- Jul 29, 2016
- 231
- 43
I lurk on this site mostly, but I thought I'd chime in to brag about my daughter's tryout accomplishments. Sorry for the wall of text.
She's 12 yo (2003 b.d.), and she's coming off of a solid year of B-level travel. She's a catcher, and has a big bat (with a tendency to slump for games at a time). She decided she wanted to put in the effort to try to make it to an A-level organization, so my wife and I (mostly my wife) ramped-up her private lessons and started taking her to private workouts, team workouts, and organizational tryouts. We live in an area where there are probably 30 solid A-level teams, and the top five teams are really hard to break into. There always seem to be teams dissolving, and teams forming, and team-hopping seems to be the new norm in our area.
My daughter tried out for a couple of teams that were likely out of her reach, a couple of teams that were billing themselves as A-level (but probably weren't), and four or five good teams that only had a limited number of spots. My daughter wasn't very motivated to try out this weekend, and she seemed ready to settle on a weaker team where she liked the coach. I had to get tough with her to get her to what we hoped would be our last tryout of the summer, but when we got there, she gave it all that she had.
She only brought her catcher's mitt (her secondary position is RF), and it was amusing watching her try to dig grounders off the turf at third base, but she killed it in the outfield. She was probably the 20th girl to bat, and after she crushed a few line-drives in the gap, the coach yelled out and asked her number (the only time he did that to anyone the whole tryout). Then, after everyone but the pitchers and catchers went home, she got to catch. She was the last one to catch, and did fantastic. He was timing her pop on 2nd-base throw-downs, and asked her to throw from her knees. This made me nervous because we only just started working on that, and she didn't have much experience with it.
But she nailed it. 1.86 secs to second base. And she's fricking 12 years old. The coach offered her a spot on the team right there. We accepted it the next day. I was so proud of her, and she peaked at the right time, landing on the team that she had her heart set on a month ago. Okay, brag over.
Tl; dr: Daughter tries out for a million teams. Nails her last tryout, and hits a 1.86 sec pop-time to second which lands her on the team she wanted.
She's 12 yo (2003 b.d.), and she's coming off of a solid year of B-level travel. She's a catcher, and has a big bat (with a tendency to slump for games at a time). She decided she wanted to put in the effort to try to make it to an A-level organization, so my wife and I (mostly my wife) ramped-up her private lessons and started taking her to private workouts, team workouts, and organizational tryouts. We live in an area where there are probably 30 solid A-level teams, and the top five teams are really hard to break into. There always seem to be teams dissolving, and teams forming, and team-hopping seems to be the new norm in our area.
My daughter tried out for a couple of teams that were likely out of her reach, a couple of teams that were billing themselves as A-level (but probably weren't), and four or five good teams that only had a limited number of spots. My daughter wasn't very motivated to try out this weekend, and she seemed ready to settle on a weaker team where she liked the coach. I had to get tough with her to get her to what we hoped would be our last tryout of the summer, but when we got there, she gave it all that she had.
She only brought her catcher's mitt (her secondary position is RF), and it was amusing watching her try to dig grounders off the turf at third base, but she killed it in the outfield. She was probably the 20th girl to bat, and after she crushed a few line-drives in the gap, the coach yelled out and asked her number (the only time he did that to anyone the whole tryout). Then, after everyone but the pitchers and catchers went home, she got to catch. She was the last one to catch, and did fantastic. He was timing her pop on 2nd-base throw-downs, and asked her to throw from her knees. This made me nervous because we only just started working on that, and she didn't have much experience with it.
But she nailed it. 1.86 secs to second base. And she's fricking 12 years old. The coach offered her a spot on the team right there. We accepted it the next day. I was so proud of her, and she peaked at the right time, landing on the team that she had her heart set on a month ago. Okay, brag over.
Tl; dr: Daughter tries out for a million teams. Nails her last tryout, and hits a 1.86 sec pop-time to second which lands her on the team she wanted.
