Perils of TB

MNDad said:

I don’t understand several comments in this thread.

“Travel ball is full of liars, creeps, and crooks” Not any more so than rec ball.

“D-III sports, where the kids really are student athletes. “ Student Athletes are NOT exclusive to DIII.

“Most organizations are committed to their players as long as they are good enough.” Of course they are. If they keep a kid who isn’t as dedicated or working as hard they’ll lose the rest of the team.

“shady TB coaches, especially when the team experiences success and has to do it by batting 9 instead of batting lineup” How is batting 9 shady?

“I see a lot of what I would deem useless majors.” D1 & D2 softball players have just as strenuous majors as the overall student population and in general have higher GPA’s.

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Let me help you on a couple...

Travel ball and "liars, creeps and crooks"...there isn't anywhere near the money or stakes involved with Rec ball, which in most places is now confined to younger age groups.

You're equating "dedicated and hardworking" with "good enough" for a particular team or organization. The two are only remotely connected. Who hasn't seen the gifted but lazy player favored over the less talented but harder worker?

As far as majors go, I'm sure that some have the ability to major in something difficult while playing ball, but I see lots of "soft" majors when I look at college rosters. Granted, there is an epidemic today of people paying big bucks for BS degrees, but would you care to cite your source regarding D1/2 players having just as strenuous majors as the overall population?

Easton33 said:

I have read a lot of these and I would like to point out that there is a huge difference in experience for the families and player when playing A or Gold ball. (Not just in name only) If you are playing Rec, C, or B, your experiences will vary greatly and most of those experiences will not be pleasant.

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I know of a kid who recently left a good lower level team to play at that "higher level", and her experience hasn't been pleasant at all. If your kid is an truly exceptional player, you'll probably have a positive experience pretty much anywhere. However, I've seen many, many examples of players able to get on a Super-Elite-Gold roster, and then not be able to get out of the dugout. High level teams often have fat rosters, and I can't believe the experience would be good for at least a third of the team.

Minnesota is a little different and the rec leagues are run by what many would call crooks with a monopoly generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. TB per individual is more expensive, but due to the sheer number of rec teams it dwarfs TB. TB has plenty of clowns too, but IME they're more ignorant than crooks.

Dedicated and hardworking translates almost always translates into good enough to stay on a team. The kids who drop or aren’t asked to return usually have other priorities. They might work hard, but they’re more dedicated to soccer or some other activity. Nothing wrong with that. It’s just not a good mix if the rest of the team has softball as their priority. The gifted, but lazy players only make it so far before it catches up to them.

My source is largely personal experience. DD has several friends playing D1 or D2 that majored in pre-med, engineering or math or science. Here’s the majors on her team. Communication, Criminal Justice, Biology, Business, Elementary Ed, Liberal Arts & Science, Kinesiology, Finance, Marketing and Engineering. That’s been fairly typical in the three years she’s been there and what I see when I look at other rosters.

Here’s the majors of the Academic All Big 12 members. It represents roughly half of the softball players in the conference and you’ll see a wide range of majors. You can find the same thing looking at any conference.

https://www.big12sports.com/pdf9/5472951.pdf

When I played LL, e.g. I guess what you could consider rec at the time (even though there was no TB back then ), the family who ran the concession stand at the park embezzled over 50K over a span of 10 years...now that is a real crook!!

MNDad said:

Minnesota is a little different and the rec leagues are run by what many would call crooks with a monopoly generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. TB per individual is more expensive, but due to the sheer number of rec teams it dwarfs TB. TB has plenty of clowns too, but IME they're more ignorant than crooks.

Dedicated and hardworking translates almost always translates into good enough to stay on a team. The kids who drop or aren’t asked to return usually have other priorities. They might work hard, but they’re more dedicated to soccer or some other activity. Nothing wrong with that. It’s just not a good mix if the rest of the team has softball as their priority. The gifted, but lazy players only make it so far before it catches up to them.

My source is largely personal experience. DD has several friends playing D1 or D2 that majored in pre-med, engineering or math or science. Here’s the majors on her team. Communication, Criminal Justice, Biology, Business, Elementary Ed, Liberal Arts & Science, Kinesiology, Finance, Marketing and Engineering. That’s been fairly typical in the three years she’s been there and what I see when I look at other rosters.

Here’s the majors of the Academic All Big 12 members. It represents roughly half of the softball players in the conference and you’ll see a wide range of majors. You can find the same thing looking at any conference.

https://www.big12sports.com/pdf9/5472951.pdf

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In my experience I see this as around 50/50. The teams in this area will lose 2 to 3 players a year (some quit and some are cut). Around half of the cut players were hard workers that just weren't as athletically inclined as some of the other kids. It's sad to see a kid who works hard and is willing to sit on the bench and cheer get cut.

MNDad said:

My source is largely personal experience. DD has several friends playing D1 or D2 that majored in pre-med, engineering or math or science. Here’s the majors on her team. Communication, Criminal Justice, Biology, Business, Elementary Ed, Liberal Arts & Science, Kinesiology, Finance, Marketing and Engineering. That’s been fairly typical in the three years she’s been there and what I see when I look at other rosters.

Here’s the majors of the Academic All Big 12 members. It represents roughly half of the softball players in the conference and you’ll see a wide range of majors. You can find the same thing looking at any conference.

https://www.big12sports.com/pdf9/5472951.pdf

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I just looked up 1 SEC powerhouse, Florida, and 1 PAC-12 powerhouse UCLA. Florida had 1 STEM major (Applied Kinesiology & Physiology) and UCLA had 2 in Biology and 1 in PsychoBiology. The vast majority had much less rigrous majors: history, communications, sports management, geography, African American studies, psychology, sociology, education, etc.

No engineering, math, pre-med, business/finance, or computer science majors. For these top colleges, it's athlete/student, not student/athlete. They are in college, first and foremost, to get to play softball on a scholarship.

Rocketech1 said:

I just looked up 1 SEC powerhouse, Florida, and 1 PAC-12 powerhouse UCLA. Florida had 1 STEM major (Applied Kinesiology & Physiology) and UCLA had 2 in Biology and 1 in PsychoBiology. The vast majority had much less rigrous majors: history, communications, sports management, geography, African American studies, psychology, sociology, education, etc.

No engineering, math, pre-med, business/finance, or computer science majors. For these top colleges, it's athlete/student, not student/athlete. They are in college, first and foremost, to get to play softball on a scholarship.

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An extremely small percentage of D1 schools are that way. The vast majority of D1 softball players are students first.

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Rocketech1 said:

I just looked up 1 SEC powerhouse, Florida, and 1 PAC-12 powerhouse UCLA. Florida had 1 STEM major (Applied Kinesiology & Physiology) and UCLA had 2 in Biology and 1 in PsychoBiology. The vast majority had much less rigrous majors: history, communications, sports management, geography, African American studies, psychology, sociology, education, etc.

No engineering, math, pre-med, business/finance, or computer science majors. For these top colleges, it's athlete/student, not student/athlete. They are in college, first and foremost, to get to play softball on a scholarship.

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I think Sports Management is considered a business major.

What is the percentage of all students, athletes or otherwise, who graduate with these so-called "soft majors"? Unless you are at a primarily technical school like MIT, it would probably be somewhat
similar to the percentage you see on the D1 athletic teams.