Helping a heartbroken daughter

[whiporee]

I want to thank everyone for the responses and the encouraging words. I have another question, though. How should I tell my DD to deal with her teammates if 16-year-old bitchiness shows up? I think she's more worried about the off-the-field stuff than the on-the-field. Did any of your DDs have good responses for high school situations where comments were made about playing status?

I'm editing to add to the suckiness of this. JV has six games this year. Varsity has 17. Yuck.

 

[Tatonka]

Whip - first of all thanks for sharing, I know how helpless this sport can make a parent feel at times when stuff like this happens. Life lessons and all that crap (while true) just doesn't cut it in the raw moments. My pitcher DD took a lot of lumps from a coach her first couple years in HS. The favoritism and retaliation that took place was unbelievable. That Coach was replaced and the entire team came together and got much better and had a lot more fun. DD's Junior year she (and two other Juniors) swung down to JV due to there not being any other pitchers available. DD pitched most of the Varsity innings but still had to suit up for JV and sit through those games even when the other Varsity players (including her twin) were technically allowed to leave or sit in the stands and do homework or whatever. There wasn't much joy for my kid in swinging down to help out but she did it all with a smile. Honestly I don't know if anyone (teammates, other students, comp ball team or whoever) ever gave her any static about playing JV but I know it bothered her a little at the time. The tip that might help your DD if anyone really gives her crap about pitching on the JV team is to simply respond with "I'll take all the circle time I can get"! And then just go make the most of it, she'll get better and have lot's of opportunities to shine!

*I can't believe that the school put up with that mistake regarding the field! Also, given the new roster rules (12 player max), COVID restrictions, etc., our school isn't able to field a JV team this year and some of the "Varsity" roster has to rotate not being allowed to suit up or sit in the dugout on game days. Bummed that they were forced to cut players that were interested in playing HS softball....that will hurt the team for years to come and deprive those kids of great memories and potentially finding a sport they love.

Best wishes to your DD!!

 

[Towny9]

Please, PLEASE, PLEASE tell your daughter this ... verbatim ... do not change a word ...

“Honey, I posted on the DF forum looking for some advice. A very wise and experienced member said to tell you this: The mere fact that the post about school softball contained the words ‘team mom’ explains everything.”

It is unfortunate that many school coaches try to design teams to suit their limited coaching skills rather than adapting their coaching skills to get the most out of their players.

You can share that one too. No charge.

I am so glad you said this or I was going to. I had to read “team mom” twice and then look back to make sure we were taking school ball. When I realized we were - wow.

I’m a high school athletic director in Virginia and we don’t allow juniors to play JV at my school. I tell our coaches that if you keep them on JV as a 9th and 10th grader and didn’t make them any better (or at least enough to make varsity) then that’s on you. If they are solid academically and aren’t an attitude issue they should be varsity as juniors.

 

[ang2bmd]

What kind of turf plays slow? Every turf field we have ever played on flies like a rocket. My SS loves it because her bounces are true and predictable

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[NBECoach]

We adhere to an unwritten rule that no JR or SR is on the JV roster without the players permission. Over the years we have had Juniors who felt that they needed AB's play a game or two on JV and then go back to Varsity. We also had Juniors who we felt needed AB's agree to be "sent down"for a couple of games The only others who "played down" were transfer students from Europe who had never played before.

 

[whiporee]

What kind of turf plays slow? Every turf field we have ever played on flies like a rocket. My SS loves it because her bounces are true and predictable

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

I don't know. That's just what everyone has said about it so far. The infield and outfield are the same stuff, just different colors. It's odd.

 

[whiporee]

I just found out that the current JV coach asked if there were any scoresheets or records kept during tryouts, and the presumptive JV coach replied they did not, and "most girls already knew where they stood before tryouts."

Also, DD's pals were over and said that the coach gave a speech before tryouts: "just because you did bad at varsity didn't mean you'd be demoted, and just because you excelled at JV didn't mean you'd be moved up." So it seems all this stuff was locked in over the summer. So maybe that will help her feel like she didn't blow it.

 

[obritt]

I want to thank everyone for the responses and the encouraging words. I have another question, though. How should I tell my DD to deal with her teammates if 16-year-old bitchiness shows up? I think she's more worried about the off-the-field stuff than the on-the-field. Did any of your DDs have good responses for high school situations where comments were made about playing status?

I'm editing to add to the suckiness of this. JV has six games this year. Varsity has 17. Yuck.

Around are area we seem to have a shortage of pitchers so we often have juniors pitch jv. Like you less games and if jv is rained out they don't worry about making them up. On a bright note after jv is over normally several of the girls who work hard get to move up to varsity often starting in front of other varsity girls. Just tell her to keep her chin up and work hard, it will pay off down the road if now in softball in LIFE.

 

[livingontheroad]

I can sympathize

But hs ball is often a joke compared to travel ball
There is pressure on coach that all seniors are on varsity. And to get them a letter.... Even if the girls suck.

My DDs 14U coach took a gig coaching a HS.
I asked him about that. He said " That what they tell me"

His next sentence was " but no one tells me how many players I can have, and no one says I have to play them"

your daughter self-worth should not be wrapped up in being part of a varsity high school team..... Half of the girls on that varsity team, seniors, likely don't even belong there. Maybe 90% at some schools. Some of the girls that think they're special because they're high School varsity , have never seen real competitive softball, and don't know how bad they really are.

I worked with a guy whose daughter played catcher at a local high school.... He said one day his daughter might play in college when we discussed softball one day when our school was going to play theirs......... He was in a dream world. She never played competitive ball and had zero skill.... I kept my mouth shut I didn't have the heart to burst his bubble.... It would burst itself in due time. Our high school team was bad my daughter was the only travel player on the team...... And we still beat them like 20 -0. Thats most high School softball in my experience.

 

[CoachJD]

Please, PLEASE, PLEASE tell your daughter this ... verbatim ... do not change a word ...

“Honey, I posted on the DF forum looking for some advice. A very wise and experienced member said to tell you this: The mere fact that the post about school softball contained the words ‘team mom’ explains everything.”

It is unfortunate that many school coaches try to design teams to suit their limited coaching skills rather than adapting their coaching skills to get the most out of their players.

You can share that one too. No charge.

The "team mom" thing is just unbelievable to me. Our high school team does have a few involved moms who help out with certain events (Senior Night, for example), but there is absolutely no way any of them would ever be part of team/on-field business. That's really unacceptable, and I'm not surprised the entire situation is bad.