I heard people like to take soccer players, at least they should be able to run fast.
The Saga of Rebuilding a School Program: A parent-coach's journal
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Congrats to her for sticking in there and doing her best. It's so strange to me how programs can have such different experiences when they're in the same situation. Small schools loaded up. Big schools struggling to find players. I really think this stuff comes down to establishing rec as young as possible and having parents/coaches that are dedicated to seeing success. It's made for interesting discussion.
Maybe soccer is cheaper. Volleyball sure isn't. We looked into clubs for DD1 a while back and the dues were insane. 3-4x the softball dues.
Soccer players have great movement skills in general. They don't get "concrete feet" and reach for stuff. They see angles and move their feet to get their whole body in position and they lead a moving target well. Good footwork and movement is the most undervalued skill in sports.
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Things really started to come together for my DD2 and a few others in Fall 2021. I was all set to play a season of C-level old man softball for the first time in probably 7 years, then get notified that there would be fall ball played in a nearby town. Despite the last thing we needed being more softball tying up our evenings at home, I knew it would be good for DD2. I expected her to pitch her 8th grade season. She had been coming along pretty well in the four months since the end of spring LL.
Fall ball had two teams of girls ranging from LL ages 8 - 13, and as expected, our side of the county wasn't representing many. I'd say of the 30 or so girls, we had less than 10. That kind of thing kills me, but it is what it is and we make the best of it.
So, this time around my Covid Camp assistant took the head coach slot, and The Wizard and I took the assistant slots. My DD1, who was 15, was the "dugout mom" because that bunch we had was CRAZY. Fun, but a real handful at time. Constant screaming, whistling, talking to themselves, and random talking. It was like herding cats and got to me at times, but overall I loved it. Real dugout fun for the first time. Dd1 did an excellent job of keeping everyone semi under-control. As for yours truly, I got more on-field experience coaching 3B.
We did the modified coach-pitch (I presume that's what I can call it) where a real pitcher is on the rubber until they throw 4 balls, in which case the hitting team's coach comes out with any strikes having carried over, and finishes until there's a hit or strikeout. I wish we had done that for spring LL because everything worked better. Almost every game was a nail-biter. I loved it. That's also when some of the girls really broke out into ball players. These games were low stress, and the MS players naturally fell into leadership roles. It was fantastic to see.
DD2 got real pitching time in, and we had a real umpire at every game, who was calling the pitches just right to keep the game going, fairly for both sides. DD2 came out and was throwing well right off the bat. She didn't need relieved more than once or twice per inning, and some innings not at all. We were playing from the 35ft rubber, but I decided to go ahead and put her at 43. In spring LL she struggled in the three innings she pitched, with a lot of being slightly high pitches due to shorter batters and the 35ft rubber, which she had never pitched from. All her lessons are at 40ft.
She did get a little over-confident after her first two games had gone so well. The first bad night ended with tears, and the second bad night was just a lot of sour faces and brooding. But, she shored it up and finished the little season strong. In the biggest nail biter, we were at the bottom of the 5th, ahead by one run and with 12 minutes of game time. She came out and retired the first three batters with three minutes to spare. Just as importantly, she got a lot of time in the circle to learn how to play the position and it was hugely beneficial.
I really think that little fall ball season was the most effective few weeks of her career up to this point. She would certainly need the experience going into the next MS season...
Things really started to come together for my DD2 and a few others in Fall 2021. I was all set to play a season of C-level old man softball for the first time in probably 7 years, then get notified that there would be fall ball played in a nearby town. Despite the last thing we needed being more softball tying up our evenings at home, I knew it would be good for DD2. I expected her to pitch her 8th grade season. She had been coming along pretty well in the four months since the end of spring LL.
Fall ball had two teams of girls ranging from LL ages 8 - 13, and as expected, our side of the county wasn't representing many. I'd say of the 30 or so girls, we had less than 10. That kind of thing kills me, but it is what it is and we make the best of it.
So, this time around my Covid Camp assistant took the head coach slot, and The Wizard and I took the assistant slots. My DD1, who was 15, was the "dugout mom" because that bunch we had was CRAZY. Fun, but a real handful at time. Constant screaming, whistling, talking to themselves, and random talking. It was like herding cats and got to me at times, but overall I loved it. Real dugout fun for the first time. Dd1 did an excellent job of keeping everyone semi under-control. As for yours truly, I got more on-field experience coaching 3B.
We did the modified coach-pitch (I presume that's what I can call it) where a real pitcher is on the rubber until they throw 4 balls, in which case the hitting team's coach comes out with any strikes having carried over, and finishes until there's a hit or strikeout. I wish we had done that for spring LL because everything worked better. Almost every game was a nail-biter. I loved it. That's also when some of the girls really broke out into ball players. These games were low stress, and the MS players naturally fell into leadership roles. It was fantastic to see.
DD2 got real pitching time in, and we had a real umpire at every game, who was calling the pitches just right to keep the game going, fairly for both sides. DD2 came out and was throwing well right off the bat. She didn't need relieved more than once or twice per inning, and some innings not at all. We were playing from the 35ft rubber, but I decided to go ahead and put her at 43. In spring LL she struggled in the three innings she pitched, with a lot of being slightly high pitches due to shorter batters and the 35ft rubber, which she had never pitched from. All her lessons are at 40ft.
She did get a little over-confident after her first two games had gone so well. The first bad night ended with tears, and the second bad night was just a lot of sour faces and brooding. But, she shored it up and finished the little season strong. In the biggest nail biter, we were at the bottom of the 5th, ahead by one run and with 12 minutes of game time. She came out and retired the first three batters with three minutes to spare. Just as importantly, she got a lot of time in the circle to learn how to play the position and it was hugely beneficial.
I really think that little fall ball season was the most effective few weeks of her career up to this point. She would certainly need the experience going into the next MS season...
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I forgot to mention, Ed and I and the HS coach spent most of the summer in 2021 holding voluntary practices three nights per week. We figured if the other schools had girls playing travel ball that we should be putting in the work too. We did group practices for MS and HS players together, figuring it would help the MS girls level-up some. The turnout was anywhere from 7 to 13 most evenings. Not a huge success, but by and large, the girls who showed up got better and that's a win in my book. It certainly helped them for the fall ball season I talked about in the previous post.
The rest of fall and winter 2021 was spent with one night per week of pitching indoors for 3-4 of the girls, and one night batting for everyone. All voluntary, of course.
Something else occurred. Ed and I started pushing The Wizard to put his name in the hat for the head coach job. I presume the lady who was head coach would have continued in the gig, but as I understand it, the job still is officially hired every year. Admin doesn't seem to pay much attention to the MS team from a necessity standpoint. Like, if no one put in for the job I don't think they would have done anything more than a casual inquiry as to whether there would be a team. Softball is yet to be seen as something relevant.
I suppose I could have put in for the gig, but I still wasn't super confident in my ability to run the show despite all that I'd learned. Plus our time at home was already stretched super thin with having our girls on different teams.
So we bugged and bargained with The Wiz. He ran practices anyway, and had done a great job, but he wasn't the one making the decisions and we really felt things would be best if he was for a number of reasons I shouldn't go into. I want this thread to stay positive. Every program has its challenges, and despite it causing some turmoil, we felt strongly that some things needed to change in order to get us moving the right direction. I absolutely HATE those kinds of situation, but softball will never grow if the kids don't enjoy it, and as I described earlier in this thread, the kids were miserable by the end of the 2021 spring season.
So he put in for it, and he got it. I took all his admin work. Scheduling, etc, to sweeten the deal. He just wants to coach, and I understand that. My taking the admin role was a no-brainer trade.
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Pitching is just so, so, so important. It's everything, really. Great teams have great pitchers. There's no two ways about it.
The fall and winter pitching sessions were frantic. One hour, 3-4 kids, flinging maybe 45 pitches each. But, it was all we could do. We didn't know if our #1 pitcher was even going to play, and decided we should treat our workouts and decisions with the presumption that she wouldn't be with us. I didn't know as much about pitching mechanics at that time and even if I'd had some drills, we had so little time before spring that we felt it best to get them flinging until they could get the ball over the plate by whatever method they developed. Private lessons weren't an option for anyone but me at the time, so we just didn't have any other choice.
Overall, it wasn't too terrible. DD2 came along very well in her lessons in those months, and she was throwing a few hundred pitches a week with me at home. As far as we were concerned, she would be #1 and I had no intention of letting her eat dirt in the circle all season if there was anything I could do about it. It was a challenge though, because as much as she understood why I was staying on her about practice, she's not a full-on savage who wants to practice every day. She's a kid. She has other hobbies and she'll tell you that flat-out. I respect that.
But I knew she had to be throwing strikes. There was no other option. We had done the 6-8 walks per game season already, and our realistic next goal would be to give the hitters something to hit and try to have our defense ready for it. The Wiz' best one-liner that has really had an effect on my opinion about pitching is, "If they don't strike out, let them hit the ball. I can't defend against walks."
I certainly didn't tell her this, but she was a first year pitcher with one year of lessons, and as far as I knew our entire season rested on her shoulders. I couldn't bear the thought of watching her suffer for 16 games, so if I had to push her a little, I would. She didn't realize it at the time, but pushing her was just as difficult for me as it was for her.
I forgot to mention, Ed and I and the HS coach spent most of the summer in 2021 holding voluntary practices three nights per week. We figured if the other schools had girls playing travel ball that we should be putting in the work too. We did group practices for MS and HS players together, figuring it would help the MS girls level-up some. The turnout was anywhere from 7 to 13 most evenings. Not a huge success, but by and large, the girls who showed up got better and that's a win in my book. It certainly helped them for the fall ball season I talked about in the previous post.
The rest of fall and winter 2021 was spent with one night per week of pitching indoors for 3-4 of the girls, and one night batting for everyone. All voluntary, of course.
Something else occurred. Ed and I started pushing The Wizard to put his name in the hat for the head coach job. I presume the lady who was head coach would have continued in the gig, but as I understand it, the job still is officially hired every year. Admin doesn't seem to pay much attention to the MS team from a necessity standpoint. Like, if no one put in for the job I don't think they would have done anything more than a casual inquiry as to whether there would be a team. Softball is yet to be seen as something relevant.
I suppose I could have put in for the gig, but I still wasn't super confident in my ability to run the show despite all that I'd learned. Plus our time at home was already stretched super thin with having our girls on different teams.
So we bugged and bargained with The Wiz. He ran practices anyway, and had done a great job, but he wasn't the one making the decisions and we really felt things would be best if he was for a number of reasons I shouldn't go into. I want this thread to stay positive. Every program has its challenges, and despite it causing some turmoil, we felt strongly that some things needed to change in order to get us moving the right direction. I absolutely HATE those kinds of situation, but softball will never grow if the kids don't enjoy it, and as I described earlier in this thread, the kids were miserable by the end of the 2021 spring season.
So he put in for it, and he got it. I took all his admin work. Scheduling, etc, to sweeten the deal. He just wants to coach, and I understand that. My taking the admin role was a no-brainer trade.
*************
Pitching is just so, so, so important. It's everything, really. Great teams have great pitchers. There's no two ways about it.
The fall and winter pitching sessions were frantic. One hour, 3-4 kids, flinging maybe 45 pitches each. But, it was all we could do. We didn't know if our #1 pitcher was even going to play, and decided we should treat our workouts and decisions with the presumption that she wouldn't be with us. I didn't know as much about pitching mechanics at that time and even if I'd had some drills, we had so little time before spring that we felt it best to get them flinging until they could get the ball over the plate by whatever method they developed. Private lessons weren't an option for anyone but me at the time, so we just didn't have any other choice.
Overall, it wasn't too terrible. DD2 came along very well in her lessons in those months, and she was throwing a few hundred pitches a week with me at home. As far as we were concerned, she would be #1 and I had no intention of letting her eat dirt in the circle all season if there was anything I could do about it. It was a challenge though, because as much as she understood why I was staying on her about practice, she's not a full-on savage who wants to practice every day. She's a kid. She has other hobbies and she'll tell you that flat-out. I respect that.
But I knew she had to be throwing strikes. There was no other option. We had done the 6-8 walks per game season already, and our realistic next goal would be to give the hitters something to hit and try to have our defense ready for it. The Wiz' best one-liner that has really had an effect on my opinion about pitching is, "If they don't strike out, let them hit the ball. I can't defend against walks."
I certainly didn't tell her this, but she was a first year pitcher with one year of lessons, and as far as I knew our entire season rested on her shoulders. I couldn't bear the thought of watching her suffer for 16 games, so if I had to push her a little, I would. She didn't realize it at the time, but pushing her was just as difficult for me as it was for her.
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The 2020 and 2021 seasons had basically been a cattle call.
"Come try softball. We need headcount. We'll take anyone." It was our best option at the time, and we learned over the season that practicing 19-20 kids, half of which have no experience and the remainder having no more than three years of experience, was too much to handle.
In 2021 after the game where we played 19 kids over six innings, we decided to only take 14 per game for the remainder of our schedule. We kept the same starting 9, and alternated the remaining 5 from one game to the next. We didn't really like it, but when you most likely will only have six total innings played in a varsity/JV date, you're not getting any of the kids enough game experience. This allowed every player to get at least three innings per night. Plus some of the kids didn't care a bit whether they got better or even played at all. It's just the situation we were in.
We had a parent meeting to announce this, and one of the (really the only) more difficult parents was pretty pissed about it. I wasn't planning on speaking, but it irritated me so much I interjected and said "We have given up SIXTY-THREE runs in nine total innings of varsity play. Everyone is miserable and we'll never improve if kids are only getting one inning per game."
That pretty much ended the conversation. We knew the parents were just as deflated about it as we were. At that point, it felt like any idea was a good idea. And as I believe I mentioned in an earlier post, were were run-ruled in three innings by all but two teams. We did manage to beat one of them, but the other one we just managed to go the distance with.
***************************************
As the 2021 season had ended and 2022 spring practices were within sight, we also really started thinking about what we could and couldn't accomplish before we had another season of possible beat-downs. So we decided we would hold tryouts in February. Our number to take would be 14.
We knew we would likely create some turmoil by doing so, so we gave anyone and everyone fair warning in June and welcomed everyone to those summer practices I mentioned in the previous post. We wanted to minimize any complaints that tryouts would be unfair. I mentioned it many times on the group facebook page. This is your opportunity to learn. This is what's fair. Take advantage of it.
And as I said, we had anywhere from 7 to 13 show up on a given day.
We figured we would have a couple things happen as a result of holding tryouts.
1. The kids who weren't serious wouldn't show up.
2. The kids who WERE serious WOULD show up, and we would learn more about them by watching them out there fighting for a spot.
One of them moms told me her kid and another one were out on the LL the evening before tryouts to get a little more work in. I absolutely LOVED hearing that. I had never even seen that kid before until 2021 LL fall ball. After that, she showed up to every remaining outdoor workout (didn't know about them before that) into October, and most of the hitting and pitching nights. Any absence came with a reason and an apology. Softball is her #1. And she's just a good kid to have around. Really she kind of brought her whole crew of friends along, and they make up a third of the team now. All of them are potential savages.
What we didn't expect from holding tryouts is that a few kids who would certainly have made the team didn't show up because they didn't think they would make the cut. One of them shocked me because she had the most game knowledge of any of them. We thought she just wanted to focus on basketball. Allegedly she plans to play this season, which will certainly be a help. She's also beloved in the dugout, and the more kids like that, the more the team will bond.
The tryouts went pretty well. We only cut two. One of them was on the 2021 team and was much happier to be distracting kids in the dugout than actually playing. She had potential but really hadn't developed enough that we felt comfortable having her batting. In 2021 in her few appearances at the plate, she barely even responded to get out of the way of an inside pitch. The other cut was her younger sister and she was WAY too new and timid to play safely. We encouraged them and the parents to get signed up for LL, but as I understand it they decided not to.
To our absolute delight, we found out the group we selected was a GREAT bunch. There was little to no infighting, plenty of positivity, and solid work ethic all around. Despite the ups and downs, they were a pleasure to coach.
We pushed them hard in spring practices, and I truly believe we were as ready as our time and experience level allowed. Our problems throughout the season were more mental, but that just comes with experience.
The 2020 and 2021 seasons had basically been a cattle call.
"Come try softball. We need headcount. We'll take anyone." It was our best option at the time, and we learned over the season that practicing 19-20 kids, half of which have no experience and the remainder having no more than three years of experience, was too much to handle.
In 2021 after the game where we played 19 kids over six innings, we decided to only take 14 per game for the remainder of our schedule. We kept the same starting 9, and alternated the remaining 5 from one game to the next. We didn't really like it, but when you most likely will only have six total innings played in a varsity/JV date, you're not getting any of the kids enough game experience. This allowed every player to get at least three innings per night. Plus some of the kids didn't care a bit whether they got better or even played at all. It's just the situation we were in.
We had a parent meeting to announce this, and one of the (really the only) more difficult parents was pretty pissed about it. I wasn't planning on speaking, but it irritated me so much I interjected and said "We have given up SIXTY-THREE runs in nine total innings of varsity play. Everyone is miserable and we'll never improve if kids are only getting one inning per game."
That pretty much ended the conversation. We knew the parents were just as deflated about it as we were. At that point, it felt like any idea was a good idea. And as I believe I mentioned in an earlier post, were were run-ruled in three innings by all but two teams. We did manage to beat one of them, but the other one we just managed to go the distance with.
***************************************
As the 2021 season had ended and 2022 spring practices were within sight, we also really started thinking about what we could and couldn't accomplish before we had another season of possible beat-downs. So we decided we would hold tryouts in February. Our number to take would be 14.
We knew we would likely create some turmoil by doing so, so we gave anyone and everyone fair warning in June and welcomed everyone to those summer practices I mentioned in the previous post. We wanted to minimize any complaints that tryouts would be unfair. I mentioned it many times on the group facebook page. This is your opportunity to learn. This is what's fair. Take advantage of it.
And as I said, we had anywhere from 7 to 13 show up on a given day.
We figured we would have a couple things happen as a result of holding tryouts.
1. The kids who weren't serious wouldn't show up.
2. The kids who WERE serious WOULD show up, and we would learn more about them by watching them out there fighting for a spot.
One of them moms told me her kid and another one were out on the LL the evening before tryouts to get a little more work in. I absolutely LOVED hearing that. I had never even seen that kid before until 2021 LL fall ball. After that, she showed up to every remaining outdoor workout (didn't know about them before that) into October, and most of the hitting and pitching nights. Any absence came with a reason and an apology. Softball is her #1. And she's just a good kid to have around. Really she kind of brought her whole crew of friends along, and they make up a third of the team now. All of them are potential savages.
What we didn't expect from holding tryouts is that a few kids who would certainly have made the team didn't show up because they didn't think they would make the cut. One of them shocked me because she had the most game knowledge of any of them. We thought she just wanted to focus on basketball. Allegedly she plans to play this season, which will certainly be a help. She's also beloved in the dugout, and the more kids like that, the more the team will bond.
The tryouts went pretty well. We only cut two. One of them was on the 2021 team and was much happier to be distracting kids in the dugout than actually playing. She had potential but really hadn't developed enough that we felt comfortable having her batting. In 2021 in her few appearances at the plate, she barely even responded to get out of the way of an inside pitch. The other cut was her younger sister and she was WAY too new and timid to play safely. We encouraged them and the parents to get signed up for LL, but as I understand it they decided not to.
To our absolute delight, we found out the group we selected was a GREAT bunch. There was little to no infighting, plenty of positivity, and solid work ethic all around. Despite the ups and downs, they were a pleasure to coach.
We pushed them hard in spring practices, and I truly believe we were as ready as our time and experience level allowed. Our problems throughout the season were more mental, but that just comes with experience.
The thing that amazes me about these threads is how many states allow kids who are not in high school to play on high school teams.
Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying my tale.
Nearly every program in the area but ours sends most or all of their 8th graders to the HS team. Some need them to play varsity, and some just take them for JV. It's so funny because when the MS tournament comes around, they're suddenly all there. And some of those 8th graders are actually 9th grade age and held back for sports.
We definitely couldn't afford that luxury. Our #1 pitcher, a 7th grader at the time, pitched and played with the HS when we didn't have a MS game. They only had one girl who could consistently get the ball across the plate...a senior who had never played until then. Extremely high level basketball player, so it wasn't a huge surprise she could throw strikes and picked up the rest of the game rather easily, but her throws came in at something like 37mph. They actually won a third of their games though. The 7th grader mostly pitched JV and had varsity starts when the date was a varsity double header.
So the now 8th grade pitcher will likely do the same this year, and I think the current expectation is that she goes to the HS full time. Depending on how my daughter shapes up by spring, that may change since she's actually in HS. Ya just never know around here. Based on the game changer stats, they threw with about the same accuracy in MS. DD2 was just throwing 8 - 10mph slower. DD2 really doesn't want to pitch HS JV, simply because the games aren't taken very seriously at the HS level around here. The MS JV games actually were, as odd as that sounds.
