Need guidance ?

[Brookarly]

I am a father of 2 girls whom i've coached sinced the coach pitch/t-ball level . One is 11, the other 7 . I have been a long time follower of this great site and have received many tips from reading that I've used with the teams i coach . Now i need some "political" advice if you will and am really struggling .
For clarification - my oldest plays competetive rec softball. She's ok - helped pitch us to a championship in our 4th and 5th grade league last year. We moved up to the middle school ,6,7,8 grades this year .
Here's the issue that's causing my heartburn:
My AC the past 3 years is also the league coordinator and this year stepped to take on the whole rec program . We hold a draft that she does not participate in,it's all me and thats fair and i like it that way .
Long story short - my first round pick(2nd overall) is the top rated pitcher and an 8th grader . So far great as i base thecrest of my picks off her and even get some of my girls from last year that played well but are now rookies in this league .
I'm told this kid is good but her parents are a hassle. No big deal ,i'm a social worker i'll deal with them. First 2 practices my #1 comes , i meet both her parents ,no problems, she's firing the ball and plays a good infield, weak bat . I'm stoked as i have other bats to cmoensate but having pitching and defense is huge .
3 days after our second outing i get an e-mail from my AC(also the coordinator) that the kid wanted off my team. The parents went above her head to the softball coordinator and the two of them approved her moving to another team(that was good already as i know now) . The parents never gave a reason,never e-mailed me ,nothing . Im livid and ask at least for some sort of compensation as i'm losing my top pick . I am told basically that" it is rec ball - deal with it " . I e-mail the other coach looking for a trade,no response.
Now i'm forced to use some young pitchers,my daughter included . She gets valuable experience and i have another 6th grader whose really thst gives me 3 good innings when she's there . We end up 4 and 12 losing 6 games by one run . As last seed we almost upset the top seed ,losing 3-2 this week as the girls ended the season strong winning 3 straight and losing the aforementioed PO game.
I let the other coaches know what happenned as well as anyone that would listen and NO ONE thinks it's fair except the descision makers.my AC and i had a tough year as she thinks she did right and the other coach with my top pick keeps feeding her lines that this kid is no good . Meanwhile she whipped us , her team finished 9-3-3 and are playing tomorrow in champioship saturday.
The seasons over ,i cant fix that but i can effect change for next year. No team should go through what we did. The girls are smart ,they understand what happenned.
My question- am i wrong, just let it go or try to make the draft better . I love coaching and don't want to jeapordize that ,but making a mockery of the league/draft is not good either imho.
I'm anxious to hear other thoughts and thanks again for a wonderful sight for fastpitch softball .it truly is a great game

Thanks,

Jay

 

[marriard]

Two choices:

- Join the board of the league and help run it
- Find another league (where you will probably end up joining the board and help run it).

Frankly I and all the other coaches would have been at a board meeting making a huge noise about this when it happened.

We don't put up with this type of garbage in our rec league (but then I run it) for softball, but the baseball side of our league is the biggest bunch of BS political, rule skirting, bunch of egotistical &*&#@$(* you will ever see.

 

[Jr10234]

Baseball must be the same everywhere! If your sb league is sanctioned like Little League the are rules. Draft changes must be approved by both coaches and it's a trade, not a one way deal. I vote joining the board is the way o go.

 

[Brookarly]

Thanks for the input and validation . I had planned on going to board meetings beginning in july,they are once a month .
@srewball - a trade was not enforced because the ONLY 2 folks who thought this was the right thing to do were the league coordinator(my AC) and her supervisor. Everyone else,including parents and other coaches thought it quite unfair . I actually did pick another pitcher , an excellent #2 never thinking something like this would happen or would even be allowed !

 

[Brookarly]

Parents don't run the league. Not that you really can tell sometimes who really will be #1, I would get two number 1s because they are well rounded athletes.

Agreed and in 9 years combined coaching both of my daughters i have never had a problem . The one problem i do get is so egregious and done so covertly ( seriously, i had no knowledge ,And still have no knowledge as to why this happenned ) that it continues to bother me . Whomever someone picks first , second etc . That should be the team's pick unless there's a trade that's sanctioned by the league. I never knew free agency was allowed in rec ball lol .

 

[Amy in AZ.]

Similar stories to yours happen everywhere. Some family worked hard with their DD and then, they see the team and think "Oh, no."
Of course, I have been in your shoes and I have been in the other parents shoes all to often.

We used to laugh that her team seemed to play a game called get the ball to Caitlin. No matter where the ball was hit, they would throw the ball to Caitlin.

I watched one of my students pitch the other night and she looked like a different girl. Everything was slow motion. She didn't pitch well and she didn't hit well and I though, "What the heck?" Then, I see her at her lesson the next day and her first throw about took my glove off. I said "Why don't you play like this on your team?" She said "They can't catch the ball, if I throw hard. And my coach and the other parents are yelling at me to slow down."

I suggested they pull her from the team. This is the end of the season and the other girls didn't seem to get any better.

Good luck and I always felt if I was upset with softball, things were very good with my family, job and church - because I could always have real problems.

 

[Brookarly]

Amy thanks for the insight - my kids and wifevare healthy and happy !
However ( ha ha ) my girls did improve. They lost 6 one run ballgames and one by 2 after getting blown out early . Then they won their final three games before they "scared the bleep ". (the other coaches words) out of the #1 seed in the PO's losing 3-2. This girl would have helped and if she wanted to that Leave badly then i should have been forwarned and a trade should have occurred or the kid could have played travel ball. Like i stated before my biggest goal is to not have this happen to anyone else next year and I'll advocate hard for changes .
Thanks again for your input. I really appreciate these boards and the input received from other softball enthusiasts.

 

[Bama Slamer]

I would be looking for a new AC one with a spine just saying she is sure not your friend.

 

[Momo'sDad]

I wasn't happy with our league and for years, like most people, I settled for it. Then one day, I had a decision to make - either get my kid the heck out of there and go to a neighboring rec league (or TB) OR make a commitment to make it better. That was 2+ years ago when DD was 7 and things have vastly improved since then. We still have a long way to go as there are still shady dealings, but as we bring in new leadership this summer, I expect we'll have more safeguards in place to limit the shenanigans.

For some strange reason, there are people committed to the creation of 'Super Teams' in rec ball. I get doing it in comp, but in rec? At 10u? And even 8u??

This was the 1st time in a very long time that no 10u team went undefeated. Although there was 1 team that struggled, every team had at least 1 decent pitcher, so most of the games were competitive. There were some slaughters, but not like last year or the several years before when 1 team pretty much dominated.

That competitive balance is good for the long-term health of the league in terms of enjoyment and also on-the-field success for your comp teams. Although you don't want to come across as a whiner, it IS good for you to shine a light on the side dealings that go on.

 

[Brookarly]

I wasn't happy with our league and for years, like most people, I settled for it. Then one day, I had a decision to make - either get my kid the heck out of there and go to a neighboring rec league (or TB) OR make a commitment to make it better. That was 2+ years ago when DD was 7 and things have vastly improved since then. We still have a long way to go as there are still shady dealings, but as we bring in new leadership this summer, I expect we'll have more safeguards in place to limit the shenanigans.

For some strange reason, there are people committed to the creation of 'Super Teams' in rec ball. I get doing it in comp, but in rec? At 10u? And even 8u??

This was the 1st time in a very long time that no 10u team went undefeated. Although there was 1 team that struggled, every team had at least 1 decent pitcher, so most of the games were competitive. There were some slaughters, but not like last year or the several years before when 1 team pretty much dominated.

That competitive balance is good for the long-term health of the league in terms of enjoyment and also on-the-field success for your comp teams. Although you don't want to come across as a whiner, it IS good for you to shine a light on the side dealings that go on.

Thanks Momo'sdad. i plan on going to board meetings beginning in july to get more involved in the inner workings and to make sure our draft next year is done properly. the competitive balance was thrown out of whack with this move and it really wasn't fair to me or my girls. yes rec is about competing hard,but you are correct when you state that it's not about creating super teams either .
as a side note -was it wrong of me to be happy when i found out that the enabled child's team lost in the championship last night