New League President Looking for Some Advice

[fishteach]

Hi All,

I'm in rural Maine, and this was my first year as the president of our local recreational league (Standish Softball Association - Standish, ME) and only my second year in the league, so that should tell you a lot. I have coached my daughter's 8U team for two years now, and have watched the league and could use some advice as I head into year two of being the president.

First, like any league, we have a core group of girls in each division who would benefit greatly from something more than what we currently offer. As the only game in town, I feel as though we need to offer something for everyone. Has anyone had experience implementing a competitive team into the 10U & 12U levels? When I was a child each division had one "A Team" that players had to try out for and earn a spot on, and I am interested in doing something like that. Currently our program has evaluations in March and then we create teams that are evenly matched. This blends the players, and we end up with teams composed of 3-5 decent players, and the rest girls who are their for a multitude of reasons. The unfortunate byproduct of this is that the learning curves of both groups tend to not be what they could be. If we consolidated all of the decent players onto an "A Team" and then split the rest up into other teams, I feel like everyone would be the better for it. It's a tough dynamic, but I am sure that there is some sound advice out there, and I'd love to hear it.

Lastly (for now), our town's recreation department is small, and all of our local youth sports programs started there, but have since moved out to the public sector. That is how our softball association was created 12 years ago. The rec. dept. still houses girls basketball, but is looking for a new home for the program. We are contemplating adding girl's basketball to our organization's to-do list and changing our name. I see pro's and cons, so I was wondering if there are any other softball folks out there that have done or experienced similar things, and might have some advice for me.

Thanks in advance, Brett

 

[awinn]

Hi Brett,

I don't post here but rarely since the people here are far wiser than me when it comes to softball (said with a serious face), but it sounds like our towns are similar so I thought I'd pipe in.

For your first question.. I think doing a fair draft and keeping several teams for the rec league is the way to go and if you want to provide a more competitive challenge for some of the girls, setup an "all-star" team in addition to that, with the parents paying a seperate fee for that team. Another thing you may want to consider is getting together with some of the other towns and pooling your girls to establish an "all-star" type team. This is what our league does since none of our towns (there are 5 of us) are big enough to seriously sustain higher level competitive teams. This makes for more competitive teams and has the added bonus of developing some great inter-town friendships between the girls.

As for your last question about basketball. Our orginization runs the town's fall rec soccer, indoor soccer and basketball, and softball/baseball programs. Obviously adding a program involves more work but I think basketball would be the easiest (no concession to worry about or fields to maintian, etc.) and I think providing the kids with more opportunities to play together outside of softball brings them closer together. Ultimately though it just depends on how much you guys want to take on.

 

[GunnerShotgun]

Having one dominant "A" team play in the league is a bad idea. The "A" team would more than likely have the best pitching and catching resulting in games that would barely resemble softball. There would be lots of walks followed by steal - steal - steal and score. The "A" team would learn little in the games as the pitching would dominate and there would be few batted balls to the infield and virtually none to the outfield (sounds boring).

I would form All-Star teams (A Team) from the league to play other All-Star teams from your surrounding communities.

 

[David Carter]

Having one dominant "A" team play in the league is a bad idea. The "A" team would more than likely have the best pitching and catching resulting in games that would barely resemble softball. There would be lots of walks followed by steal - steal - steal and score. The "A" team would learn little in the games as the pitching would dominate and there would be few batted balls to the infield and virtually none to the outfield (sounds boring).

I would form All-Star teams (A Team) from the league to play other All-Star teams from your surrounding communities.

This is the way to go in my opinion. We ended up this season for a bunch of reasons I would rather not go in to with a default "A" team. At closing ceremonies with three teams in our age group All Stars looked like this: one team had 9 players on the team while the other had 5 and the last one (my team) had 2. I think that this type of situation could only survive a few years before people just quit (although in you situation it does not sound like there are other options). An All Star team that continues on after the rec season makes the most sense. If there is the interest pooling the few surrounding towns and coming up with a travel team might be another option. However in your situation as the president of the "rec" league that might not sit to well, if you take all the best girls and leave but ultimately you have to do what you think is best for your daughter in this situation.

 

[quincy]

I do not know if you do slowpitch, I think that has the most players registered in any of our club’s sports.

If you can work with the local schools basketball and volleyball might be good options for the colder months. Middle and elementary schools in our area are great.

As far as fastpitch, I think I would try to make all the Teams “A” Teams. Figure out how to teach pitching to the entire club and you will have good Teams.

Edit to add: Small DD likes beating up her friends in softball, basketball they get her back. You see a lot of the same players and it gets confusing because most the parents are cheering for both Teams.

 

[sluggers]

If we consolidated all of the decent players onto an "A Team" and then split the rest up into other teams, I feel like everyone would be the better for it. It's a tough dynamic, but I am sure that there is some sound advice out there, and I'd love to hear it.

Would the "A" team play in the league with the rest of the teams? If so, then that would not be much fun for anyone.

As pointed out, the usual way is for the league to put together an "All Star" team near the end of the season that plays in some tournaments.

 

[JAD]

Is there travel ball in your area? How far are the parents of the 'A' players willing to travel, how much $ are they willing to spend? Your ideal scenario would be to form one 'A' team in each age group. Have tryouts for that team, then divide the rest of the players up into multiple rec teams. The 'A' team plays TB and the rec teams play each other.

 

[PGSAKen]

If you dont provide an outlet for the standouts they will leave and go where the competition is. In my league (which I just took over 18 months ago) we were having a mass exodus of players for this reason. We countered by seperating league and adding roster league similiar to league being C ball and roster being A/B ball.

We had some luck with roster but the best still went to tourney teams in the city.

From there we knew we couldnt take the tourney players back so we established relationships withthose coaches and asked them to have their girls sign up in the league in addition to tournies. We promised practice times to these teams since they were league affiliated and allowed each coach 6 options and then the rest draft oriented plus weekday games only. The result was the standouts came back, we gained great coaches, and the league girls progressed faster learning with the tourney coaches and players. In addition all teams were comperable due to 6 tourney players and 5 league players on each team with a great coach.

 

[GunnerShotgun]

In our area we have a separate Sunday league for the All-Star games. The All-Star leagues from the surrounding areas play each other and the only costs are the umpires (each community takes turns hosting each Sunday). Now for "official" All-Star tournaments many have a requirement that you have to play in a rec league in order to play in the tournaments. Anything other than that is travel ball and the competition is much better.

So typically a girl that plays in rec (and is an All-Stars) will practice twice a week with her rec team, once a week with All-Stars, play in one (or two rec league games) and double header on Sundays for the All-Star league. Practices at this point are only an hour long.

Once rec league and All-Star league is over (about the same time) All-Star practices increase to twice a week at two hours and they play in sanctioned All-Star tournaments the rest of the summer.

Hope that helps.

 

[PGSAKen]

Now that these relationships are established the tourney coaches recruit from their league teams and since they put all the girls back into the league for a month out of the year it is a win win for league and tourney teams alike.

In the end the girls win big because they have many options in softball.