What motivates your DD?

[knightsb]

What motivates your DD?

Last Saturday, we were between games, the weather was perfect, a beautiful spring day. We were playing at a tournament where the 18A was only one field over. This was the first time DD had a chance to watch 18A. There was a very good 14A team competing in the 18A division and we decided to go over and watch. DD is 13 and the girl pitching on the 14A team was only a year older than her. DD was watching the 14A pitcher be very successful against her older counter parts. We pulled away from watching to warm up for our next game. During warmups, I was watching DD, she was really focused. She went out to pitch and threw a 4-0 shutout against the number one seed in our bracket. Only two batters reached base and one of those was on an error. After the game I over heard her catcher tell her that was the hardest she had over thrown. I commented that she looked really good pitching, and asked her what if anything she did different. She replied watching the 14A pitcher compete against an 18A team pumped her up and made her feel like she could do better. I think I found what motivates her.

 

[quincy]

When DD is pitching and someone smashes the ball off her I cannot wait until DD is up again, you know she is going to hit the ball hard.

 

[InsidePitch]

I get concerned about lack of motivation to practice in the current travel, HS environment. Parents want GAMES, GAMES, and GAMES

I was talking to a European Soccer coach (soccer is not my sport) and I asked him with all the kids that play soccer in the US why we aren't better on the International scene and he indicated it was the lack of practice here. In Europe kids practice 5 x a week and play once. Here it is backwards.

 

[abbygale]

What ballpark, Knight?

 

[knightsb]

What ballpark, Knight?

Mid America West Sports Complex (MAWSC). Were you there Abby?

 

[Rooster's Dad]

Intrinsic motivation: she just loves the game and honestly loves to practice at it. I help her where I can and stay out of her way when needed.

 

[abbygale]

No...heard there was some good games going on tho'

 

[#10]

My DD is motivated by competition within the team. At the start of this season, she was the only kid who wanted to play catcher. She's very good for a 10U catcher, cinsistently getting runners at 2nd, but sometimes loses focus on dropping and blocking.

The last couple of weeks, this trend started showing itself with increased regularity. I put out another call for kids who wanted to learn the position, and two stepped up, one of which outperformed my DD dropping and blocking at Saturday's practice.

Yesterday's practice was a different story - DD was focused, and not a single pitch got by her.

 

[RubberBiscuit]

It has been my experience that in more tourneys than not the 16U bracket is stronger than 18U.

What motivates my DD => getting out of the Rec/HS-type-softball-thinking and getting surrounded by other passionate D1-goaled players. Others passion feeds her passion and she passes it back.

 

[CPSBDad]

I sense more focus this year than last. She's 12 and plays up on a 14U team. I think part of her motivation comes from being able to keep up with the older girls and realizing it herself. She also has more desire to fix what needs to be fixed do better at everything. I was pleasantly surprised to hear her coach tell me that she wanted to be more aggressive on the bases. That I have to believe is a result of watching older girls run like she has never seen before.