Can travel ball kill a rec. league?

[guero_gordo]

@LT, you must be doing something right, that is quite impressive.

 

[JAD]

Rec leagues need to view players moving on to TB as a promotion, not a loss - similar to the farm system in major league baseball. Rec leagues are about teaching fundamentals, having fun, and getting better, NOT about winning games.

If a stud pitcher stays in rec ball, she is not pushing herself to be the best she can be AND she is taking away circle time from another pitcher who needs to develop.

 

[Coachmom]

In our case, while there is a slow drain of kids to travel, the rec league is doing a pretty good job of killing itself due to the ego and self-serving nature of the board members.

Last season, we had six teams in 12U. One was managed by a brand new board member who was tight with the softball coordinator, the other five by very nice people with ZERO coaching experience. The problem was that there were at least four experienced coaches (myself included, we won the 10U title the previous season) who were told that there was no teams available to manage. The end result was that the coaching inexperience showed on the field, and there were a lot of parents angry that their kids weren't progressing.

Based on the dissatisfaction with the regular season, seven of the 12U kids asked to play all stars declined, choosing instead to pick up with travel teams. This resulted in an all star team where nine of the twelve on the roster were first year 12U players, which would potentially make a great core to come back for the 2014 season. Six of those nine (my DD included) went straight to travel after the all star season ended with no intention of coming back to rec.

Team stacking, favoritism and politics do more to hurt rec programs than travel ball ever can.

I agree that poorly trained volunteer coaches hurt leagues more than travel. I've been coaching in my league for the past 5 years without a daughter involved. I am also on the board of directors and one of the main complaints I hear from parents who decide to leave the league is that they were unhappy with the coaching that their kids got.

When you have a fresh crop of volunteers every year I think it is important to have some sort of training for these volunteers. Unfortunately (in our league) it is getting tougher and tougher to convince parents to commit to coaching a team let alone go to a few training sessions.
Not sure what the answer is but our league is suffering from a decline in enrollment.

 

[FP26]

I agree that poorly trained volunteer coaches hurt leagues more than travel. I've been coaching in my league for the past 5 years without a daughter involved. I am also on the board of directors and one of the main complaints I hear from parents who decide to leave the league is that they were unhappy with the coaching that their kids got.

When you have a fresh crop of volunteers every year I think it is important to have some sort of training for these volunteers. Unfortunately (in our league) it is getting tougher and tougher to convince parents to commit to coaching a team let alone go to a few training sessions.
Not sure what the answer is but our league is suffering from a decline in enrollment.

We have the same problem here, in all sports. Few parents want to be involved. And those that do typically run away after they start getting bashed by the other parents. Luckily I have never had any of those issues. I have always had good groups of parents and players and very rarely received any complaints from anyone. When DD played her final year of rec ball, I invited the team from the lower age bracket to practice with us once per week. Our coaching staff helped their coaching staff and the 8 and 9 year olds seemed to really enjoy practicing with the 11 and 12 year old.