Lots of teams, but not organizations

[_MIA_]

Lol...WHO are they...?

Not sure if you are being serious but their top clubs are good. Bahl's Nebraska Gold team (with her pitching) beat their 18U team in the PGF championship game a few years ago in 9 innings.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

Lol...WHO are they...?

The owner of the organization, James Lamar, is married to Marissa Young, the HC at Duke University. They've had quite a few big-name recruits who made a name for themselves in other organizations and were poached by the LD. There's a serious conflict of interest there with the HC of Duke advising players to get ready for college they need to play for the LD organization.

 

[radness]

Not sure if you are being serious but their top clubs are good. Bahl's Nebraska Gold team (with her pitching) beat their 18U team in the PGF championship game a few years ago in 9 innings.

was teasing.

 

[uncdrew]

I love this from their website. As if they're all top-tier teams.

" In just 4 years, the Lady Dukes Softball Organization has grown from 4 NC based teams to ~50 teams competing in 8U - 18U age groups, with local, regional and..."

We've beaten every single one we've played.

 

[jsoftballcoach]

The real Dukes are very good. Look for the towel.

In my experience, it’s fairly easy to know which teams are the real deal and which are not, even for the highly franchised orgs.

I’ll admit it took a bit to figure out the bombers, they have a few really good teams.

If you are familiar with the tournament and which fields are the top ones, look who’s playing there.

Mercado Smith and FC Rico won’t be playing at Peralta park (Socal reference).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[kibadbo]

part of the things that I keep seeing, and NOT bashing the names, is the Franchise fee / Name type arrangements. Like Texas Glory. great org from what i've heard. But does that mean Texas Glory in Ohio is to same level??? again, NOT bashing the org, just a recent example i've seen.

There are Lady Dukes, Bat Busters, etc, teams all over the place now. It's just hard for me to imagine that all these teams being renamed, are at the same upper echelon level as the original namesakes.

My DD plays on a brand name team currently. I never thought about it in terms of the team being "elite" or not. I thought about it like I would any franchise in any business. I have a decent sense of what I'm going to get by using them.

Of course these franchises are not going to have 40 top-tier teams. But I do know that all the coaches in our org go through the same training and have very similar practice outlines. The owners come out a few times a year to confirm practices are being run according to their standards. They also have a steady stream of Zoom calls with college coaches, pro players, Olympians etc. They are able to get these people in part because of the team's brand name. The girls love the calls and learn a lot from them.

These things don't guarantee anything, and we might leave this organization at some point. But the name made our initial decision to join easier and we have not been disappointed.

 

[_MIA_]

We've beaten every single one we've played.

I think their 16’s/18’s are really good. I could be wrong, but I don’t know of any 14’s and below which are really competitive on the National level. Could be partly due to what @LEsoftballdad referred to before..

 

[LEsoftballdad]

I think their 16’s/18’s are really good. I could be wrong, but I don’t know of any 14’s and below which are really competitive on the National level. Could be partly due to what @LEsoftballdad referred to before..

Their NC 16/18s are very good. The rest are just franchised teams, and while they may be good teams, they're not the Premier teams. You will very rarely see any of those franchise teams playing PGF or on the Power Pools of any major tournament.

 

[Silver 2200]

I think their 16’s/18’s are really good. I could be wrong, but I don’t know of any 14’s and below which are really competitive on the National level. Could be partly due to what @LEsoftballdad referred to before..

All hearsay but there are a lot rumors that it is free to play on the Lady Dukes top level teams at 16/18u. Lady Dukes seem to be bringing in a good amount of sponsorship money/NIL money. Maybe that money is going towards the top teams tuition fees. Saving 3-5 grand a year could certainly persuade some families to play for the Lady Dukes.

Lady Dukes franchise teams are not very good in terms of top level competition. That goes for all your franchise teams.

 

[_MIA_]

Their NC 16/18s are very good.

That is what I meant while also trying to say that I don’t know if their NC 14’s are at the same level..(if they even exist)