Enough Is Enough!

I had a conversation today with a well respected and successful NC travel ball coach who has and is experiencing, the same thing that I and a few other travel ball coaches in NC are dealing with.......coaches from other travel teams contacting parents and players on their teams trying to convince them to come play on their teams.

Now I have no problem with a player who for whatever reason is unhappy and looking for another team being contacted. However the problem is when these disgraceful coaches don't get enough quality players contacting them or coming to their tryouts, they feel it necessary to pull players from teams that are successful.

These coaches go to showcase tournaments and pick up other teams literature/profiles from the tables and then recruit for their team from that info. These coaches have no problem talking to parents/players at tournaments, airports, restaurants and I know of one coach who has started contacted players directly by email and facebook!

These coaches always promise the world.......a better schedule, more playing time, no daddy ball, free hotel rooms, I have heard it all. But what happens many times when these players leave a "team for a better fit or better opportunity" they learn quickly learn the new team ends up the next summer with 15 or more players and the young lady somehow never gets the playing time or exposure promised. But even if she does get adequate playing time, the coaches should be ashamed in how they go about getting new players. Myself and several other coaches from successful teams are getting really tired of this.

It just really bothers me when I have parents coming to me saying coach ________ from the __________ came up to us in the parking lot and tried to get them to leave my team and play for them. Thankfully I have only had a few players to leave, but I have many, many more who have been approached and stayed.

The coaches who do this know who they are. And in the past I have had no problem calling them up and letting them know how I feel about their actions, and I will continue to do so. It's just that many players and parents aren't getting the truth about the situation they are being promised and many times leave a good opportunity for one not as good.

I understand travel players are free to play for whomever they want and parents should place their daughters where they feel is best for them. But they should always proceed with caution when they get a call, email or facebook message from a coach looking for players. Be very cautious, do some research and you will usually learn the truth about this coach. The travel ball world is very close and coaches with these reputations are known and it doesn't take long to figure them out....if a parent will just ask around.

I can honestly say that in 12 years of coaching travel ball, I have never contacted a parent or player about coming to play for me who wasn't already looking for a new team. Parents/players who are looking either contact me first or get word to me through someone that they are looking for a new team. I can't speak for the other coaches in the Cardinal Organization, but I doubt they recruit players who aren't looking for new teams. (Ray wouldn't stand for it!) I will also venture to say that 95% of most travel coaches either have tryouts or are contacted by players first...it's the other 5% (and it's usually the same ones) that make things hard for the coaches who do it the right way and especially hard for the most important ones.......the girls.

I would like to hear others thoughts and experiences (without naming names. You don't have to. These coaches know who they are!)

 

....I hear ya BMac. One other thing about moving from team to team, once, ok, twice, hhhmmm?, 3 times a kid changes coaches and teams is a direct negative in the eyes of college coaches.

Fishbuddy

 

If there is a coach out there who can offer this, I have a 94 who can play OF and put the ball in play. Please PM me.

 

frankly it should be time for coaches that do this to be "outed" publicly. There was this and much worse that went on when we were still on the journey... and yet the offenders are still around.

What say Cheeze?

 

Is it "kosher" for a coach to recruit another's players? We all know it is not, and that there are a lot of nicknames running around out there for the teams that utilize these practices.

At the same time, let's not forget that while the offer should not be made in the first place, there are other players in this game that allows this game to go on and on and on and on.

THE PLAYER and their families.

And until the player and their families they are not welcomed back onto the team they left for "better lands", this practice will not stop. You can expose the other teams as much as you want, even though there is little need as anyone who has played TB for any time knows who they are.

Likewise, it is known how many players have been lured away by one of these teams, only to return to open arms and sympathy by the team they abandoned.

No penalty for the offending coaches, no penalty for the offending players means this will continue to occur until long after any of us are traveling from dirt to dirt.

Food for thought....

 

TOTALLY AGREE with BMac1 on this Had this happen just this week and not for just one player !!!!!!!

 

This is true. Talked to a college coach last weekend and this is one of his main questions now. How many travel teams have you been on? Started doing this after he had girls quit his team and did an background check and found they had been on several travel teams. Definitely a negative.

 

Second hand story

I heard a story just a few weeks ago about a Coach/Dad who brought his daughter to the tryouts for a team in a good organization that draws lots of kids to their annual tryouts. The story is that the dad indicated that he might be looking to stop coaching and just find a spot for his kid. Turns out, the dad came to the tryout to look at other kids trying out and then approached several of those parents about coming to his team instead of the one they were trying out for.

That's pretty low. When you can't even attract interest in your team for a tryout and you have to go and poach kids directly from another group's tryouts?

 

I've heard of an occasion where luring a player away from a team had an impact on the offender.

Playing devil's advocate, would it be wrong to "recruit" a player if there was no false representation? For example, if a team needed another starting pitcher and they were aware that another team had a good pitcher who wasn't getting enough playing time (maybe because the team was loaded with good pitching).

Some teams are able to offer more than others such as no team fees, expenses paid, better coaching staff, training facilities, etc. These advantages could lure players to switch teams.

There are also teams with reputations of going to the "big" tournaments. Those teams could lure players to switch teams.

It seems to me as long as there is no fraud involved it should be a matter of freedom of choice.

 

Well Said BMac

Coaches calling players that are already committed to a travel team? Promising them more playing time, free bats, bad mouthing their current team?? There's no way that's happening in this small community of coaches - right? Wrong! You bet it is....and all to often. What happened to the unwritten rules and respect for each other as coaches? There are none anymore. When it comes to players its cutthroat these days. I have a parent/player telling me every other week that so and so called and wanted them to come play on their team, permanently. To be honest, its one of the aspects of coaching that has become very frustrating.