Time Management / Opinion question

[MightyMO]

@marriard order of importance is the right one.

I will say this. My DD is 16 and plays travel and "local" summer ball. We have a bit of a different situation because of where we play. Her local games don't conflict with her travel ball practice. If she is at a week long travel ball tournament she misses local games of course. She plays locally for a couple of reasons. The first is that there are so few girls serious about softball that it is the only practice some of them get in the off season. If girls like her didn't play with them, they wouldn't get any practices or games in. The second reason is she is the primary pitcher on her high school team. Her travel team is loaded with pitchers and she gets very few innings there. She actually prefers playing infield which is why she does that primarily for her travel team. The local team allows her to get a lot of innings during the week and not get rusty by just focusing on her travel position. We play high school in the fall so it's a good offseason pitching program. It can work if you want it to.

Now throw in her little brother playing baseball and you get a few months of absolutely no life outside of the ball field and parents split up to watch kids on a few weekends each summer.

 

[tim_s]

Yeah, on the high school side. In Missouri no organized practice or games with TB team allowed once high school practice begins until team is out of the playoffs.

in maine we also have a bonafide team rule

you cannot miss a HS event, game or practice, for a non-HS team event, practice or game.....there is a waiver process for a 'nationally recognized team or tournament over a school vacation'

 

[CoachJD]

Our middle school team (which is basically a rec team; we play in a local rec league) has three travel players. Two of them play for a coach I know, which is nice.

The downside is our games are Tuesday/Thursday, and those seem to be the typical travel practice days. All three girls are pitchers/training to be pitchers, so my hope is that the travel coaches will be OK with them making most of our games. I'm also fine with them missing our games from time to time because the travel team is more important for them and their development (selfishly, these girls practicing/playing with and against better players will make our high school team better if they stay with us). Every team in our league makes the playoffs, so I mostly just care about making sure they're all with us for those games.

I know many school/rec coaches don't operate the same way, but they should.

 

[Vertigo]

Not sure what your end goal is but if your dd wants to make the LL All-Star team and play in Districts she has to play in a minimum number of games per LL rules. Realistically I’ve never seen this rule challenged but there’s always that possibility.

Definitely difficult to do both and might make some parents angry if your dd misses a lot of practices but then shows up for LL games and plays more innings than their kid.

With HS age girls, many TB teams at that age group go dark during the HS season. IMHO, HS ball trumps travel ball when in season.

 

[Nimrod]

When we did this - and you don't do it beyond 12U - you work with your travel coach (who should be thrilled that he may get another developed pitcher) to set expectations and also the rec coach (who should be thrilled he has a travel player on the team). This is IMO the best priority list to work with.

1. ANY Game over practices
2. Travel games over LL games
3. Travel practices over LL/rec practices
4. If she is getting burned out, miss a rec practice.

That worked for a season of two of development. Your DD WILL get burned out if you let it go too long. It is a LOT of softball.

I agree w/ the priority list, but the coaches of each team should be told of these priorities and team memberships before she joins either team, IMO. I don't think it's cool to impose these priorities after the fact.

 

[Bullseye]

The only sports our daughters do recreationally are outside of team type seasons and family gatherings. Paid sports are 100% commitment to one team. There is no part time in commitment. High school rule is, if they start the season, they finish the season drama and all.