Monday's Tryouts

Braves & Guy,
you re exactly right on all acoounts...coaches should KNOW what they are doing hae a written plan and competent quality help period...yes sadly this is not always the case however. Assuredly some one somewhere is not gonna be satisfied or happy regardless! As for myself those parents can kiss my fat a**.... I know and understand the sorrow and pain felt by the "cut" kid but instead of trying to railroad a good coach how boout haning spent more time with your kid to have improved his game...then afteer it is all said and done support him love him and reestablish his esteem and self worth?

 

aren't offseason workouts voluntary? is the main criteria for picking a team attendance in offseason workouts or who the best player is?

 

Sure the 8 man work outs are voluntary, but a coach can better evaluate a player over time instead of a cattle call tryout. Even the best unknown players have bad days. And you sure wouldn't want that bad day to happen on tryout day.

 

i believe both should be considerations! Absolutely 55 this is part of it...

 

Good Question

The best players will make the team. The best players will want to be on the field every chance they can. The best players will be the ones that are dedicated and have a true passion to be the best they can be.

If a player does show up on the first day of tryouts and has not attended anything in the off season and he is good enough to make the team he will. I have just not seen that happen yet. The freshman that have been coming since July have gotten so much better in the last 7 months its ridiculous. But if a guy comes out and is better and he does what is required to be a part of the program he makes the team. Again I have just never seen this happen.

Aguyyouknow you are correct. The first person to complain is the one that has done absolutely nothing to better himself and then can not understand why they did not make the team.

I got cut my first year from the hs baseball team. I did nothing to prepare myself to make the team. I showed up at tryouts and was not good enough. It taught me a lesson that I needed to learn. If I am a hs baseball player and I know the baseball team is up at the field everyday from July to the start of the hs season , why would I not want to be up there? Someone has to explain that one to me.

 

Time to step up... and sit down!

The parents with the most questions are usually "freshman" parents, there are very few upper classmen trying out for the first time.
These fall into three categories IMO

1 Parents of kids that played travel ball
2 Parents who COACHED their kid in travel ball
3 Parents of kids that played in the local rec league

The number 1 parents already know what tryouts are about and are usually the parents that are reasonably easy to deal with most of the time. They do put more pressure on the coaching staff to win.

Parent number 2 can be an asset to the program or the biggest pain in the butt for the high school coaches. If they think they are going to tell the coach how to coach it can be a long four years.

Parents that fall into the third category can run from totally uninvolved to the type that don't understand that "little Johnny" doesn't get to play just because he signed up to play.

Of course there are exceptions, good and bad, in each group.

I have always advised parents of younger players to "let go" when their son is playing high school ball. Let the coach be the coach... that's what he's paid to do. Focus, with their son, on what they can do in the summer, fall and winter to make him a better player. Travel/showcase/legion teams, workouts at school, camps and individual instruction will prepare him to the point that the tryout at the high school will be a time of fun instead of stress, for both him and the parent. If he didn't dig his bat and glove out of the back of the closet until the night before tryouts begin then you shouldn't expect good news after the tryouts are over.

 

What's in a name

Sure would be nice if we could refer to these kids that can't play a lick as "little Braves" so that kids named John won't go out for soccer instead!!


PS: Johnny Bench, Johnny Vander Meer, Johnny Damon

 

It just seems to me that sometimes kids and parents stake making the team on attendance at workouts not production in tryouts.

 

Catch it and Throw it

If football tryouts required every single kid to be able to catch and throw it would be a lot easier to make cuts there too. In baseball it takes about 15 minutes to see if a boy is going to be able to throw well enough to play Varsity baseball. Hit him 6 or 8 groundballs and you'll know if he can play in the field.

I say it all the time and I think (finally) some of the TBRs are listening. The game is played in the field! Can you catch it and throw it? I listened to Paul Keyes at Virginia Commonwealth talk the other day. He is convinced that the biggest obstacle to being a consistent championship team is THROWING ERRORS!!!! Others will say that they didn't have a strong enough defense "up the middle."

Hardly anyone will say they didn't hit enough to win......but hitting is what the "uninformed or uneducated" use to judge talent. It's easy for them to see and judge a ball flying all over the park. Picking up on poor fielding and throwing mechanics that are sure to limit LITTLE JOHNNY's success require a trained eye.

So......make sure you get there early so you can take a few extra cuts in the cage! It's sure to do the trick.

 

You made your choices

The Group 1 kids have paid their dues since they were playing 9U. The others were either "protecting" little johnny or too selfish to make the necessary commitment.

You get out exactly what you put in!

"The more I practice the luckier I get"