Too Many Teams

[badmonkey]

The "we can get your daughter looks for college" angle I find interesting. That's great, but my kid is 10. I just want her to get better and be a contributor on the team she is playing on, and have fun so she keeps playing. If she makes it to college playing softball, awesome. If not, that's OK. My wife and her 3 sisters all played TB and were pretty good. Only one made it through to finish high school ball, as they got burned out, interests changed, got on a toxic team, or whatever. My priority right now is a good environment, not college recruitment for a 6th grader. Maybe in a couple years, but selling the scholarship angle to a prepubescent girl is weird.

 

[Rick M]

girls are not going to get ready for TB playing rec as it stands now in most places...simple fact.

This goes to my original point: it's foolish to complain that there are too many teams.

Ideally, girls play Rec, make All-Stars, and find a love for the game that makes them want to keep playing. That All-Star team can start playing C-level, and once they improve their skills enough, move up to B-level. If you catch lightning in a bottle, and have a really good team, maybe you get to A-level. More likely, a handful of players will keep getting better and advance beyond their original Rec teammates, and move on to established A-level teams.

This system means that there are new teams coming on line all of the time, which is good for the sport.

 

[chevy706]

The teams are watered down compared to several years ago. Is that good or is that bad? Instead of having 15 legitimate A teams there might be 3-4 and the other 10-11 are B+ or B teams. Those really good teams are the A teams. There are too many teams calling themselves A. The B division has some legitimate B teams and a bunch of C teams.

I have a hard time believing that a sport that is growing in number and commitment is weaker than it was years ago. Perhaps those 15 "legitimate A teams" from yesteryear would be on par with today's B teams. I don't see how you drastically increase participation and the result is that everyone gets worse.

 

[BT3100]

I have a hard time believing that a sport that is growing in number and commitment is weaker than it was years ago. Perhaps those 15 "legitimate A teams" from yesteryear would be on par with today's B teams. I don't see how you drastically increase participation and the result is that everyone gets worse.

May not mean everyone is getting worse but more teams require more coaches. And that's where the real drought exists. Finding great coaches who can make kids better is very hard.

 

[_MIA_]

May not mean everyone is getting worse but more teams require more coaches. And that's where the real drought exists. Finding great coaches who can make kids better is very hard.

There is so much good information on the internet nowadays anybody who wants to improve their coaching skills can. The problem is either people don't know what they don't know or are too lazy.

 

[BT3100]

There is so much good information on the internet nowadays anybody who wants to improve their coaching skills can. The problem is either people don't know what they don't know or are too lazy.

Agree!!
Over the years I have picked up some knowledge about pitching (to help DD). Recently a few parents have asked me and DD to work with their kids.
I'll be the first to say teaching children is very hard and takes a unique skill set that I admittedly do not posses

 

[uncdrew]

It’s simple really. More teams means less quality teams. Instead of having 8-9 real good players and a few reserves now most teams have 3-5 girls that are really good and everyone else is average.
More does not mean better in this case. Like you mentioned parents of girls that aren’t skilled enough to make A level and good B level teams start their own teams. The new teams formed are usually nothing more than rec caliber teams.
More opportunities yes, more good opportunities certainly not. Just makes things more difficult like trying to book quality high level play tournaments.
Personally I would rather lose a game 2-1, 3-2, 1-0 to a good team than dismantle a poor team 20-0. You learn more about your team from a close loss/game than a blowout victory.

About half the parents on our team love to win 20-0. I have to wonder why. What makes that fun to them. You should see them in the stands, jumping up and down, slapping high 5s. In our case, it crosses the line into poor sportsmanship. It's embarrassing.

I talk to the girls and some find it fun (at first) but quickly recognize that it's not really as fun as a close game.

 

[uncdrew]

Maybe this is geographical but I swear every tryout ad I saw this year talked about getting them ready for college. Must be the age, going into 14U now. My daughter is 12 and she loves softball, and IMO is pretty good at it, but she's not interested in college right now. She'd play college ball if she didn't have to take classes (haha), but she isn't sure college is going to be the right career path for her. It's not easy, finding a decent 14U team with good coaching that isn't going to be traveling every weekend and playing in 3 or 4 expensive showcases.

I need to find you at the next tournament and hang out with you. You get it and are my type of people.

(See post above).

 

[Rick M]

Great post, there's a lot to unpack here.

One of the things that gets very little mention in these types of discussions in the lack of good coaches. We live in an area where a tryout for decent team will draw 40-50 kids. So if I wanted to get a few friends together to assemble a team we would have no problems doing that but...

We've all read about your DD's exploits, I imagine you would have no problem assembling a top-notch team around her! The coaching issue is a bigger problem than the lack of quality players, IMO. Going back to my original post, the complaints online are coming from parent-coaches who can't find enough players to build a team around their daughters. That's most likely a reflection that nobody is lining up to play for you more than an issue with too many teams.

DD has reached a level now where she could carry a team as a #1 pitcher but I want her to be a #2 or #3 on a team at the highest level of play that we can find for her. I want her to be pushed and forced to get better every day.

This goes to my point about concentration of talent. In order for your DD to grow and get better, she needs to be pushed. But at her level, who is able to push her? Someone even more dominant. So now you're on a team with at least two untouchable pitchers. Who can you play that will give you a competitive game? That's not a criticism at all, BTW, I totally get your perspective on this. It's not an easy position to be in, I wish I had your problems

I see a lot of parents who struggle with coming to grips with how much more work their kids need to do to get better, and that sometimes drives kids to leave teams. But mostly it's the coaching IMO.

Agreed on this, but at some point coaching and work only take you so far -- there is some innate talent at play. chevy706 made a great point about the talent pool being so much larger now than it was 20 years ago, but the flip side to that is that 20 years ago it was mostly girls with a level of natural talent that comprised the bulk of travel softball players. You've got a lot of kids now who got there through hard work alone. I'm pretty sure my DD used the same pitching coach as yours for a time, but I don't expect that she will get to the same level as your daughter has.

I also think that social media has given parents a platform to post trophy after trophy in an effort to show their friends, family and enemies how good their child is doing. So they want to have the DD on a great team regardless of her skill level.

This is so true! I know a number of kids warming the bench on high-level teams. Their parent's Facebook pages are littered with trophy pictures and check-ins at various Nationals. It works, I have a daily FOMO battle

 

[uncdrew]

It's actually harder to make the rec All-Star team than it is almost all of the travel teams in our community.