All Star Practice

[SoftSocDad]

I'll address a few things....

I can only speak for socal but my older played all stars in 8's and three hour practices was standard. A little more wasn't all that crazy. Here was the typical week for a month before tourneys started. Monday was a day off although 2/3 of the team saw their hitting coach on mondays. Tuesday, wednesday and thursday was practices starting at 5 and easily went into 8pm and i can tell you that there was absolutely no problem keeping their heads in practice. Just about the entire team with exception of two or three had been playing since the age of 5. back to the schedule....friday was cage time and then the schedule did not change when tournaments came around. This was for 8's all stars last season. Note that this specific league does not bring 10's down for all stars, they have had to play in 8's during the season. From various coaches that I know in the socal area, this is definitely the norm for 8u all stars. I honestly thought it was the norm throughout the country. I guess people really are serious when they talk about socal teams. My 8 year old has been seeing a pitching coach since 6 and a hitting coach since 6 1/2 and she's the number three pitcher. Number 1 and 2 have been with a pitching coach since 5.
the problem with this season wasn't having enough girls, in fact we have 13 on the team with 3 reserves. coaches were the problem since the one's that were set to do it, had an emergency come up.

Californians (try to) rationalize crazy moreso than people from any other state. Then they just pass the bill on to everyone else.

Coach, your heart is in the right place, but respectfully, you're crazy.

Sometimes, less really is more.

 

[SD DAD]

crazy why?? Not really getting why?
i'm not rationalizing anything. I'm clearly explaining how things go over here and it's not just for a select few it's more the norm around these parts of town. Think San Diego is bad, head over to other parts of SoCal and see how hard they work and not saying it's good or bad, just saying it's not out of the ordinary.

Practice during regular season for 8's is 2 hours and this is for a team full of girls that just moved up from 6u. Pitchers and catchers come in half hour early or stay half hour late. Is this really excessive to you guys?

 

[Lozza]

My God. Three hours for 8 year olds? That is INSANE.

And yes, anything longer than an hour and a half for kids that age is too long. I coach that age. We constantly change things and do many different drills and my kids still struggle to stay focussed. Pitching/catching (half hour) is done on a different day, because they simply don't have the stamina to do more.

**** my trainings at A grade were two hours. We did more and achieve more than my rep coach, which had four hour trainings ever did.

 

[chinamigarden]

With all due respect, unless you live and breath fastpitch in SoCal you really don't know how dedicated the players are and how competitive the teams are in tournaments, even at this age. Some 8U all-star teams ("B" Gold) will even have players that play winter travel ball and then come back to play rec ball in spring and all-stars in summer. Most tournaments play the regular 60ft base paths, you can steal 1B & 2B, and the top 2 teams from Districts move on to the State championships and play other teams from the Western region. Many 8U all-star players have been playing softball since they were 5YO, have private pitching and hitting coaches, attend softball camps in the off-season, and absolutely love the game.

With all due respect. Just because it happens, doesn't make it right. These are 8 year old children. Why would we want to take away the innocence of the age, just so they can play softball "better". My girl played travel at age 8. If her coach told us she was required to practice with the team 4 hours a day, 3-4 days a week. We would be in travel soccer right now.

Kids love the game for many reason. I would hazard to guess that many "love" the game because they want to please a parent. Assuming everything you say is correct. This is a ridiculous amount of time and resources to put into a game for a 5-8 year old. Kids should be trying everything and anything at this time of their lives. In fact, they should have more unstructured play time then regimented play time. And don't even get me going on conditioning of an 8 year old. So lets have them run until one of them fractures a growth plate in their foot, and we can scale it back from there. If these kids are so dedicated to the sport, why is fitness a question at this point? This sort of early commitment to one activity is going to stunt the physical, emotional and mental growth of these children.

Heck I think HS coaches who have 3 hour+ practices are only doing it for 2 possible reasons. 1, they think they have to because others do it, and 2, they are not good enough to get across to the kids in 2 hours.

 

[chinamigarden]

We get a lot of this in California. I'm not bashing the intense softball at 8u, because it isn't just softball. It can be music, art, soccer, other sports, academics, ect.

The truth is that the peak performers in their peer groups at these young ages are rarely the peak performers within their peers in their teenage years, so one has to wonder why all the emphasis at young ages. If the goal is to produce superior athletes at later ages, then these programs are unsuccessful.

That said, I'll take insane parents with physically fit softball robot children over negligent parents with internet addicted obese children any day. Pick your poison I guess.

Good luck in all stars. For the record, we don't have 8u tournaments in NorCal, the insanity starts at 10u

-W

Its using the kids to keep up with the Jonses. Children as status symbols.

"oh, have you heard, we, I mean Susie made all stars. Its a big commitment but we just love it. We're hitting 5th you know. Leads the team in RBI. The doctor says the shin splints from running laps with the team will ease up in August when we finish our 100 game schedule. You know its not easy being this good, it costs us $8K last year, but she is worth it. We just love playing." "Suzie time to put that book down and go do your core workout"

 

[SoCalASABlue]

Agree with you, Lozza. If I had tried to have any practice longer than 90 minutes on a school night this year, there would have been screeching complaints to the league president that "this is not travel ball..."

 

[SoftSocDad]

Its using the kids to keep up with the Jonses. Children as status symbols.

"oh, have you heard, we, I mean Susie made all stars. Its a big commitment but we just love it. We're hitting 5th you know. Leads the team in RBI. The doctor says the shin splints from running laps with the team will ease up in August when we finish our 100 game schedule. You know its not easy being this good, it costs us $8K last year, but she is worth it. We just love playing." "Suzie time to put that book down and go do your core workout"

^^Win.

SD Dad, the challenge to you is simple - dare to be different. Dare to do better by your players. Dare to tell your parents that you don't care how much so-n-so is working their team to prepare for all-star play. Dare to tell them you're going to keep things simple, fun, and reasonable.

Take a chance and don't be that guy, just because everyone else is that guy. A majority of the other coaches you referenced will never see this forum, but your team has a chance to be that much better just because you did. Instead of focusing on feeding the egos of crazed parents who all think they're raising future Olympians, think more about helping the girls build a lifetime a love for softball and for team sports in general. There is a percentage of young athletes who are every bit the softball superstars you think they are, but there are a lot more young players who'd actually thrive if you allowed them more time to just be kids and do the things kids do instead of sticking them in an over-regimented environment of practice, practice, practice.

When you talk about the intense focus of these young players, some of that is real, girls who genuinely want to live softball 24/7. But what you're NOT acknowledging is that young kids, especially girls IMO, are 'pleasers'. They do attempt to work hard, but it's all because they want their parents to be proud of them.

If you want to stick with the three days of practice per week, do that, but please scale back your demands. And when you do so, make sure the parents understand you're doing it because you're not going to be like every other crazy coach out there with something to prove. Let them know you don't intend to use their kids as pawns in some silly game of one-upsmanship and if anyone scoffs, tell them you'll produce the same if not better results in 2 hours a day as you would in 4 hours a day. The law of diminishing returns is a law for a reason.

I wish you the best of luck, but it cannot be overstated that the summer all-star season is long, so you would do a much greater service to your players by keeping it reasonable. You can still be super competitive during tournaments without grinding these young girls to death.

And though they may not realize it now, your parents will thank you in five years when most of their daughters are still active in sports at a time when other girls in their early teens are dropping out to go do things that are more fun.

 

[darken]

^^Win.

SD Dad, the challenge to you is simple - dare to be different. Dare to do better by your players. Dare to tell your parents that you don't care how much so-n-so is working their team to prepare for all-star play. Dare to tell them you're going to keep things simple, fun, and reasonable.
....

Hear, hear! Great post, SSD!

-D

 

[jinjet95]

Well said, SSD.

I've found that the same philosophy applies to a lot of things in life. I've had coworkers that work 60 hour weeks just to be seen, or because everyone else does, but they don't accomplish anymore than those who work smart and work 40 hour weeks. I convinced my boss that leaving the office, even for 1/2 hour a day will allow him to be more focused and efficient when he returns. When are these 8 year olds supposed to be children?

 

[SoCalSoftballdad]

I understand everyone's point here and I do agree that as coaches we need to keep things in perspective. A couple of points:

- In our 8U rec league there are about 100 girls. 12 will make the all-star team or about 10%. If these select and dedicated few want to spend part of their summer playing softball 2 or 3 hours a day, I think they should be afforded the opportunity.

- The all-star season runs about 5 weeks. Teams only have about 2 or 3 weeks to prepare the team for the first tournament. Since the players have never played together before and the season is relatively short, they practice more than a travel team who might play year-round or for several months at a time and have been playing for years.

- The parents and kids get to spend time with each other playing outdoors, coaching, or watching a sport that everyone enjoys.

- If you as a coach can't keep the attention span of an 8YO focused on softball for 2+ hours than that is a coaching problem. We set-up multiple drill stations, rotate the drills frequently, and always have fun and competitive activities so the players don't get distracted, bored. Again these are all-star players who love the sport, have a great attitude, and give 100% effort. At least that is my experience.

For these kids, playing all-star softball IS fun and a great way for them to kick-off their summer vacation.