Insight welcome on approaching HC

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Apr 17, 2012
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Wi
It seems your daughter is the 10th or so player on a 10 player team. Does your team hold tryouts? If they do she may not get a choice in whether she wants to tryout for another team. She may have to. for me as a parent im not traveling all over to have my dd play 6 innings in 6 games. Thats bs imo. And even worse w a guest player eating innings like that. I would flat out have a direct conversation w the coach regarding his vision for your dd. You sign up to play ball. No not equal time but some time.


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Apr 28, 2019
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I get where you are coming from, and agree with most of what you are saying. But I am not so sure I agree with the guesting. If you need a guest you are kind of in a bind. You can't ask them to come and sit. Well, I guess you could, be up front. "Hey, I need a guest in case something goes wrong. You'll play in inning a game and sit all weekend. you in?" But really, who is up for that?
Not saying they should sit all weekend. They shouldn’t be taking regular players positions either. The guest goes wherever needed. If she is an IF and you need and OF they she goes in the OF. Unless of course you have a regular who prefers the OF. My daughter has been asked to guest several times. I tell her don’t expect to start and don’t expect to play every inning. She starts and plays pretty much every inning. I just try and set reasonable expectations. We have gotten a lot of free gear over the past couple of years. Uni’s, helmets, even a bat.
 
Jul 14, 2019
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The title of this thread is "Advice on approaching HC," but honestly, it sounds like your daughter has had the courage and maturity to speak to the coach already. His response was that her time will come, which this being the end of the season, sounds like kicking the can down the road.

You mentioned that your daughter hits every game and is productive, just not seeing time in the field. I'm going to jump to the same conclusion that others have -- she is all bat and no glove.

That's not the worst thing. Someone who can hit will always have a place on a team, and it sounds like you're on a pretty high-level team at that. There is a player on DD's team who routinely crushes the ball, but she's a major liability in the field. As we head into tryouts with the team moving from 12U to 14U, the hot topic among gossipy parents is whether or not she makes it.

Other have said that building fielding skills can be done, but I'm a little dubious at 14U. At this age, girls have been playing for 6+ years, if they don't have a basic skillset in the field at this point, I can't imagine that it's going to bloom all of a sudden.

Embrace the hitting, be the biggest threat with the bat. But approaching the coach to ask about playing time at the end of the season probably won't be very productive. Maybe ask for a frank assessment of where your daughter would fit in at 14U for 2019-20.

Again, we are not 14u. This is a first year 12u team. The tournament in mention we played up because the 12s didn’t make. We wanted game time, we had to play 14 so we did.
 
Jul 14, 2019
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A 10-player roster where you've had multiple tourneys with just 9 players and where players are guest playing elsewhere in July just ahead of your major, season-ending tournament? I hate to sound rude, but in my opinion, that's not really a strong team. Strong 12u teams have 12-14 players that are fighting like hell to stay in the lineup. They're going to pick up a guest about once during spring - to give them 12-13 players, not 9-10 - and may take a couple extra bodies to PGF just to be safe. And no one on these these teams is guest playing in June or July, because 1) they're not going to risk the injury playing for someone else and 2) they don't want to lose their spot in the lineup to someone else. Exception: the #12-14 who is leaving after the season.


Parents pay to watch their kids play. Ask 100 random sports parents and I bet 90 will agree.

For coaches/parents, a good rule of thumb is that guests will play half the time, ensuring that the PAYING customers are not being given short shrift.

Here’s my assessment of us qualifying as a “strong travel team”: in our area, there is a new team being formed weekly by a girl’s dad who isn’t happy where she is currently. So, he comes up with a team name, posts tryouts on Facebook and further contributes to the lack of competition and supply and demand of the teams in the area instead of taking his daughter to try out for other teams that are established and proven. That being said, and based on knowing how and why those teams are formed, we aren’t interested in playing on teams like that. In the past week alone, i have seen 3 new teams advertising tryouts, all coaches by dads of girls we know from the softball world. This is in addition to the numerous teams that can’t fill a roster already and are always looking for that last 1-2 girls to “add to the strong core of girls”. It gets a little redundant.

As far as our team stands, we also don’t hang around town to play against those same teams over and over. We travel about a 4 hour radius to play some of the top names/organizations in our southeastern region. So while our roster numbers may not indicate we are a “strong team”, we most certainly are compared to what is local to us. We don’t trophy hunt, we hunt competition. Plain and simple. I support the philosophy of the team and we are all like minded for the common goal.

As for our player picking up with another team, I agree with you completely. I also would not be surprised if she doesn’t return for next season as it seems she is on a different team every year anyway. But, I’m not the coach or her parents, so it’s none of my business.
 

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