need a little help

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i am having my first parent meeting tomorrow night and i am wanting some solid stats on girls softball. like what percentage of girls get scholarships from playing softball. why travel ball is so much more important that park ball. why attitude means everything. etc... if you guys and gals have any good resources i can look up tonight or in the morning or any advice it would be great. i have a team handbook, but i am not a very good speech giver.
thanks for any info.
 

sluggers

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May 26, 2008
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Dallas, Texas
These stats are from "The Student Athlete", 2003:

Each D1 school can offer 12 scholarships for softball. Each D2 school can offer 7.2 scholarships. So,multiplying by the number of schools indicates that there are about 5000 scholarships for NCAA sports. There are 9000 participants at d1 or d2. My guess is that of the 9000 that play D1 or D2 softball, most receive some money. Probably, only 3 or 4 kids per team get a full ride.

Throw in another 1000 players from NAIA and JUCO players that receive scholarships, and you end up with roughly 10,000 kids getting some money. The number of softball participants in HS is 350,000. So, 1 out of 35 kids get some money.

The number of kids getting full rides is probably around 2000 (4 per team at D1, 2 per team at D2). So, about 1 out of 150 kids get a full ride for playing softball.

If you want to give them the full story, tell them that playing softball in college is a job, with high expectations and the possibility of getting "fired" at any time. A lot of kids really enjoy playing softball in college, but don't pretend that it is a party. It is a lot of hard work.

"Attitude is everything"? I think telling them that attitude is important is more accurate. There is a post in another thread from a college coach listing the requirements for playing college ball. While attitude is listed, there are other things like running, hitting, and throwing ability which are just as important.
 
Jul 29, 2008
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why travel ball is so much more important that park ball.

I'm assuming your meeting with 10U, maybe 12U, parents that are making the jump to travel ball?

Very good post sluggers. I would only add to the 2nd to last paragraph that, depending on your location, ZERO players move from rec ball straight to HS varsity or college ball.

I think "Amy" is on this board. You should PM her because she helped another parent with this same meeting/speech a few months back with some good points and an outline. If not, go over to Hey Bucket and PM "Tucson". Same person.

Also, to keep it interesting and give yourself a breather, I would ask at least one girl from your local varsity team to help with the meeting. She probably needs the community service hours anyway.

Good luck and thank you for helping more little girls enjoy this great sport!
 

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