feb 20, 2012
8,231
38
Georgia
Ninja Edit: Our pitching stinks, in all divisions, need help there as well

I have always said that if I ever went back and coached REC ball the first thing I would do at my first practice is line all of my players up and have them go through some T-drills trying to identify some potential pitchers in the group.

If you are running the league I would highly recommend running a pitching clinic for any players who want to attend. Even if it is just you going through some drills that you learned on DFP. It was easier a few years ago when softball was in the Olympics and every softball player wanted to be the next Jenny Finch....you also need to get the parents to "buy in" to the idea of spending quality time with their DD while sitting on a bucket.
 
Dec 17, 2015
118
16
Chesapeake, VA
I have always said that if I ever went back and coached REC ball the first thing I would do at my first practice is line all of my players up and have them go through some T-drills trying to identify some potential pitchers in the group.

If you are running the league I would highly recommend running a pitching clinic for any players who want to attend. Even if it is just you going through some drills that you learned on DFP. It was easier a few years ago when softball was in the Olympics and every softball player wanted to be the next Jenny Finch....you also need to get the parents to "buy in" to the idea of spending quality time with their DD while sitting on a bucket.

That was the thing. The first few practices we would ask the girls if they wanted to try pitching. Just the pitchers stepped up. Much later in the season I'll get "hey coach can I try pitching". Then she turns out to be next coming of Cy Young. Could you expand on the T-drills? I have not heard of them before. I'm the first in my family to manage softball. So I'm trying to merge terms.

We are having a coaching clinic in the Spring and the local high school coach will have a pitching clinic for the softball coaches. In February we will rent out the community center for a few hours on each Sunday for clinics. I plan on going to each one to run softball drills. Mainly working on the fundamentals.
 

JAD

Feb 20, 2012
8,231
38
Georgia
That was the thing. The first few practices we would ask the girls if they wanted to try pitching. Just the pitchers stepped up. Much later in the season I'll get "hey coach can I try pitching". Then she turns out to be next coming of Cy Young. Could you expand on the T-drills? I have not heard of them before. I'm the first in my family to manage softball. So I'm trying to merge terms.

We are having a coaching clinic in the Spring and the local high school coach will have a pitching clinic for the softball coaches. In February we will rent out the community center for a few hours on each Sunday for clinics. I plan on going to each one to run softball drills. Mainly working on the fundamentals.

Lots of examples on Youtube.
 

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