I had an All star team that I kept together for 5 years with kids moving up or staying down based on age, but I kept a core group. The girls played in the rec program and we waited patiently for summer to roll around and get going again. We got pretty good at winning Allstar tourneys because that's where I thought we belonged. Looking back after many years of retrospect we should have been classified as a B team. I really tried to stay in our lane. When we started beating "real" TB teams I thought, wow we pulled that one off not really understanding that we were that good.
The very last tourney with that group of girls we got 3rd place at ASA Southern "B" Nationals. After that DD made a 14 TB team that called themselves "A". I was happy and was looking forward to some real action. Gawd was I disappointed. My "Allstar" team could have beaten her new team and I told the coach that. At that point, I REALLY started to understand the landscape of TB. Anyone can cobble together a team, join an organization and call themselves an A team. This 14U team DD was on had remnants of their former team and the girls who realized that they didn't want that hard fell to the side and we reloaded with better talent. At the end of 11 months at the final tourney (TCS Southwest Nats) we put together a pretty decent team. But good thing come to an end. The idiot manager did not secure his core players and they moved on and the team never made at tryouts. So we left and joined an organization for the next 4 years. DD went from All star team in 7th grade to an 18U Real Deal Gold team by the 10th grade. Keep Choppin' wood everyone!
The very last tourney with that group of girls we got 3rd place at ASA Southern "B" Nationals. After that DD made a 14 TB team that called themselves "A". I was happy and was looking forward to some real action. Gawd was I disappointed. My "Allstar" team could have beaten her new team and I told the coach that. At that point, I REALLY started to understand the landscape of TB. Anyone can cobble together a team, join an organization and call themselves an A team. This 14U team DD was on had remnants of their former team and the girls who realized that they didn't want that hard fell to the side and we reloaded with better talent. At the end of 11 months at the final tourney (TCS Southwest Nats) we put together a pretty decent team. But good thing come to an end. The idiot manager did not secure his core players and they moved on and the team never made at tryouts. So we left and joined an organization for the next 4 years. DD went from All star team in 7th grade to an 18U Real Deal Gold team by the 10th grade. Keep Choppin' wood everyone!
