HS softball

Cheese,

Here in Ohio, HS players can have no contact at all with their travel team during HS softball season (March thru the first week of June). Ohio High School Athletic Association rules. The penalty is loss of HS eligibility for 1 year. Once teams are eliminated from the HS tournament, then the players are released to go about their way.

The 16U and 18U coaches know that when HS ball starts, the travel team shuts down.

The new 14U coaches have hissy fits about the rule but they eventually get over it.

 

My Dad would say, "let your bat do your talking"!
If you can hit, then you'll be on that field somewhere.

BTW: to the newcomers to Preps............. Cheeze, ChaCha, and Parkdaddy are VERY experienced knowledgable coaches.

Fishman

 

>>If a tb coach is too demanding in the spring then he will lose players at some point, there are other teams and other coaches DD can play tb for.<<

I believe this is the major reason a lot of high school coaches are not flexible...they feel like the kid cannot play for anyone but them. This attitude is, in my opinion, hurting the HS coaches. Again, be more flexible, not less flexible.

 

Now this reply may be skewed, being that I coach TB and not HS. However, someone on this board posted an article a while back that dealt with travel soccer in the Cincinnati, OH area and how HS coaches were finding their best players quitting the HS team in favor of working exclusively with their travel (club) teams. The benefit, the article explained, was that the club team can offer significantly more exposure than HS.

This same exposure level discrepancy happens in softball in North Carolina. I can relate to the travel coach that wants to continue his/her season while the HS season is going on. In my opinion, the travel team is what gets the girl on to college. The HS team is played on for school spirit and for the HS “experience” (oh boy, I can imagine the blood boiling now). There are several HS teams in NC that do play at a high level (especially some that I saw in 4A finals), but the significant majority do not.

I guess my question is this: If the HS team that a player is playing on is of lesser caliber than her TB team, why listen to a HS coach that insists you walk away from your travel team during the HS season?
To me it boils down to what benefits the girl the most. If it is travel - play travel, if it is HS - play HS. Hopefully everything can work out and the player can play both, but if TB coaches have to be flexible, then so should HS coaches. The mentality of "it's HS season and I am the only team you should worry about playing for" is kind of dated. Ten years ago that would work – before the dawn of exposure tournaments, gold nationals, and a USA Olympic team. Today though, many players are groomed for HS by those same TB coaches that you are telling to “sit and wait” like a good dog…

 

....thanks for saying what MANY of us believe to be true.

 

I remember how annoyed I used to get at hs coaches for forbidding their players to play during the hs season. One reason was because most of the quality training was at tb practice. Now that I help at the hs level I give my input to let the girls play tb when possible. What we do expect is that our pitchers, especially, and our catchers will not play to the point it weakens them for hs games. For instance, when we have important games in hs we don't expect out pitcher to be throwing 2 and 3 games on Sunday. In that situation hs ball should be the priority.

I saw a volleyball coach forbid his players from playing powderpuff football one season. Those girls were cheated our of a good memory simply because some coach put his desires before the players' desires. It wasn't fair in volleyball and it wouldn't be fair in softball.

This game if for the girls! It is a game--not a college fundraiser! It's almost annoying sometimes to see that college carrot dangled so often! I've said it before, if you're playing softball simply for the college money you're better off to quit and go to work at Wendy's. If you get a scholarship, great! But when you consider all the money you invest the real reward of that college scholarship is the honor--not the money! And winning championships at the hs level is also an honor! Maybe we need to throw a bunch of money in with that State Championship Ring! To pay for college--for the whole team!

 

What I would consider is getting a sincere opinion from your DD. Hopefully, she would want some kind of relief ever so often. If she didn't I would make some free time for her. If she truly didn't enjoy time off from softball at least she would have a deeper desire to get back to it after her break. I'm not talking about weeks. I'm saying maybe a whole week and a free weekend. Of course, you couldn't do that with hs ball but tb and conditioning shouldn't be a problem.

There was an article on the board recently about a bb player that burned out. That's what you have to watch. Although, the bb player story had a happy ending in my opinion.

Just make sure they know that they aren't defined by how good they are in softball. Your DD will be successful in whatever she undertakes. I've seen her willpower.