Once on the Team, Always on the Team?

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Once on the Travel Team, Always on the Travel Team?

  • Yes, it's the right thing to do

    Votes: 4 11.8%
  • Yes, but I'm not a fan

    Votes: 2 5.9%
  • No

    Votes: 28 82.4%

  • Total voters
    34
Jun 11, 2012
741
63
DD’s last team before college she played for for 3 years. There were a few retuning players “cut” over the years but the head coach usually talked to the players before tryouts and explained what their role on the team would be if they stayed and let them make the decision. Some stayed, some left.
One pitcher stayed after a conversation that she probably wouldn’t pitch much, she worked her butt off over the winter to become the number #2 pitcher.
 
Aug 19, 2015
1,118
113
Atlanta, GA
DD is entering second year 16U. Here's what her new team for next year did. They cut 3 players who weren't pulling their weight. For example, their primary catcher decided all of a sudden that she couldn't or didn't want to catch more than one game in a row. That's a problem when you play up to six games a day in a tournament. They had 2 (I think) decide to only play school ball and one who was given an ultimatum by her lacrosse coach (she chose lacrosse). One pitcher is injured and taking fall completely off.

They wound up with a core of six and are adding 7 or possibly 8 more. They talked about how it sucked to cut three, but it wound up being less acrimonious than they thought it would. So, I think make needed cuts before tryouts, then add more as needed at this level. Girls get interested in boyfriends, cars, jobs, other sports, so I think you can expect some natural attrition anyway.
 
Last edited:
Jun 12, 2015
3,848
83
I wouldn't want DD on a team that kept everyone no matter what. There are plenty of reasons to cut a player, including attitude, effort, ability, or her parents. I think generally speaking, seniority should give a player a leg up over a newcomer, but there shouldn't be any guarantees. That gets them complacent.
 
Jul 16, 2013
4,659
113
Pennsylvania
At the younger ages we held annual tryouts like most travel teams do. That said, most of the existing roster would automatically make the team for the following season. They were just not told that in advance. Everyone came to tryouts with the understanding that we would select the best 12 for our team. We did it this way so that we could cut ties with problems, if they existed. Luckily that never really became an issue.

By the time we got to 2nd year 16u, we had a solid core of players that had been with the team for multiple seasons. We knew what we had and made the commitment to help develop those players. When we did have a player leave for whatever reason, we replaced them with someone that reached out to us that we already knew. The last three years (16u, 18u, and 23u respectively), we built the roster strictly from our network with no tryouts.

To be honest, I preferred not having tryouts. I always hated tryouts... But we needed to build our program and our reputation before we were able to get to that point.
 
Jul 4, 2013
126
43
Our team has tryouts every year, and that is the scope of the commitment-year to year. Players don't get a spot forever based on making the team once (except for the coach's kid). But most of our players (the top 6 or 8, sometimes all) have been invited back prior to tryouts. It's been a pretty good team growing together. If you are on the bubble, then you may or may not get an invite back after tryouts. That outcome probably depends more on who else shows up than your performance on tryout day.

What I think our coaches have done well is to make sure that most players who are going to be in jeopardy at tryouts know that they are coming up short before the end of the season. Long before tryouts, if a player is struggling they are getting a lot of attention and coaching on whatever needs to improve. It's really not a tryout thing, it's a coaching during the season thing. Along the way, the expectations are being made clear as best they can. It's pretty rare for our team to want to replace a player who is doing everything the coaches ask to improve and pretty rare that anyone who isn't doing that and isn't succeeding wants (or expects) to stay.
 
Feb 21, 2017
198
28
d) Neither the coach nor the player are doing the necessary to develop the player.

Scenario b is the easiest and the one where cutting a kid would perhaps be justified. Scenario a is difficult as at the younger ages since physical differences can keep a kid from keeping up. Since the kid is working hard I would lean towards not cutting a kid in this case. Scenario c is on the coach and as a parent I would probably want to look for a new team in this case. Not sure what should be done about scenario d.

Scenario D you sign her up for soccer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Aug 24, 2018
72
18
DD joined a team last year that guaranteed spots for all, but changed it up this past season and made them all try out. Coaches said they didn't like the attitude of the girls when they knew they had a spot. Team is a first year 14u team and they had 6 new players last year and 7 new players this year. That turnover can't help you win. Girls didn't seem to improve much, so maybe they have to add new talent to improve. DD moved on to a larger organization that wants to keep teams together.
 
Apr 25, 2019
285
63
My DD is starting year 3 with the same group of girls. We tried out in 10u when the team needed three girls. The coaches have done a hell of a job with all of them and we are entering our second year in 12u as an A class team. However, on the opposite side of the coin, there are some girls that have been with the team since the beginning and have made the comments about never having to try out but because of their lack of work and a desire to get better, they are slowly slipping downward and seeing more time on the bench. So while I love not having to go thru the hassle of tryouts, I do believe that a little competion makes everyone better.
 
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
My DD is starting year 3 with the same group of girls. We tried out in 10u when the team needed three girls. The coaches have done a hell of a job with all of them and we are entering our second year in 12u as an A class team. However, on the opposite side of the coin, there are some girls that have been with the team since the beginning and have made the comments about never having to try out but because of their lack of work and a desire to get better, they are slowly slipping downward and seeing more time on the bench. So while I love not having to go thru the hassle of tryouts, I do believe that a little competion makes everyone better.


... and that is how coaches can make a sincere promise to keep girls every year, year after year.

You simply don't play the girls much that aren't good. They will eventually quit.

Not sure that it's a better approach, though...
 
May 24, 2013
12,461
113
So Cal
My DD is starting year 3 with the same group of girls. We tried out in 10u when the team needed three girls. The coaches have done a hell of a job with all of them and we are entering our second year in 12u as an A class team. However, on the opposite side of the coin, there are some girls that have been with the team since the beginning and have made the comments about never having to try out but because of their lack of work and a desire to get better, they are slowly slipping downward and seeing more time on the bench. So while I love not having to go thru the hassle of tryouts, I do believe that a little competion makes everyone better.

I've seen it plenty......Player leaves. New player joins the team. New player proves to be an upgrade over an existing player, and earns a starting spot. Exiting player gets less game time. Existing player decides that the team is no longer a fit for them. Repeat...

For better teams, you will generally see an upward trend as the new player coming in is often an improvement over an existing player. It often inspires existing players to step up their game, too. The ugly side of this is the coaches that try to attract talent rather than develop talent.

For lesser teams, it can be a downward trend as they struggle to attract quality players, and settle on just filling roster spots with whoever they can get. This trend often continues as the better players get frustrated with being on a team that continues to struggle, and they leave in search of a better team to play with. This is one of the ways teams die.
 

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