tough position

I was given a opportunity in the fall to coach a new team. a 14u team the only problem was there were no players except my dd. the former team moved up to 16u. but I was the asst. coach for 4 seasons on another team before this. we did manage to put something together for the fall and it worked out pretty good. now we practiced all winter 3 days a week, batting ,strength and conditioning, fielding,etc. I put together a tournament schedule for us ,which is the first time for me , a lot of work and time . we are supposed to start next scrimmages next week ,and tournaments in april. some parents did not like the schedule and guit the team. leaving us with one less pitcher and back up catcher/infielder .this is the tough position with games starting next week , pitching is hard to find at this time .we are looking to add players but nobody is available to come on board and guest players are only temp. I could use some help ASAP .

I feel your frustration. We ended fall ball needing 2 players, now we need 5. Two of them need to be pitchers. We're supposed to play in 12 days.

I'm an asst. coach. Wife and DD think we need to leave the team. I'm having a really hard time disagreeing with them.

Call every pitching coach that you can find ASAP and ask who they might have to at least guest play. Most of the pitching coaches you will call will be crap (not sure your area but they are around here) but still call them and tell them you have some spots if they want some time.

Many batting cages have pitching coaches as well. You may have to get creative but find the coaches and the pitchers will follow. We have done this with great success and my DD's team has always found some girls that are decent and a few that joined up long term.

Good luck!

S3

Find the local message boards or facebook groups for players. Get some guest players. Asap!

thank you , we are located in the jersey shore area.14 u is a tough age division to be looking at this time . if anyone knows can email me at alapruzzi@icloud.com I've been calling around and posting some adds on the forum also .

Maybe try checking with your local HS coaches too. They may have a kid or two who isn't committed to a travel team already but who has great potential. It would be in the HS coach's best interests for those girls to play summer ball, and it would help you and the girls out so everyone wins.

Another thought is to talk to people you know in softball and see if there are any unhappy kids/parents who are looking at a lot of bench time, or pitchers who will be #3 on their team but want more innings. Maybe you can grab one or two of those. Just be careful that you're not picking up someone else's troubles. There might be a good reason that kid is going to ride the pines/be #3.

It's definitely tough finding players at this time of year. I know all of my students who want to play travel ball are committed to teams, and have been for a while. And even if they're thinking about moving on they usually stick out the season.

Good advice here and I can't tell you anything that hasn't already been said, BUT for next year- Once the parents have paid, they are more reluctant to shop around. Many programs require at least 50% non-refundable deposit in the fall to secure a spot. sometimes they are broken into thirds. One third due with letter of intent (which has a time limit) another third due in December and the remainder due in the spring, well before the tournament season starts.

we left a program in December and I was worried that it would be too late to find a spot with another program. fortunately we found one and they required a 50% deposit up front with payment in full by April 1.

Maybe it is just me, but I would have moved my DD up to 16U with her former team vs. trying to start a 14U team from scratch.

my dd was only 12 yrs. old in the fall ,I think this would of been to much. this would be their first year team now .