what should be priority?

[FP26]

background, LL minors softball coach here (10u basically, mostly 8s and 9s, most 10s are in majors). Our softball admin runs a TB team, and has a neice playing. local TB softball and baseball teams use our LL fields on sundays, and they pay for this, but pay lower fee if 80% (or something like that) of their players are registered in LL as well, so TB coaches really push to have girls play LL as well.

It is difficult but not impossible for travel and rec to coexist. But you need to be careful with the expectations from both sides. IMO, the bold above is part of your problem. It sounds like they get a reduction if the players are "registered" for LL. What you should do is make the lower fee contingent on those players actually "playing in 80% of the games".

 

[JAD]

If a girl plays both LL/rec and TB, should TB practice be more a priority than a LL/rec game, or the reverse? I would think an actual game should be priority. My DD plays travel soccer as well as softball, and I know if there is socceer practice and a softball game, she is going to softball game rather than soccer practice.

I have never really understood why players continue to play REC ball once they start playing TB. I have no idea how competitive your REC league games are, but back in the day, I would have gone to TB practice over REC league games. In our area most of the good REC players start to migrate to TB at 10U and by 12U there are very few talented players left in REC.

 

[Little Angels Softball]

I have never really understood why players continue to play REC ball once they start playing TB. I have no idea how competitive your REC league games are, but back in the day, I would have gone to TB practice over REC league games. In our area most of the good REC players start to migrate to TB at 10U and by 12U there are very few talented players left in REC.

This is correct.

I have never really heard a valid argument for staying in rec ball once a girl has moved to TB (if she actually belongs there, that is). I know I'll get hit with all the "It's her community!" and the "She can play with her friends!" things but TB is a community, too, with its own circle of friends and no different than rec in that regard when it gets right down to it.

It really is better just to play TB once you've gone there. Rec is still there if you don't want to take that step.

 

[quincy]

I buy into it being a way to get some circle time.

 

[grcsftbll]

I buy into it being a way to get some circle time.

Our reason is a kind of off shoot of this. She's getting good 10u circle time but I'd like a little low pressure prep for 12u.

 

[Little Angels Softball]

I buy into it being a way to get some circle time.

I do see this. However, while one girl is off getting "circle time" in rec ball, another girl is off going to pitching lessons and learning how to get travel ball hitters out.

It depends on what you want, I guess.

 

[4 girl's dad]

I buy into it being a way to get some circle time.

I thought this too until last spring when she would only face 2-4 DECENT hitters per game and the rest were not that good. It gave her (her parents too) a false confidence. When we would go play tourneys, it was mostly good hitters with one or 2 not so good. Now she wants to work more between team practice to work at getting better whereas last few seasons, we've not had the for team practices, rec and TB 4-5 days a week and then tourneys also.

We are not playing LL this year and so far it's been great. Plus no burnout, player and coach.


LAS beat me to it.

 

[4 girl's dad]

Here's what we do. Travel practice over rec practice. Rec game over travel practice. Travel game over rec game.

We tried this too and it worked until all stars. Then we screwed up everyone cause 5 TB players were on the all stars team so we missed the whole month of June with conflicts.

 

[FP26]

I have never really understood why players continue to play REC ball once they start playing TB. I have no idea how competitive your REC league games are, but back in the day, I would have gone to TB practice over REC league games. In our area most of the good REC players start to migrate to TB at 10U and by 12U there are very few talented players left in REC.

It depends how serious the player is and what available options there are.... My DD played rec followed by travel in the same summer for one season. Then it was off to travel full time, and no more rec. However, we have a rec league not too far from us that also supports a couple "C" level travel teams. That's what they call them anyway. They play 15-20 games during their rec season, and then participate in 3 or 4 local type tournaments during the summer. It seems like a nice compromise for some players/families that want more than rec but don't want to play in 12+ tournaments per year. It is also a good spring board for families that are not sure if they want to get involved in travel ball. Playing in 3 or 4 tournaments is enough to give them the travel experience, and some do move to travel the following year.

 

[softball50]

Travel 100% over rec
all the time
just gonna have to go to a plan b
rec ball is a lot of improvising