Tips for switching to a National Team

[Orange Socks]

Often times if you are an unknown player, you will have to get on one of the lesser teams in the org if they have multiple teams across the ages then build your reputation and work your way up to the top team if your skill set deserves a spot.

Around my area, you have the Bombers, Hotshots, Impact Gold, Tx Glory, Tx Glory Naudin, Tx Glory Adkins with many "national teams" with varying degrees of players. To tell you the truth I don't like it. My preference(who cares) are the programs of yester year with 2 or 3 teams per age division with all the coaches knowing who is who in the org instead being just another team fee. It warms my heart to see some of these newer smaller programs making some noise on the big stage like the Tx Strykers, Prolific, Dirt Divas(years ago) and others that I may have missed.

 

[BucketDud]

While they were “tryouts”, in this case your kid wasn’t an unknown to the org..

I'm with you other than a very rare exception don't see any National team adding someone they weren't already aware of. Majority of time those coaches have 15-20 players in mind to fill potential openings. Have to be something special to jump that group.

Softball has always been small world but even smaller with X, Tik Tok, GameChanger, etc.

 

[_MIA_]

Just thinking out loud here, and I don't know if this is frowned upon or not (and if it is, please somebody chime in), but you may want to approach it like how you would approach "courting" a college coach. Once you figure out what tryouts you want to go to, have your kid follow the coach/team on Twitter and then send a DM mentioning you will be going to the team's tryout and attach a link to a highlight video. If it isn't frowned upon, then it cannot hurt her..the worse they can do is ignore the DM..

 

[Orange Socks]

I don't know if this is frowned upon or not (and if it is, please somebody chime in), but you may want to approach it like how you would approach "courting" a college coach. Once you figure out what tryouts you want to go to, have your kid follow the coach/team on Twitter and then send a DM mentioning you will be going to the team's tryout and attach a highlight video. If it isn't frowned upon, then it cannot hurt her..the worse they can do is ignore the DM..

This idea shows initiative and the coach just might be impressed enough (if her skillset matches the team) to give her a look. Coach would like a player(family) that does the work to get noticed, because they will need to be doing it to get seen by college coaches.

 

[BT3100]

One thing I like about very high level teams... if a player is good enough to make the team they get an offer if not they don't. That's why high level teams very rarely have drama surrounding playing time. Everyone is good on these teams...

 

[BucketDud]

Just thinking out loud here, and I don't know if this is frowned upon or not (and if it is, please somebody chime in), but you may want to approach it like how you would approach "courting" a college coach. Once you figure out what tryouts you want to go to, have your kid follow the coach/team on Twitter and then send a DM mentioning you will be going to the team's tryout and attach a link to a highlight video. If it isn't frowned upon, then it cannot hurt her..the worse they can do is ignore the DM..

I don't think it is uncommon or improper to express interest. Many coaches have no issue with courting players from other teams, but surprisingly there are still a few who prefer not to.

That's how DD ended up with her team. Her pitching coach was friendly with an organization. Knew a pitcher her age was leaving and encouraged us to message coach to see if was a mutual fit. Coach told me during private workout that they preferred not to recruit kids away from other teams. DD was definitely on their radar since we played often and week later we both agreed a good fit. If we hadn't reached out may never have happened.

 

[Rolling Hard]

The idea that the National Team HC knows all the players and has already decided who he wants to join his team is a little far fetched and if the HC has already decided the HC is probably missing out on some serious talent. I like the idea of sending email with skill video and short bio. Got to toot your horn.

 

[_MIA_]

The idea that the National Team HC knows all the players and has already decided who he wants to join his team is a little far fetched

Hopefully..but you live in CA so it might be a bit different in your neck of the woods. I do agree that if kids are coming from multiple states away there is a decent chance a HC hasn't seen/played against some really high level players who might want to join his/her team. The question then becomes are those kids good enough to out-compete the high level kids he/she HAS already seen play and who want to join the team..Somebody putting together a 3 for 3 game against you with multiple nice plays at SS is probably going to carry a decent amount of weight with a lot of coaches..(whether it should is a different story..it is only one game)

 

[Orange Socks]

The idea that the National Team HC knows all the players and has already decided who he wants to join his team is a little far fetched and if the HC has already decided the HC is probably missing out on some serious talent. I like the idea of sending email with skill video and short bio. Got to toot your horn.

DD's former HC would do his recruiting during HS season and would do private tryouts at his warehouse. This was for the summer season. DD was asked to catch the prospective pitchers throughout the year. DD did a private session with a D1 pitcher getting ready to go off the college and that was how she was offered a spot. She was already on the 16u team and was a known player.

By the time they did August Tryouts-Coach had a pretty good idea who was coming, who was already offered and who was coming back. A couple of surprise players would show up, but that was a rarity. This team was a "boutique" organization that was kept small as the HC didn't want to run an entire program. He only cared about his team.

 

[BucketDud]

The idea that the National Team HC knows all the players and has already decided who he wants to join his team is a little far fetched and if the HC has already decided the HC is probably missing out on some serious talent. I like the idea of sending email with skill video and short bio. Got to toot your horn.

I'm not saying they have decided who they want to join their team, but probably aware of the pool of kids it would come from. The idea that someone completely unknown to the coaches is going to show up and impress enough in a 2-3 hr open tryout to warrant a spot on a true National team is exceedingly rare.

Not that it can't happen, but coaches generally do their homework and want to see a player can compete at that level or dominate slightly lower level. The days of a Chelsae Thomas (who was from our area) completely slipping through the cracks are long gone.