Taking High School Sophomore Season Off vs. Recruitment

[RJY]

Seeking advice....

DD is a freshman considering taking off her sophomore year in high school ball. The reason is the varsity the team will be stacked with seniors and she doesn't want to spend another year at JV. She was named the No. 2 catcher but No. 1 goes no where next season. She feels that spending another year at JV will negatively effect her game because of slow play and lack of game intensity. I certainly can understand where she's coming from and you could see the game speed/intensity issue when she practiced with her 18U travel team for the first time this weekend. She slowly recovered but it was evident.

My question is.... How much could it effect the way college recruiters view an athlete if they choose to take their sophomore year off?

 

[GOINGDEEP]

I don't think recruiters would care much one way or the other, being her sophomore year. "Maybe" a tad if it was her JR/SR, but again that depends on certain situations.


BUT, let me offer these words of caution with 2 examples of what we have/are dealing with. Beginning this season we had 7 starting seniors and 2 starting juniors. One quit for personal reasons, one has a herniated disc, one broke her finger on a tag, one said the wrong thing in Twitter ( released from team ). So we had to use 4 underclassmen. Where would we be if the better Jv players skipped a season like you're describing? We were blessed to have them in reserve.

This is the ugly truth, but it's the truth. We had a girl last year, sophomore, quit the team for about the same reasons you describe. Now the word on the street is she's coming back next year after all these seniors move on. And let me be brutally honest, NOBODY WANTS HER BACK. Not the current players, not the parents, not one of the AC coaches. I'm telling ya when that subject comes up or her name, people get pretty vocal on how they feel about her quitting because she wasn't playing varsity. Everyone knows she felt she was too good for JV and it wasn't worth her time for the commitment like the other JV players have done.

Your DD is not going to lose any skills playing JV, but what she might lose is the respect of the players/parents/coaches. Because no matter how you word it, people will know WHY she skipped. And people don't forget or forgive easily.

My 2 cents is work double hard on her batting. My DD was designated hitter all four years when not in the circle, ADESDAD from our forum ( who I just met last week ) his DD is DH her freshman year and probably one of the best in the district. You teach your DD to hit and the coach will find a spot for her in the lineup.

Whatever you/she decide I wish you the best, but please think on what I've given as examples.

 

[Carly]

What Goingdeep said is great. College coaches will recruit from her summer team so they might not even notice the missed HS year if no one tells them, but skipping will put her in a BAD spot if she's thinking she wants to play for the high school team her junior and senior years. Skipping for the reasons you listed also promotes an attitude that WILL NOT FLY with college coaches/teammates. When she starts playing for her college team, she WILL be treated like a freshman, and it will be best if she already knows how to be mature about it and work hard while waiting her turn. Opportunities can come out of nowhere, and generally you want to be the obvious one to turn to when that happens.

 

[RJY]

These are the answers I'm looking for and thanks!!!! As a footnote here, I'm a football coach in the same high school and have experience with recruiters for football (we all know that HS football is about the only source for college recruiters) but softball/baseball is different. Also, she's my kid and I know that I may be too close to the situation to effectively be clear in my judgement of everything.

Keep the opinions coming!!!!!

 

[CoogansBluff]

First off, that was a helluva post by GOINGDEEP. That's some great first-hand food for thought. ...

What I'm about to say may or may not apply to your daughter's dilemma, but it's an opportunity for me to get on the soapbox about a trend that I've seen in high school sports in recent years (not just softball).

What I see is a growing culture of year-round athletes who don't ''get'' high school sports. They approach HS sports from a year-round sport mentality: What am I getting out of this team? Can it help ME be a better player? Will it help ME be recruited? Will it help ME get exposure? Will the coach let ME pitch? If so, then I'm in. If not, it's a waste of my time. I've got my travel team, I don't need it.

In travel ball, those questions are appropriate. You're looking for the best fit for ME. But in high school ball, a coach wants players who will ask, ''What can I do for this team? What can I do for my school?'' They want players who ''get'' high school sports, not those who just exploit it.

As a football coach, you know this. But in football, there are no year-round sports that compete with it, so football players are more likely to ''get'' that pride/spirit/loyalty intangible.

The irony here is that high school ball represents a lower level of play on the field than travel ball but requires a higher level of loyalty, respect, spirit and pride. If I were a college coach, I'd absolutely value that quality in a student athlete and want to know who has it and who doesn't.

 

[Amy in AZ.]

I think that your DD is right. I would encourage her to play another HS sport.

I do enjoy, like, and support HS softball, but it does nothing to get you recruited, in a majority of the states.

 

[JAD]

Some great responses in this thread! If you DD decides to skip her sophomore season, the best thing she can do is participate in another sport - track&field, volleyball, swimming, ect. Playing softball 10+ months a year, year after year, can burn a player out, so taking a break to do something else could be just what she needs. The downside is that if your DD decides NOT to play school ball or play another sport, there is a good chance there will be NOTHING for her to do, because TB typically shuts down during the HS season and as GoingDeep mentions, she could be "shunned" by the other players when she comes back for her junior and senior seasons.

 

[RJY]

Amy...contrast your opinion with what Carly and GOINGDEEP has to say. Your feelings are diometrically opposed.

 

[Amy in AZ.]

My friends that are college coaches, do not ask nor care about HS. They care about grades and how you do against top travel teams. What you did in most HS conferences is piddly to them. I bet people on here can name girl after girl that was Ms. Softball of their state and then, were not productive in college, at all.

If asked "Why didn't you play HS ball your sophomore year?" She would say "I ran track and enjoyed it very much." Or, "I worked a part time job, that year." Even writing that ridiculous question, makes me laugh. No one is even going to know that she didn't play, as a sophomore.

I have never known a top athlete, to get shunned. My kids played at a top, competitive HS. The coach would nip anything like that, in an instant, if it was a girl that could help the program.

The thing is, your DD doesn't want to play. I would respect that, but I am a big believer in doing something. I am certain that she will have a lot of opportunities.

 

[CoogansBluff]

I don't know that what Amy is saying is necessarily opposed to what others are saying. Her point is that your daughter's sophomore high school season won't matter to college coaches, that if her heart isn't in it, then perhaps she should go a different direction. Others are saying that this decision, though irrelevant to college recruiting, could affect her place and role on the team as a junior and senior. And my point was that there is a quality of loyalty, selflessness and school spirit that coaches of school teams (high school or college) find attractive that can be nurtured in the high school setting, and that if not learned, can cause problems at the college level.