Can I get a travel ball history lesson?

[The Man In Blue]

All the while the HS coach who has decades of experience has to do what the "Head Honcho" of the organization says.

I asked our coach "why in the hell do you listen to that guy who has less experience and knowledge of the game than you do? Why do you have to do what he says?"...So I looked up the main guy's background and he never played anything...he just started the org but has no actual prior coaching or playing experience....but now hes looked at as some sort of "guru" of softball? I just didnt get it why one guy called the shots who didn't have the knowledge. It always bugged me why people/coaches listened to him when he wasn't that knowledgeable. Never understood that part of the TB "scene". Why these "founders" of some orgs are treated like royalty...didn't make sense.

IMO, in a perfect situation that is exactly what you should have. Let the business be run by somebody with a business mind and let the coaching be done by somebody with a coaching mind. I've seen a number of orgs run into the ground by coaches who couldn't handle the business. I've seen a number of teams destroyed by administrators who couldn't coach.

I will agree that it becomes an issue when it is about ego and people cannot "stay in their lanes".

 

[radness]

You work with some of the best catchers in the US. I Any sane college coach would want one of your kids.

Under the old system, the problem occurred when Coach Suzy at Low-Level U. made a commitment, and then Coach Suzy got a new job at Mid-Level U (or was fired). The new coach at Low-Level U would often renege on the verbal.

Thanku for the compliment.
It is really the hard work of the athlete and family staying focussed on a plan.
Guidance is part of helping navigate.
However families have to make the formal decisions on where to play, Tb coach and schedule.

Understand the predicament of players and colleges.
Coaches and players will always have reasons each may change their minds. Unfortunetly not always displayed with integrity.

Early recruitment was a two way street. With a lot of years to change circumstances thats for sure. For some it took off stress. Yet others would get caught up in who else the coaches were recruiting in the following years. Almost like competition started before they got there.
Would keep them working hard.

Still some players seem to think a verbal is a solid contract.
Even without paperwork finalized. It amazes me.

Another topic is how often coaches shuffle.
That in itself should be acknowledged.
Had a student 2 years ago as a senior graduating already did campus visit and money discussions. Then Head Coach took another job and new head coach abandoned the incomming recruits. Almost zero communication other than an email saying " We are heading a new direction"
Thankfully she immediatly contacted her fantastic travel coach who made a phone call elsewhere. She was made an offer that week. That was not an early recruitment story.

Bumps in the road happen.
ALWAYS KEEP THE DOOR OPEN TO OPPORTUNITY !!!

Befor all this shut down stuff was looking forward to seeing how junior year recruitment would have panned out.
Glad to read Triple Play posted a link to ammendments addressing coach and player recruitment keeping that connection open.
That was EXCELLENT to read!

 

[radness]

IMO, in a perfect situation that is exactly what you should have. Let the business be run by somebody with a business mind and let the coaching be done by somebody with a coaching mind. I've seen a number of orgs run into the ground by coaches who couldn't handle the business. I've seen a number of teams destroyed by administrators who couldn't coach.

I will agree that it becomes an issue when it is about ego and people cannot "stay in their lanes".

IMPACT STATEMENT !!!

 

[The Man In Blue]

A little late to the thread, but here is what I have witnessed in the growth of "travel ball".

I played baseball and "umpired" (not real umpiring, just a kid getting paid $12 and a soda to call out and safe) in a local program through the early 1990s. Travel ball was not a "thing" but it was something whispered about in the "money ball" circles. In baseball, we aspired to play Legion Ball on the weekends.

After that, I took a hiatus until I had kids playing in the early 2000s. It was a local house league (unaffiliated but used PONY rules) in a little town just outside a mid-sized Midwest city. The league had been self-contained since its inception in 1976. In the early 2000s the numbers started dropping off. I "inherited" running the league in the midst of that drop-off as we moved from the 2000s to the 2010s.

There were two major undue influences contributing to the numbers of kids leaving local community programs and going to "travel ball":

• It started with coaches who didn't like what community ball "forced" on them. They didn't like that we did not allow them to keep "their" team together year-to-year because they wanted to keep the kids they liked. They didn't like mandatory playing time that forced them to play the kids they didn't like. They didn't like the way we constructed teams. They didn't like the trophies we provided (seriously, I had a coach tell me this). When they discovered they just had to write a check to get in, those coaches bolted to travel ball where they could be in control. It didn't have anything to do with the kids. It was about control.
• This was hastened by an entrenched school coach (with no record of success at all) who started telling kids "If you want to play on my team in school, you better go play "competitive ball", not this park league stuff." So, parents started following the coaches they knew (our rec coaches) to "competitive ball" where they could write bigger checks to play with the same mediocre players and get their back-ends stamped with a seal of approval.

Fast forward about 10 years and none of those coaches are still coaching (none of them continued to coach after their daughter quit) and none of those girls went on to play beyond high school (many didn't even play in high school).

This past year I was umpiring one of our school games (now that my daughters are done). The same school coach was lamenting to me about how bad the players are. Her quote to me was "They say the are playing travel ball, but I don't see how that can be." This is a coach who does not go to watch tournaments or the summer leagues (let alone do any coaching outside of the MS and HS seasons). I told her I believed they played because all they have to do is write a check. There are plenty of teams coached by dads who need checks to cash. I suggested she should go see what is happening before she tells kids what they need to do.

 

[Eric F]

I asked our coach "why in the hell do you listen to that guy who has less experience and knowledge of the game than you do? Why do you have to do what he says?"...So I looked up the main guy's background and he never played anything...he just started the org but has no actual prior coaching or playing experience....but now hes looked at as some sort of "guru" of softball? I just didnt get it why one guy called the shots who didn't have the knowledge. It always bugged me why people/coaches listened to him when he wasn't that knowledgeable. Never understood that part of the TB "scene". Why these "founders" of some orgs are treated like royalty...didn't make sense.

Here's why the head of the org is different than your team's knowledgeable and experienced head coach...

Patty Gasso and Mike White return his calls.

 

[Quigs10]

Here's why the head of the org is different than your team's knowledgeable and experienced head coach...

Patty Gasso and Mike White return his calls.

I understand that happens, my point was Why does that happen to some who know less than others. I guess he's a good salesman...who knows. As I said it was our first introduction into the TB Life.. and I come from a baseball coaching/playing background of 25+ years where the top coaches were guys who were around the game for decades with experience at all levels playing and coaching. Just seemed strange to me that our coach, us as parents and our kids were to everything that the "guru" said. Just seemed odd to me personally. It felt fake and forced if that makes sense? Just wasn't what we felt good about for our daughter. But that's just us.

 

[_MIA_]

I understand that happens, my point was Why does that happen to some who know less than others. I guess he's a good salesman...who knows. As I said it was our first introduction into the TB Life.. and I come from a baseball coaching/playing background of 25+ years where the top coaches were guys who were around the game for decades with experience at all levels playing and coaching. Just seemed strange to me that our coach, us as parents and our kids were to everything that the "guru" said. Just seemed odd to me personally. It felt fake and forced if that makes sense? Just wasn't what we felt good about for our daughter. But that's just us.

People rise to positions of power in all aspects of life without being experts in anything..sometimes it is being at the right place at the right time, sometimes they just know how to (or are actually willing to) "play the game" better than others. You see it all the time in academia...

 

[Westwind]

Here's why the head of the org is different than your team's knowledgeable and experienced head coach...

Patty Gasso and Mike White return his calls.

Yep. Having the connections is why they are in that position.

 

[ANNASDAD]

Sorry, I didn't read every reply here.......I am the absolute poster child you guys are talking about for starting a TB team! Except I didn't know anything, as in ZERO about travel ball, and I definitely didn't start a team just so my DD could play!

Me and another coach had a 10U church / rec team that was aging up, we "thought" they were pretty good (for their age) and just wanted to challenge them and ourselves. We paid our sanctioning and insurance fees and started signing up for tournaments, easy right??

It was bad, real bad and real eye opening for a couple of months! We practiced those girls HARD twice a week, they were very fundamentally sound, the real thing with this group of girls was learning how to win in the late innings of a game, or learning not to lose! And........we as coaches lost a fair share of those games, we also had to learn the game at a higher level. That 12U team stayed together for two years and was very successful playing "A" ball. We actually won a ASA World Series our first year playing 12U!

When it came time to age up to 14U we had a meeting and well over half of the girls and families didn't want to go to the next level, I decided to step away and move Anna to a bigger more well known organization and also step away from coaching her, best decision I ever made, of course it wasn't long before I was asked to help. Eric F. is 100% correct about the pull the President / Head of a large organization has, that was another thing that was eye opening for me, watching how he worked for the girls and their families while the coaches coached! Lots of power in a simple phone call.

I will say that 4 girls from that little church / rec team are playing college ball now! And now that I'm an "expert" on everything softball related.........would I have done it any differently, yeah probably, no definitely!! It's been a great ride, bumpy as hell at times, a lot of times! But it was still a great time in my life that I'm really starting to miss! Do I have any advice to share for anyone who would ask..........absolutely!!

 

[Big Daddy Michigan]

Travel ball doesn't have to be the best of the best ... but it still pretends it is the best of the best.

I have mixed thoughts on your statement that "travel ball is filling a need in areas that rec league and high school ball aren't fulfilling." While true in some areas, travel ball is what caused that deficit in the first place. I can't view it as some hero "filling the need". It won a brand war.

This is 100% what happened in my area. We have lots of small towns that can put together 2 Little League teams on a good year. They travel to the nearby towns to play. The quality of ball was pretty strong.

Once travel ball started up in our area it didn't fill a void it created a vacuum. Top players left LL to play travel. That led to the middle of the road players becoming the top LL players, giving their parents the delusion that they were stars, so they left for travel ball teams. Shitty travel ball teams with lousy coaches and filled with mediocre players, but travel ball teams nonetheless . So the dominos continued to fall to the point that even bad LL players were joining bad travel teams.

The end result was a competitive Little League became complete garbage and a lot of areas teams couldn't field teams or they had to bring up coach pitch aged kids to fill their teams. And a lot of bad travel teams were created. So the travel ball surge killed Little League and the competitiveness of travel ball.