Need advice-Travel Team and Practices

[riseball]

I have no problem with girls playing multiple sports and I will work around their schedules during our "off-season."

However, rec softball is not another sport and if you miss one of my practices to go to another softball anything, your butt will be on the bench doing spray charts all weekend. You do "other" softball things (hitting coaches, pitching coaches, etc.) on your own time, not mine.

If you do it twice, I really hope you like your like your rec team because until you can find another travel team, that's all you're going to have.

To me, if you still have a pull toward rec, you really aren't ready to be on my team, anyway. Missing anything on my team for anything rec shows a lack of commitment that simply will not be tolerated by me, my assistants or your teammates and their families.

Seems a bit much for a 10U team.

 

[Little Angels Softball]

Seems a bit much for a 10U team.

Perhaps. Not in our org, though.

I don't coach 10U but I will every few years be recruiting 10U players to join a first-year 12U team. That expectation is set very early with these girls, even though they are still just 10 at the time.

Like my signature line says, there is a team out there for everybody. If you want to be on one like mine, it goes with the territory. If you want to play rec, too, then you probably need to find another TB team even if you want to be or think you should be on mine.

 

[Eric F]

Seems a bit much for a 10U team.

At 10U, I would agree more with you. At 12U and above, I'm more with LAS.

 

[grcsftbll]

I don't think playing kids who show up for practice over those who don't is a bad thing, even at 10U. The double standard is an issue though.

 

[Momo'sDad]

Players don't have to tell coaches why they're missing an event, unless they want to. As a courtesy, players should let coaches know when they will miss a game or practice, but they don't have to say anything beyond that. On the other side, there's nothing wrong with coaches starting only players who attended that week's practices. If a coach wants to make exceptions for illness, school events, etc., that's also fine.

It's ok to teach children that life often involves trade-offs. Parents who are afraid of allowing kids to learn this valuable lesson are crippling the next generation.

 

[Coach JV]

At 10U and 12U it is important that girls play rec ball. It is good for the program as
rec ball is a feeder for travel. WE always sprinkled the travel players around the rec league
to not only even out the competition, but to allow the first time rec girls an opportunity to
play with peers of a greater skill set. Travel ball is still somewhat of a social experience until
girls reach the magical 16U age group. Let her play with her friends and find a new 10U club
if necessary

 

[Eric F]

At 10U and 12U it is important that girls play rec ball. It is good for the program as
rec ball is a feeder for travel. WE always sprinkled the travel players around the rec league
to not only even out the competition, but to allow the first time rec girls an opportunity to
play with peers of a greater skill set. Travel ball is still somewhat of a social experience until
girls reach the magical 16U age group. Let her play with her friends and find a new 10U club
if necessary

I'm not sure I agree with this. I have seen more than a few situations in rec (10U and 12U) where a skilled player's development is not progressing because the low level of competition around them isn't challenging them to keep improving. Last year, in my DD's second year of 10U rec, we saw that situation coming, and made the move to TB after the spring rec season. It was absolutely the right move for her development. Seeing what 12U rec ball looks like this spring confirms our decision. My DD would be no where near the level she is currently at if we had stayed. She has learned things about the game and been pushed to a higher level of performance than she ever could have reached in rec ball.

 

[BobInMadison]

It is different for every girl. Some people complain when a good player leaves the local LL, but I can understand the reasons. For every girl it is different. For some the commitment to TB is so enormous that the extra time for rec ball would be too much of a drain. For others it is the level of competition. Or both.

For DD 1's last year at 12u, she was the first girl drafted out of 60. She was the best pitcher and the best hitter. She was either the best or second best base runner, and one of the best fielders. She was even one of the best catchers, even though that is not really her position, but she could rocket the ball over to second. It was an OK experience, because there were some other TB players, and also the social aspects. But, she decided that was enough for her.

Locally the TB girls leave before 14u, so she didn't play 14u rec ball. She wouldn't enjoy it, and wouldn't get much out of it.

 

[CoogansBluff]

I have no problem with girls playing multiple sports and I will work around their schedules during our "off-season."

However, rec softball is not another sport and if you miss one of my practices to go to another softball anything, your butt will be on the bench doing spray charts all weekend. You do "other" softball things (hitting coaches, pitching coaches, etc.) on your own time, not mine.

I'm siding with you in what I find to be a surprising minority.

When I coached 10U, the team and players had so much to learn. There weren't enough hours. There's no way a rec game at that age should beat a well-run travel practice unless it's a pitcher getting more innings. 10U rec ball is a snooze-fest. Sounds like the coach has goals about player and team development and wants players/parents on same page.

 

[Seattlecoach]

While games are usually considered "more fun" than "just practicing" (hopefully practices have elements of fun as well) and it’s always good to get experience I believe a player should learn A LOT more at a good travel ball practice than they ever would at a rec game.

You practice to get better. A book (I think it’s in the "Talent Code" --I'm too lazy to go find the exact quote) talks about one of the most successful tennis hotbeds that doesn't let a player compete until they have 3 years of HARD practice under their belt. The idea is that competing without good technique takes the athlete backwards and actually breaks down the technique that they are building. This is something you see on the pitching threads here at DFP all the time- don’t let a girl even worry about throwing strikes until she has incredible mechanics. Theoretically, the same principle could be mimicked in every area of the game to where we would need years of practice to lay a foundation.

This of course is really only applicable if the team is the Elite Great Gold Winning Winners team that has girls 100% focused on becoming the best softball players in the world. But real people have to balance the two sides- what is going to make me a better player in the long run vs what is going to be fun now.

As a family, you need to decide where on the spectrum you land and what level of commitment your dd has to a higher level team. If she wants to play rec too because it’s fun – a perfectly good reason – she needs to find a team that’s ok with that. Saying you are going to go get better at the rec game is probably not true and a bit of a dig at the coach’s level of practice.