High School Dead Periods

[LEsoftballdad]

Is that a written/bargained policy or just a preference?

Here, all teachers with a valid teaching license (and retired teachers) are automatically certified to coach in HS. Pros and cons to that.

All else equal, I'd prefer to hire a teacher/staff member. Being in the building all day has benefits. The kids can get to know their coach better. It's another advocate for athletics who is always around. There are fewer potential scheduling conflicts. But it's silly to just open up coaching spots to any teacher who wants a check instead of looking for a real coach. If that's not an actual legal policy, they should try to get rid of it.

It's a collective bargained agreement in most districts. I won't get into the intricacies of district politics where I live, but there are over 130 school districts who all operate independently with different rules. Yes, they have to follow state mandates, but going from district to district is nuts.

Our AC is a gym teacher in another district. He is an AC for boys JV soccer and girls JV basketball at his home district. He pads his salary by roughly $20K per year (the salary is lower for JV) on top of his teacher salary.

 

[Intheboondocks]

All else equal, I'd prefer to hire a teacher/staff member. Being in the building all day has benefits. The kids can get to know their coach better. It's another advocate for athletics who is always around. There are fewer potential scheduling conflicts. But it's silly to just open up coaching spots to any teacher who wants a check instead of looking for a real coach. If that's not an actual legal policy, they should try to get rid of it.

This is overlooked and part of the reason our school has struggled to get enough girls to play softball, track and lacrosse have had teacher/coaches or assistant coaches pushing their sports throughout the school year.

This year we finally had an AC who is a teacher and we had a bunch of 7th graders show up, which was great, but we have a huge gap in highschool ages now. 2 freshman and a sophmore will be about it for highschool aged girls, with the 2 freshman being the most experienced.

 

[angispeds]

I think in a way this protects athletes from their high school coaches practicing them all year round and allows, at least at smaller schools, the casual athlete to continue to participate in high school sports.


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[angispeds]

I agree with your statement " There are top TB teams that never practice together.." Just that it pushes my own definition of what a "Team" is.

Our top TB team rarely practices and I promise you they are more of a team than most teams that practice every day. At second year 16s we are a small team of 13 kids. 4 have played together since 10u, 1 added in 11s, 2 more in 12s, 2 more in 13s, 2 in 15s and 2 just joined us last fall. These girls couldn’t be any more the true definition of a team.


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[John T]

I think you're correct that both have their bad apples. The problem is, at least where I'm from, most of the HS coaches are just teachers with little to no experience in coaching. They do it to make an extra $8-$10K for two months work.

That's not to say you don't see equally unqualified buffoons on the travel ball scene. Heck, I was one of them. The difference was I wasn't collecting a paycheck, and I knew when to walk away.

Try 2,500.00 where I’m at!!! Weeds out the bad ones!!!!

 

[YoungBuck]

I think in a way this protects athletes from their high school coaches practicing them all year round and allows, at least at smaller schools, the casual athlete to continue to participate in high school sports.

I'm not aware of a 'dead period' in the winter for softball players...

To the best of my knowledge (probably excluding Iowa who plays high school softball in the Summer) all of the 'dead periods' are in the Summer.

I think you could make an argument for the players health if the 'dead period' were not during the Summer when, to the best of my knowledge, softball players play softball.

The reality is this is not about anyone's health... it's about school associations and the amount of control they want. In the states that allow high school coaches to coach players on Summer teams (not necessarily "travel") I have not seen the abuse that is used as the reasoning for the rule.

 

[CoachJD]

Just throwing this out there: Every state is completely different.

In Illinois, the summer contact days do not apply to baseball/softball. The restrictions on HS coaches coaching their players on non-school teams applies only during the school year. There are out-of-season/during school year limits on what you can do, too.

Love that summer is fair game for baseball/softball though. It should be. That's when the sport is played. We do a lot in the summer. Our HS girls (the ones who decided to play; it's optional) are going to get 20+ games this summer. We practice a lot less often, and I'm more lenient on missing practice/games. We also have a few travel girls who make those teams their priority. But I typically see more improvements and bigger jumps in skill during the summer than I do during the grind of the HS season.

 

[peter.kottke]

I've seen these high level gathering of humans (who don't practice together) play. For the most part you wouldn't know they didn't practice together from the way they interact on the field, etc. They are all on the field, at that moment, with the same goal..Now maybe after the games they don't all go and hang out by the pool together but softball isn't supposed to be a sorority..

I coach in Georgia. Every February Patrick Murphy hosts a group of us to come watch a practice and talk to him, his assistants and the players at Alabama. It’s a cool experience and valuable for travel coaches to see a really well run practice, different drills, hear what the college coaches are correcting the players on, but the best part is a question Murph asks the players to all answer: What do they wish their travel ball coaches had done differently? Lots of good answers and insight (for instance, several say they wish they’d been played in more positions since what they play in college is not what they specialized in prior). Several who played on teams where the players lived far apart and flew or drove in to compete together said they really wished that they had the chance to practice together on that team - they suggested coaches of those team should cut some tournaments and hold more weekend practice gatherings (my team is far from being that kind of team so I patted myself on the back-
Of course if we ran across one of those teams they’d beat us badly too). In other words, they identify something valuable missing from the experience when getting to practice together is taken away.


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[_MIA_]

I coach in Georgia. Every February Patrick Murphy hosts a group of us to come watch a practice and talk to him, his assistants and the players at Alabama. It’s a cool experience and valuable for travel coaches to see a really well run practice, different drills, hear what the college coaches are correcting the players on, but the best part is a question Murph asks the players to all answer: What do they wish their travel ball coaches had done differently? Lots of good answers and insight (for instance, several say they wish they’d been played in more positions since what they play in college is not what they specialized in prior). Several who played on teams where the players lived far apart and flew or drove in to compete together said they really wished that they had the chance to practice together on that team - they suggested coaches of those team should cut some tournaments and hold more weekend practice gatherings (my team is far from being that kind of team so I patted myself on the back-
Of course if we ran across one of those teams they’d beat us badly too). In other words, they identify something valuable missing from the experience when getting to practice together is taken away.


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Not saying it is the optimal experience for the kids but in terms of being a competitive advantage (which is probably what the people who implemented the rule were considering), unless all things are equal (eg you play a team with equal talent who does practice together a lot), it isn't as big of a deal in softball/baseball as it is in football and basketball for example. This is especially true as kids get older and they "know the game". MLB teams practice as a team once every two months once the season starts (they don't really have a choice) but they do individual work almost every day..(that said, the Red Sox could use some practice at hitting their cutoffs..).

 

[YoungBuck]

Just throwing this out there: Every state is completely different.

In Illinois, the summer contact days do not apply to baseball/softball. The restrictions on HS coaches coaching their players on non-school teams applies only during the school year. There are out-of-season/during school year limits on what you can do, too.

Love that summer is fair game for baseball/softball though. It should be. That's when the sport is played. We do a lot in the summer. Our HS girls (the ones who decided to play; it's optional) are going to get 20+ games this summer. We practice a lot less often, and I'm more lenient on missing practice/games. We also have a few travel girls who make those teams their priority. But I typically see more improvements and bigger jumps in skill during the summer than I do during the grind of the HS season.

It sounds like Illinois has it right... I am pretty sure Wisconsin is similar.

Indiana and Kentucky though have high school rules that are great for travel teams and coaches and very prohibitive for local or high school teams outside of the high school season. I think eventually these rules will go away, but who knows if that will take five years or fifty...?