Rec Ball Participation

[Orange Socks]

This subject seems to come up every year.

My kids have moved on from Rec ball 5 years ago, but I am still on the Sportsmanship Board. I am the guy that dishes out punishments behind the scenes for crazy parents/coaches. Anyway I was curious to see how many teams our league has this year. I was blown away with what I found.

6U-13 teams
8U-23 teams
10U-15 teams
12U-7 teams
14U-No teams

58 teams! If each team has 12 players on the roster that 696 players. When DD started they didn't even have a 6U division and when she got to 10U there were only 8 teams. When I hear about registrations for rec ball falling off in other parts of the country, I wonder why.

Our league is a little different that most. We don't do a fall league. Our association has 6 sports that are offered. Soccer, Football, Lacrosse, Basketball, Baseball, Softball. Many kids and coaches cycle through the sports every year like a conveyor belt. Our softball fields are converted to soccer fields in the fall. So if you really like Softball you have to go to a league close by to get your reps which DD did for 2 falls.

I think that college softball is televised helps with interest.

 

[Eric F]

That's pretty incredible. My DD's league has grown a small amount, but I suspect that it's mostly because 2 other local leagues have folded in the last few years.

 

[J.Galt]

Rec league my DD started in has just 8 teams in 12u now. 14u/HS has only 4 teams. 12 teams in 10u and 8u has 10. There's still a fall league and they have select which is sort of like an all star team that plays games on Sundays vs other leagues select teams.
We pulled the DD out of park and rec 5 years ago. Back then they still had 12 teams in 12u and also had 8-10 teams in 14u and 6 or so in HS.
It's shrinking but not at the rate it inittially did. I think the select brought some of the T shirt startup girls from the AFA and USSSA teams back.

 

[marriard]

This subject seems to come up every year.

Our league is a little different that most. We don't do a fall league. Our association has 6 sports that are offered. Soccer, Football, Lacrosse, Basketball, Baseball, Softball. Many kids and coaches cycle through the sports every year like a conveyor belt. Our softball fields are converted to soccer fields in the fall. So if you really like Softball you have to go to a league close by to get your reps which DD did for 2 falls.

I think that college softball is televised helps with interest.

Just a question. Is there a lot of long term people involved? And involved across multiple sports?

That has been the #1 thing I see in rec - it has become such a short term stop that there is rarely anyone who has been involved more than a couple of years. Basically just when the dedicated volunteers are getting good at running things in the rec league after a season or two they leave for travel and all the knowledge goes with them and you are in this constant state of turnover and inexperience.

We finally got our rec program back on track when the city agreed to hand it over to the travel program as a feeder program. Now we have people with 8-10 years experience helping to run the program versus previously where no one had more than 2.

Also how is the support from the local city parks & rec? They must take a lot of fields to run!

 

[Orange Socks]

Just a question. Is there a lot of long term people involved? And involved across multiple sports?

That has been the #1 thing I see in rec - it has become such a short term stop that there is rarely anyone who has been involved more than a couple of years. Basically just when the dedicated volunteers are getting good at running things in the rec league after a season or two they leave for travel and all the knowledge goes with them and you are in this constant state of turnover and inexperience.

We finally got our rec program back on track when the city agreed to hand it over to the travel program as a feeder program. Now we have people with 8-10 years experience helping to run the program versus previously where no one had more than 2.

Also how is the support from the local city parks & rec? They must take a lot of fields to run!

We have a new director of softball this year. The last one was in place for about 7 years. And yes, getting the right volunteers to be commissioners, field draggin', concessions, etc is always difficult. In our area most don't move on to travel, they just move on to a different sport or activity. Our Summer Allstar teams usually field some pretty competitive teams. We don't have any travel teams that associate with the program either so there aren't teams picking off the better players. The parents have no idea what travel ball is for the most part, but once they get a taste of All stars they start asking questions. lol. We actually have a lot of former players that play/played in college.

The league is not part of the city parks and rec. The entire sports program has a symbiotic relationship with the local school district but it is all parent volunteers for all sports. All of the facilities that we use are attached or part of the various schools around the area. Basketball is played at the middle and high schools. Baseball has a smattering of fields on the school's properties. soccer is also played on converted baseball fields, softball fields and football fields. It takes a lot of money to run the programs and softball is actually the smallest sport. Basketball had close to 2000 participants in boys and girls. Recently they started having fund raising galas with guys like Pat Green and Jack Ingram performing. I could not even afford any of the silent auction items. Argentinian dove hunts, guns, jewelry, etc. They have corporate/family sponsorships available. $30,000 Olympian, $20,000 Hall of fame, etc. They even raffle a new car! All the monies go back to the Sports program for capital improvements. I think they raised $600K at the last one. I grew up playing baseball and soccer in this program.

Spring Branch - Memorial Sports Association

 

[joe720]

Our league is fading fast. Live in a small town but always had a few teams. This year we couldn't even field a full team in three divisions so had to move girls up or down just to be able to play.

Probably our last year of being able to field a team. Sad part is 2 years ago we finished second in the state championship.

 

[Rick M]

We've had a banner year for our Rec softball program. For the first time anyone can remember, we have as many girls playing softball as boys playing baseball. We're in a small town, 6,900 total population. There are nine teams from 8U through 14U. We have had the benefit of having a strong group of girls for a number of years, they're all playing 14U now. I think it's helped that so many younger siblings and friends have come to think of softball as the cool sport to play. We even outdrew lacrosse this spring!

 

[Grc80]

Our rec leagues in the area are thriving which is surprising considering a few years back there were less places to play, less travel ball teams and some of the age groups in our largest league were lucky to have three teams.

Now there's a ridiculous number of travel teams, smaller leagues growing around us and signups are as strong as ever.

My theory is people are becoming more involved in youth sports because of Facebook. Seeing the Neverending stream of "baby girl did great today" captioning a ballpark pic probably has some wanting to get in on that action.