What does it take to turn it around?

this is one I can answer from direct experience..... and it took starting at the ground floor...

After my girls had played coach pitch and T ball with the boys and showed they had some talent (no I wasn't the coach) I realized something had to be done. The HS program was pathetic. When they became eligable to play rec FP I picked up the phone and called every parent of every girl I knew from other sports who had some athleticism [guess you could call it recruiting! ]. I fought against basketball and tennis for their services because those were the two girls programs with a winning tradition. I lost more of them than I convinced to play.

I took what I had and we worked and we worked and we worked . We didn't have a pitcher at all when we first started. I never forget going and playing the LL state champions league at their place group and having a girl at SS who really couldn't make the throw the first! On top of this they had other coaches in their league who were playing ump so not only couldn't we compete talent wise the umps wouldn't give us a thing! Plus we had to listen to their parents comment about how bad we were and how our pitcher was the worst they had ever seen. We got our brains beat out the first year or so. Gradually things began to come together. We won the county championship... different than the little league... and we won it easily. Then the year before the majority of my girls were to play their first year in MS we went to play in an NSA tournament in the LL state champs back yard. We got them in the second bracket game and beat them 3 to 1... they were scheduled to come back the next day and would have played us again but didn't show!.. talk about sugar sweet!

Now these girls are at the HS and we have gone farther last year in the state playoffs than ever before. We finished second in the conference and have a team capable of doing something really special. We have 14 or 15 girls in the program who have played some form of travel ball at one time or another.

In short the answer is: work hard, be prepared to turn your cheek 7 times seven, be patient (take the Woody Hayes 3 yards and a cloud of dust approach) and as Winston Churchill once said while giving a college commencement address: never give up!... Never NEver NEVer NEVEr NEVER GIVE UP!!!!

 

Pitcher + Catcher = state champs

You can win a state championship with two players.....see North Pitt last season. No success before and highly unlikely to have any success after Faith Sutton heads to Chapel Hill after the '07 season. I'm not knocking anyone here nor am I suggesting that this builds a "program". Just pointing out that D1 pitcher at the 2A high school level in NC can turn an also ran into a state champ.

 

What is really bad is to have a winning program for several years, lose your coach, have the administration hire an " INHOUSE" teacher who knows nothing about the game or coaching in general and your program goes down the drain

 

yep...........stick it out, stay positive and seek outside resources if necessary and good things will return to SC.

 

Very good post bsd...but it wasn't a college commencement address. He borrowed that phrase from Valvano after watching ESPN

 

I heard our AD wants to hire a new head coach but the principle won't agree to it. I hope they can get together and get something done before we lose what has been built up here over the last several years. As far as what can be done to turn around a program. It starts with having and administration that understands that softball is important to many people and one that is willing to put qualified people in the right places. Many times as in our situation this is not done. They just get someone from within to coach the "minor" sports without considering if they are a good fit or not. To turn around your programs you have to convince your school adm. to get a good knowledgable coach who is willing to put in a lot of time. Start to develop pithching in some young girls that way you can start to win and more girls will want to join in and be a part of the winning. Then you can start to get better athletes and it will begin to snowball

 

Freedom Gets That "Big" win last year...

Excellent points here. I witnessed Freedoms' "BIG" win last year at Freedoms' inaugural night game at their new ballpark against AC Reynolds. The "most exciting" HS girls game I've witnessed.A classic back and forth battle the entire game with a large crowd on hand that Freedom pulled out in the late innings after many lead changes.The proverbial "stars" for both teams came through time and again,as well as the supporting casts. I can only imagine the impact that game had on Freedoms' program.The credit there goes to the AD ,Coach Fox,and the kids and their families who buy into Coach Foxs' program. They'll be a power in years to come in the NW4A.Congrats to the whole Freedom community.

 

Travel ball parents and high school people that butt heads will never turn a looser around. Parents and HS coaches who wait until the freshman enters high school have missed the boat. The 6th and 7th grade years are key. Excitement about playing school ball must be created there.

High school programs must have some type of interaction with the middle schools. Girls coming into middle school from younger TB and Rec. programs MUST master the basics of throwing and catching by the 8th grade. Batting fundamentals must be continuously worked on as a kid grows and faces increasingly advanced pitchers. Good HS programs usually become involved in some manner by this time. The JV and varsity years must concentrate on the fine points of the game, not beginning to learn fundamentals.

Any good HS coach will occasionally show up at middle school games and practice and TB tournaments when time permits. Parents should show positive support for HS softball and the HS athletic program as a whole. Coaches who shut parents out usually do so for a reason based on past bad experiences. HS softball is not all about playing time for your daughter. It’s about putting together the best team possible based on the talent that’s already there and the new talent coming in.

The high school staff must be involved in the development of pitchers as early as possible in middle school. If nothing else, identify potential future pitchers and help their parents locate qualified instruction.

Coaches should attend clinics during the off season to improve their own coaching skills and knowledge of the game. This game has changed greatly in recent years. Coaches who rely only on their own baseball experience from a by-gone era will be hopelessly behind. The high school athletic director should require and pay for clinic participation of every coach on his/her staff, regardless of the sport.

One of the best things parents can do is join the HS booster club and become involved in all aspects of support of athletics. Positive things for softball will come out as a result. If half of the booster club is softball people, they should be able to ring a pretty big bell. You must position yourself to be able to have positive input before the fact. Don’t wait until it’s too late, then complain! The job of filling coaching positions is a difficult one. There are far more openings for coaches across the state than there are qualified people to fill them. The chances of a principal firing a coach because of his/her win-loss record are just about zero.