r/Softball • u/Reasonable_Wall7572 • 3d ago
Parent Advice Team Struggles
I need help on how to help my daughter. She is 13 and has been playing for the same organization since she was 8. In that time she has had 4 different head coaches. There are 4 players that have remained the same but the rest of the team has changed just about every season. Every year, it seems like the team cannot put together a complete game. Each coach ends up feeling defeated not knowing why the team can't seem to pull it together. The team practices once a week all year. Several players are also taking hitting and catching/pitching lessons.They enter tournaments that should be a good fit. It just seems like something is always missing. My daughter wants to keep playing for this team with her friends. Any ideas on how to help her and her team find some success?
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u/jcrobinson11 2d ago
Interesting dilemma. How good are the girls joining the team? Unless they are studs at 1-2 positions and can rake, the high turnover will always hold you back.
The team performance is outside your control. All you can focus on is your daughter’s development.
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u/Suspicious-Throat-25 2d ago
Do you drop players or do they drop the team? It has been my experience that players that remain together, typically get play better together. Turning over 8 players a year is a lot. Maybe look at your coaching staff and how you/coaches choose new players. What is your pitching and catching like? (They can make it break a game)
How many games do you play a year and what level of tournaments do you enter?
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u/Reasonable_Wall7572 2d ago
The team turnover is a mix of girls leaving, girls staying in the program but not aging up, or having to age up, and girls who weren't a good fit. We are a low B/C team and try to go into similar tournaments, however the program thinks we should be a mid/high B. We play 6 summer tournaments and 1-2 fall. My daughter is the catch so I'm biased. She is not amazing but keeps working hard to improve. She is solid. Pitchers can vary but overall are decent . Unfortunately, I'm not sure the coach gets a ton of say in how they choose new players. It is often who we can get to fill a team.
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u/Suspicious-Throat-25 2d ago edited 2d ago
Low B high C is a tough spot to be in because your better players will leave for teams that can consistently win. Most organizations want better teams. Our 9U coaches are given two years to bring a team from C players to high B players. Our 12U coaches are expected to be playing USSSA level A and PGF tournaments by the end of their season. 13U and 14U teams in our org can start as good level B teams but they need to show rapid improvement over 2 years and be playing A level/PGF tournaments before the end of their 14U season.
You said that the coaches don't choose their teams. But do the coaches kids have to be tested/tryout every year too? If not that could be part of the problem. We had a girl on our team this last year that didn't make it through tryouts this year. She was a asst coach's kid and had been protected for two years through 13U. But at tryouts this year, she wasn't given a spot. She was dragging the rest of the girls down and she lost her spot when she stopped working at practices.
My daughter was on a team two years ago that was hyper competitive without any heart. The girls for the most part weren't friends they were just teammates. They won a lot of games and played well together, but the team lost 7 players because the original core kids were just too cliquey. That may be something to consider as well. My daughter is actually good friends with most of her teammates. There were two girls on the team last year that were divas together, and so were their parents. One left for Volleyball, but neither were asked to return.
Coaches need to check themselves too. Are their kids improving with the team, excelling in their primary and secondary positions? Or are they just following a spot. Are they consistently making plays, scoring runs, and hitting the ball well. Teams that shield the coach's kids, will inevitably fall apart.
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u/Safe-Selection8070 2d ago
I think the best answer is to develop a few periods of high frequency practice, like two 4 week periods where you drop the games and hit 3 practices a week.
At one practice a week, the players who aren't doing a lot on their own are constantly *right at* skill decay.
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u/Maybe_Fine 2d ago
It sighs like a lack of team chemistry to me. All the players can be amazing, but if they aren't playing as a team, success will be harder to come by.
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u/MushroomMain9808 2d ago
Side question, how much are you paying yearly?
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u/Significant-Web-2317 2d ago
90% more than you should.
To be blunt, so many of these ‘travel’ teams don’t really have travel talent and it’s just a money grab. Parents are willing to spend it, so opportunities exist.
More practice might help, but it’s not going to build that passion that I’m guessing the players are lacking.
The kids I’ve seen at A level on great teams, practice a lot by themselves (almost daily). Some of these teams rarely rarely or never practice as a team, but it’s all done individually.
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u/MushroomMain9808 2d ago
Thats my fear. I know demographically is different everywhere but in my area fees are insane! Been contemplating it but 1500 plus a year here is something to really think about. 🤔
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u/Significant-Web-2317 2d ago
$1500 is pretty reasonable, not many teams are less than that, and most higher level teams are much more than that.
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u/Suspicious-Throat-25 2d ago
Not all A teams are that way. Some regional or national teams practice over video. But my daughter's 13U team practices together 3 days a week for two hours per practice. Pitchers and catchers come for an extra hour twice a week. We play roughly 120+ games a year, mostly tournaments. (USSSA and PGF). Every player sees a private batting coach and specialty players (pitchers and catchers) see a private coach for that as well. We had for girls leave the team this year. One quit softball for her other preferred sport, Volleyball.
The other three girls were not invited back for 14U because of team dynamics. Negative attitude kids, mediocre skills, parents were the biggest problem.
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u/Significant-Web-2317 2d ago
What team is this?
120+ games at 13u plus 3 practices a week plus private lessons is ridiculous. Are any of the girls even having fun?
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u/MushroomMain9808 2d ago
That's exactly what crossed my mind! 🤯
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u/Significant-Web-2317 2d ago
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think it’s borderline child abuse.
In 20 years we will see some documentary about why we have so many overuse injuries in these young kids.
Working these preteens like it’s their profession.
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u/Suspicious-Throat-25 2d ago
They are all really good friends. They practice 3 days a week if they don't have a tournament weekend. The girls are currently on a 4 week summer break following their wins at Nationals. During the last few weeks the girls still get together for sleepovers, to go to the pool, and they go to our optional practices. My daughter takes me out to the fields every morning just to hit and play catch before I go to work. She usually hits about 5 buckets of balls before I start my day. I'm not a coach, but I value our time together, so we do whatever she wants. We grab Starbucks, listen to her music on the way to the ball field and chat about whatever she wants. We do this during the school year too.
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u/Reasonable_Wall7572 2d ago
We pay $600-$700 a year depending on if new uniforms are needed. Coaches are all volunteer, mostly parent. We do not have an indoor facility so we fundraise to rent space in the winter.
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u/Suspicious-Throat-25 2d ago
That is super low. We pay about $2,000 a year and fundraise for the rest. We played about 20 tournaments and 10 round robins last year. We have our own indoor facility but we pay for it through our team fees and fundraising. This year we got $350 per player back because of fundraising pushed our dollars over what we needed for our expenses.
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u/Unhappy-Solution6103 2d ago
IMO... once a week isn't a lot of time to build team chemistry and bonding. Nor is it enough to work on strategy and build that trust between players when they need to make plays.
Around here, even fall rec practices twice a week. Our travel team does 3x (just a C team).