How to make a kid HATE school ball in 3 easy steps

[Acatchersmom]

My DD's HS coach gave her every reason to quit school ball since the 8th grade. I know I have written on here before about his town connections and favouritism I would tell her make it that they can't ignore you on the field- work harder than everyone. She's done that and more. He may not give her the accolades he gives lesser players buts that's not why she plays and she knows what he is about. She's killing it this year and I couldn't be happier for her!


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[CoachKevin]

School ball is optional IMO.

She can't be laying around all day but if she doesn't want to play school ball I would care less.

Most the college players I see list their TB Team not thier HS team.

That is not at all what I see. What I typically see is HS played for and accomplishments then maybe a line about what summer team.

Here is an example of Hawkins bio from Oregon;

HIGH SCHOOL
In the spring of 2012, she was one of four pitchers tabbed to the NFCA High School All-America First Team and one of 13 repeat honorees among the three squads’ 48 selections...during the spring slate, she repeated as the Northern Section and Northern Athletic League MVP after she posted a 28-5 record and 0.69 ERA in her 203 innings in the circle..she led the state in strikeouts for the second straight year with her 400 Ks (fourth nationally), and helped her squad to its second straight Division IV title...at the plate, she set a section season record for doubles (20), hit .551 with four home runs and 46 RBIs...as a junior, the Under Armour All-American logged a section record 510 strikeouts, 0.79 ERA, 19 shutouts and 35 complete games in 221 innings...at the plate, she hit .471, thanks to 10 doubles, six triples and a homer...as a junior, she was tabbed the Northern Athletic League MVP and Northern Section CIF Pitcher of the Year after she led the state and ranked second nationally in strikeouts...among other notable 2011 honors, the Louisville Slugger/NFCA All-America First-Team Pitcher also received ESPN Rise honors for the California medium-sized school division and national underclassman first team, and was the MaxPreps Small Schools Player of the Year...her squad went 31-4 in 2011 and won league and section titles...she was also an all-Northern Athletic League choice as a freshman and sophomore in 2009 and 2010.

CLUB
Her Strike Zone Elite club placed fifth in the 2011 Premier National Fastpitch Tournament in Huntington Beach, Calif.

PERSONAL
Parents are Natalie and Charley...Has an older sister Natasha and a younger sister Charli...Major is family and human services.


I can give tons of other examples if you like.... Bottom line Most Colleges do list HS and accomplishments.

 

[CoachKevin]

Oregon State

Madison Anthony Bio
Courtesy: Athletic Communications
Release: 01/14/2016

JUNIOR COLLEGE
- Earned first-team all-region honors at third base in her first season at North Idaho
- Hit .392 with 14 homeruns, 15 doubles, 73 RBI and a .706 slugging percentage in 2014


HIGH SCHOOL
- Four-year letterwinner in softball under head coach Traci Fuller at Skyview High School
- Earned all-region player of the year honors after hitting .605 her sophomore season
- A three-time first-team all-league selection

PERSONAL
- Born on Sept. 2, 1995 in Las Vegas, Nev.
- Daughter of Kim and Charles Anthony
- Has two younger sisters, Miah and Mikelle
- Majoring in human development & family sciences
- Mother Kim competed in softball at UNLV, while father Charles played football at UNLV before a career in the NFL and CFL
- Was a member of her high school’s honor roll her senior year
- Favorite athlete is Stephen Curry
- Outside of softball, enjoys music and dancing

How about Alabama

2015 (FRESHMAN):
NFCA Third Team All-American and First Team All-South Region ... Second Team All-SEC and SEC All-Freshman team ... Top 25 finalist for the NFCA Freshman of the Year award ... started 61 games at second base ... earned a hit in 46 of those 61 starts, including a season high 10 straight from March 28 through April 14 ... led the team with 26 multi-hit games ... led the team with 82 hits and 11 sacrifice bunts while posting a .423 batting average and swiping 16 stolen bases ... laid down a one-out bunt single in the seventh inning against No. 23 South Alabama (Feb. 5) that started the comeback rally in the eventual 2-1 victory ... named Sand Dollar Classic MVP, batting .714 (10-14) over the weekend's five games ... went 3-4 with a pair of RBI vs. Pacific (Feb. 13) ... hit her first career home run in a 2-4 performance against Stanford (Feb. 13), finishing the game with five RBI ... went 4-4 in the second game vs. Pacific (Feb. 15), including a double and a triple ... earned a hit in three of the four games at the Easton Bama Bash, including runs scored against Michigan and James Madison (Feb. 21) ... earned a hit in every game of the series against Louisiana ... in game three vs. the Ragin' Cajuns (March 1), she drove in the first run of the game on a third inning sacrifice fly and scored the go-ahead run later in the sixth inning ... was 3-3 in the series finale against Ole Miss (March 8) with a season-high two runs and two stolen bases ... had three multi-hit games in the series at Georgia and was named SEC Freshman of the Week ... hit a game-tying RBI single in the seventh inning and blasted the go-ahead home run in extra innings in game one over the Bulldogs (March 14 ) ... went 2-4 in the game two loss, driving in a run (March 14) ... had a hit in each of her first three at-bats in game three (March 15), pulling an RBI single through the right side with the bases loaded ... went 3-3 in a midweek win over Georgia State (March 18), scoring twice and driving in two additional runs ... went 2-3 with a run scored against Georgia Tech (March 25) ... earned a pair of hits in each of the final two games in the series vs. Texas A&M, driving in three runs on Saturday (March 28) and two more on Sunday (March 29) ... was named SEC Freshman of the Week on March 30 after three multi-hit games ... had her sixth three-hit performance of the season against Mississippi Valley State (March 31), going 3-4 from the leadoff position with an RBI and two runs scored ... had her fourth straight multi-hit performance against Southern Miss (April 1), going 2-4 with a pair of RBI and a run scored ... stretched her hitting streak to seven games with hits in each of the three games at Kentucky, including a 2-4 performance in game three (April 5) ... went 2-2 in the win over Middle Tennessee (April 8), including her fifth triple of the season ... earned her second straight multi-hit game with a 2-2 performance against UAB (April 14), scoring a run ... had three two-hit performances in the series at Auburn (April 17-18), scoring four times ... hit a pair of RBI singles in game two against Arkansas (May 2) ... went 4-4 to open NCAA Regional play against Fairfield (May 15).

HIGH SCHOOL
Played at Huntsville High School in Huntsville, Texas ... went undefeated as district champions her freshman and sophomore seasons ... regional quarterfinal champs her freshman season and regional champs her sophomore season ... area champs as a junior ... named the Team MVP in her sophomore and junior seasons ... three-time Academic All-District honoree ... Second Team All-District as a sophomore and First Team All-District as a junior ... did not play in her fourth year because she graduated early ... also played basketball in high school and was a three-time Defensive Player of the Year and 2013 First Team All-District selection ... played club softball with Texas Impact Gold ... helped lead the team to a runner-up finish at the ASA Gold Nationals in 2012 ... earned top-five finishes at the Triple Crown Nationals in 2012, 2013 and 2014 ... placed third at the Colorado Fireworks in 2012 and 2014.

PERSONAL
Born Demitra Dorothea-Victoria Turner on Feb. 16, 1995 in College Station, Texas ... daughter of Rodney and Evelyn Turner ... has one brother, Matthew, and one sister, Alexis ... majoring in human performance and exercise science.

 

[pdqkevin]

20 years from now when she is sitting in the bleachers watching her kid play and talking with someone who just found out she played softball as a kid they will ask where she played wanting to know which high school/college. They will care less to hear about which batbuster team she played on.

That being said, HS coaches with either a travel team using school players or children on the school team are a bad idea.

 

[GunnerShotgun]

20 years from now when she is sitting in the bleachers watching her kid play and talking with someone who just found out she played softball as a kid they will ask where she played wanting to know which high school/college. They will care less to hear about which batbuster team she played on.

That being said, HS coaches with either a travel team using school players or children on the school team are a bad idea.

This must be regional as most people only refer to the travel teams they play and have played for.

I would consider HS and travel softball to be two completely different animals. Both have their pluses and minuses but I wouldn't even compare the two.

 

[riseball]

Keep in mind that this stuff is written by the media department and is pretty much meaningless. To make the leap that it somehow matters to the coaches and is indicative of potential future success is ludicrous. It is trivia for the masses, nothing more. Your accomplishments in HS and TB along with $1 will get you a coke once you step on a college softball field. Nobody gives a crap what you did back in the day. Especially your coaches and teammates. The mindset that it matters is a big reason that so many HS and TB studs end up chasing foul balls or worse, flame out in their first year of college ball.

 

[Tom]

I suggest you encourage her to play JV ball. Sounds like she's an excellent player and will get the scouting attention needed to play beyond HS through her travel team. Sounds like it wouldn't be long until people realize she should be on Varsity. Around here if there are a lot of Seniors who have been playing throughout HS they tend to get the Varsity spots initially regardless of skill for the opening non-district games and tournaments. Then as JV players prove themselves they are moved up for district games. My guess is this makes it easy on a coach in regard to parents. I bet 90% of the HS parents have no idea what it means to be on a national travel team, will not be at tryouts and they will raise hell about a freshman taking their DDs spot until they see her play.

Also, playing JV could be a great opportunity for her to expand her skill set by learning some new positions, calling pitches, coaching bases helping with scouting reports, designing practice plans, coaching less experienced players etc. If your JV is like ours there will be a mix of travel plays with girls who haven't played since 8U rec ball, and that may allow her to just play for fun without the pressure of advancing in a tournament or having scouts watching. Like others have mentioned, the one thing HS ball offers that travel doesn't is being able to play for her school, community and friends. If she's like most/all on here she's had to miss a lot of stuff with her non-fastpitch friends over the years and this would give her the chance to play in front of them so they can see what shes been working so hard for.

 

[Slappinandstealin]

Our DD also has a great travel team,very supportive, yet her initial year of JV shook her confidence so much she really seemed like she might quit the sport. The coach was a yeller, and hyper-critical, he even would stop the game if a girl made an error and pull her from the field in the middle of an inning. This happened once to my daughter and by the end of the season, she was so afraid of being yelled at she would hold the ball, get migraines, etc. It was a nightmare. So after the season it took 2 months of travel to get her back to baseline. We didn't know what to do. There is no way in our town to fix the situation.

Anyway with the encouragement of ALL her other coaches, and her parents, she asked to meet with him in November and had a serious 1:1 by herself that actually seemed to have helped the situation. The coaches kept her down on JV to be the starting pitcher and a "team leader" this year, and the coach and my DD seem to have reached some understanding.I'm really proud of her.

Of course we haven't had any actual games yet, and I don't know what will happen when the yelling starts, but I think that encouraging her to deal with the situation and not to quit the team just because he was difficult may have been the best solution.
I don't think girls(or anyone) should be encouraged to "take abuse" but dealing with negative people is a life lesson, and that's why we play sports, right! Also it's important for kids to learn that their self-esteem shouldn't be tied to others.

Bottom line-she loves to play ball and she wasn't going to let a sub-optimal coach make her lose the opportunity to play in HS with her friends.

 

[KCPRK]

It depends on how she approached the "tryout" portion of HS ball.

Knowing the local hs coach (coaches B ball with little success) had a bunch of his own players coming my DD decided to treat hs tryouts like a job interview. She told the coach up front she was trying out for Varsity. If she wasn't "good enough" in his opinion to let her know. Keep in mind JV is rec ball-everyone plays equally and the level of comp-most teams they play don't even have a pitcher.

So DD had 2 opportunities-just like interviewing for a job. She already had an offer to play A ball during the hs season with her tourney team. She was seeking an offer to play hs ball varsity. She did not get the varsity offer so she took the best "JOB" available fro her future.

Great life lesson on knowing your worth and not taking the first opportunity that comes along if it doesn't meet your needs.

 

[hssoftball101]

Unless the varsity team is stacked, she doesn't belong on JV. This isn't baseball where even JV teams are stacked. She doesn't need to play HS but alternatively, you can look for another school to enroll her in if it's that important.