Am I wrong.

[AndyS]

If you put aside the fact expectations around Nationals were not set upfront I do think you are wrong and some things do not make sense to me. To start:

1) "but it has clearly been a huge mistake imo cause we play B caliber teams, if you can call them that during the week which we as a team totally dominate, but on the weekends are playing in A tourney's and its very apparent that our girls are not playing to that level due purely to the fact they don't get challenged in league"

This does not make sense to me. If you are consistently playing A tournaments on the weekend and getting in solid practices during the week and the kids are doing their part with lessons then how would a few league games during the week mess you up so bad? I mean we play league locally and then travel nationally on the weekends and the competition we see during the week does not compare to what we see nationally but we do fairly well. The league gives the team the ability to pitch other pitchers and work on things to get ready for the weekend.

2) I agree with FiveFrameSwing. Seeing nationals can be eye opening for girls and is well worth the experience if your kid loves softball. You mention expenses etc. but your real angst seems to be again you do not like the fact league play is not competitive enough and you may not do well. That does not seem like a compelling reason not to go to Nationals. And just as an aside some years when we went I thought we would do poorly and we did great and other years I thought we would be awesome and flopped. You never know. But what I do know is the girls will likely have a blast just being together out of town.

3) Right or wrong when your DD is the #1 pitcher your decisions drive the entire team. We have learned to be very sensitive to that fact. It can be big things or little things. But your decisions have a massive impact on everybody.

 

[xygent1]

Bottom line is I work out of town a lot hense me paying for extra practices for my DD n her actual coach has really dropped the ball this year for coaching one practice every 2 weeks isn't going to cut it to play comp ball imo

 

[JJsqueeze]

If you can't make it for financial/work reasons then the tone of the conversation should be "I feel bad about this but I just can't swing it on my own, I know you need her so what can we do to get her there?". As a pitcher's dad you have to know that with her out it has the chance to diminish the experience enough that a coach just pulls the plug. I don't think sending a team wide text helps the situation but it sounds like there was a little bit of you holding the pitcher hostage in the first conversation.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Oh, wow. I am not so certain that what you did was in your DD's best interest. I understand work, money, etc. but this is what the coach decided to do and since you are keeping the pitcher home, 10 other families can't go. This decision is going to effect your DD making teams in the future.

Almost spot on.

Good teams have a plan before the start of the season. Part of that plan generally includes securing commitments (including a financial commitment) prior to the start of the season.

Why? Because on low-end teams there will always be some players that went along for the cheap ride to gain good training, but punt on attending the expensive National tournament.

If a team hasn't built in commitments from the beginning, then don't be surprised if it ends up going a different route towards the end of the season.

Attending the National tournament often requires a full team of committed players.

 

[Cannonball]

See that's the thing the coach doesn't practice the kids to prepare them we haven't had practice in 2 weeks my dd goes in to practice 2-3 times a week n our coach has been making a habit of that also just found out this morning I have to get all the roster info. Equipment etc for the first game of this weekends tourney due to coach hunting n won't be back in time also found out I'm doing the following weeks tourney due to coach going to the twins games that weekend hopefully you understand my dillema alitte bit more now I didn't sign up to be the head coach

Your dd needs to be on another team. I'd get that done in the fall.

 

[JJsqueeze]

Yeah. You gotta move on, but you also have to just grin and bear it the next two months.

 

[xygent1]

Yup agreed n its pretty much set in stone. N I didn't mean to imply that my dd was all that etc! N also its not any of the other girls fault either heck we have the athletes to make a hell of a team but the coach doesn't coach,teach etc to get that out of them period.

 

[AndyS]

See that's the thing the coach doesn't practice the kids to prepare them we haven't had practice in 2 weeks my dd goes in to practice 2-3 times a week n our coach has been making a habit of that also just found out this morning I have to get all the roster info. Equipment etc for the first game of this weekends tourney due to coach hunting n won't be back in time also found out I'm doing the following weeks tourney due to coach going to the twins games that weekend hopefully you understand my dillema alitte bit more now I didn't sign up to be the head coach

Yeah that is much more of a mess than laid out in the first post and I do understand. But again I guess I always looked at it as Nationals getting my DD pitching time against different and usually better opponents. Win or lose that is valuable in my book.

 

[NorthMS]

I disagree. Playing weak teams can make a good team worse.

Take a hitter with 'bat drag' ... against a weak pitcher the kid is feeling good about their swing, believing that it is effective, and hitting the ball with authority. Then against good A-level pitching they fail .... but they recall that they were murdering the ball earlier in the week. Few hitters (& their parents) openly acknowledge that the reason they were hitting earlier was because they faced weak pitching, and instead lean towards believing that a hitting slump took hold ..... when in fact it isn't a slump.

If you want to learn to swim .... dive into the deep end.

If you want to learn to hit .... face a steady stream of good pitching, that has a solid defense around that pitcher.

I can agree with your example. The OP specifically mentioned errors. We don't have all the details, but I find it hard to believe that playing 1-2 mid week games vs lesser opponents will cause a promising A team to not be competitive at all. Sounds like a crutch.

 

[xygent1]

Oh that hasn't been the problem with my DD she's been to Minneapolis twice, Omaha twice, Lincoln Nebraska, n desmoines twice in tournaments this year so far with other teams and not for one sec would I not want to go to nationals if we were being prepared as a team to do so but we are not, and yes there is a lot more to the mess that the coach created tbh I don't see this team even being a team after this year.