WHAT QUALIFIES AS "STEALING" A PLAYER?

[cayankeefan]

LOTS OF YAK ABOUT SORCERER STEALING PLAYERS FROM THE SJ STING.

WHATS STEALING?

I BELIEVE IT HELPS A PLAYERS GROWTH TO PLAY ON MANY A BALL TEAMS IN THE COURSE OF HER TRAVEL CAREER. IT HELPS THEM ADJUST TO BEING ON THEIR OWN IN A NEW TEAM SETTING. IT HELPS THEM TO EXPERIENCE DIFFERENT PLAYERS, COACHES AND ORGANIZATIONS.

IS IT STEALING WHEN A PLAYER TRYS OUT FOR A FEW NEW TEAMS DURING AN OFF SEASON, AND DECIDES IT A BEST FIT TO MOVE TO A NEW TEAM? I THINK NOT.

IS IT STEALING WHEN A PLAYER SEES A POST FOR AN "OPEN POSITION" ON ANOTHER TEAM AND INQUIRES WITH THE COACH ABOUT THEIR FIT INTO THAT POSITION? I DON'T BELIEVE SO.

IS IT STEALING WHEN A COACH MAKES "UNSOLICATED" CALLS TO A PLAYER THEY HAVE FACED OR SCOUTED ON ANOTHER TEAM TO COME TO THEIR ORGANIZATION WITH PROMISES OF NATIONAL EXPOSURE AND SURE FIRE RECRUITMENT? I THINK IT IS.

IT IS A FACT THAT IT WHAT IS GOING ON WITH SORCERER. MY DD, AS A MATTER OF FACT, HAS RECEIVED 2 CALLS FROM SORCERER AND BEEN PROMISED A STARTING POSITION ON ONE OF THEIR TEAMS IF SHE WOULD COME OVER...NO TRYOUT REQUIRED!!!

I MIGHT NOT EVEN HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS, BUT I THINK ABOUT THE BIGGER PICTURE. WHAT IF STING STARTS DOING THIS, AND BREEZE, AND GRAPETTES? I MEAN...WHAT A MESS! IS THIS WHAT WE WANT TRAVEL BALL TO BECOME...A BIG TRYOUT TO MAKE A SINGLE TEAM?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

WHA DO

NEWSFLASH ALL GOLD TEAMS RECRUIT PLAYERS

A player cannot be stolen, period. If a player and her family want to leave a team, it is their choice. No one else's.

I believe the blame for these situations is being pointed in the wrong direction. Every coach wants to field the best team possible. Recruiting players between seasons is a practice ALL gold coaches partake. Aren't tryouts an open recruiting invitation? Why have tryouts? To recruit new talent. The problem lies with players and their families who commit to one team and then leave to another tryout or accept invitations from other teams after they gave their word to play....even then its the player's choice.....end of discussion.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but aren't the Sorcerer the ONLY Northern CA organization with multiple ASA National Championships? Why wouldn't a player want to play there? Quality coaching and quality players season after season are a great formula for success. Its hard to argue with the hardware.

Does a coach really need to promise a blue chip player playing time? If the player wasn't worthy a team wouldn't bother calling them. The Sorcerer are not promising anyone playing time, luring players with equipment, or giving free rides to get kids to play. They simply don't have to.

Promising exposure and recruitment is what every team should be getting for their players. There are players on all the top Norcal teams going to college. They all get some form of exposure....some more than others.....but they all get kids signed. The Sorcerer get virtually every kid on their roster into college and they win a ton of games in the process. The results are proven.

If your daughter was offerred a spot on the Sorcerer, why aren't you there? The defending ASA Gold national champions called her for a chance to play on their team, shouldn't you be flaterred?

Phil, I am still waiting for my John Deer tractor and $50,000. That is the going rate isn't it?

[Joe]

There's no such thing as "stealing" players. However, "not keeping" players does exist.

[ssarge]

Does a coach really need to promise a blue chip player playing time? If the player wasn't worthy a team wouldn't bother calling them. The Sorcerer are not promising anyone playing time, luring players with equipment, or giving free rides to get kids to play. They simply don't have to.

Not only that, true blue chip players would never ask for a promise of playing time, becasue they are completely confident the promise is unnecessary. Their faith in their ability trumps anything.

I also think most elite players would consider such a promise a slight negative, not a positive. First, because there is no reason to believe it. Second, because if the coach is offering that to me, what is he offering to everyone else? Coaches who make promises make them to everybody. And everybody knows it.

[whystealthem]

Here we go again! When a player is committed, and the coaches on this team know that, then take her out to lunch to try and convince her to play for this wonderful team, then I would say this is stealing. They have promised this poor kid everything. She wouldn't go there otherwise!! There's many teams that get the kids recruited. If she went there to win another championship, then she should have watched them play in the fall. It's fn classless! Ssarge, you wouldn't be saying these things if we were talking about them taking some player from the shockers would you? Please don't say you wouldn't.

[ssarge]

Ssarge, you wouldn't be saying these things if we were talking about them taking some player from the shockers would you? Please don't say you wouldn't.

As I have said repeatedly, I am not affiliated with the Shockers, or any other team at this time.

I have BEEN affiliated with the Shockers Gold team through the summer of 2009, though, and can share from that experience.

In the 4+ years I was with them, The Shockers Gold team lost many players between seasons, and you never heard a peep from any member of their coaching staff about it. We didn't even complain to each other. If a kid doesn't want to be there, she has Buccelato's blessing, and that's it. There quite simply is nothing else to it. The Shockers lost players to teams that offered to pay their fees, pay their travel, in one case, to pay the parents' travel as well. And they have retained players who received those kind of offers as well, without matching the offers. But if a kid wants to be somewhere else, the Shockers encourage her to do so. It is a team for kids who WANT to be there.

And for what it is worth, while the Shockers have lost players to the Sorcerers (and gained some, too), the Sorcerers have never offered to waive a players fees in order to attract her from the Shockers. Other teams have done this, though, and they are familiar names. But NOT the Sorcerers.

Competing teams doing that is just part of the deal. The Shockers don't choose to play that way, but it certainly isn't illegal. You shrug and move on. Not only won't he offer financial incentives, Buccellato won't even guarantee playing time. To anyone. Never guaranteed it to MY daughter, not that I asked (she'd have been absolutely appalled if I had). He makes the same statement about this every time it comes up: "Coaches who promise you time are making lots of promises to lots of players. It will prove absolutely impossible to keep all the promises, and you should consider that as a factor in your decision." Since this is obviously true, many kids believe him. And the Shockers have had remarkably little playing time or parent drama over the years.

Buccellato sometimes goes so far as to encourage kids who seem to be on the fence to attend other tryouts, so they can make an informed decision. Truthfully, I think he does it at least partly to gather data about the tryout, but the fact is, if your kids attend other tryouts, they are at risk. From his perspective, they either want to be on his team, or they don't. He often goes so far as to purposely schedule his tryout opposite the Sorcerers (the closest neighboring team) for that express purpose. Pretty ballsey, from my perspective, but he's done OK with it.

He qualifies every year or comes close, and always has, dating to 14s. He signs his players, and the majority are to D-Is. Finally, when he can't keep a kid who attends his tryout, he'll do everything he can to help her find a place to play. He has called as many as 7-8 coaches / teams to arrange tryouts and help a kid land somewhere. He does this for kids every year. I say all of that to say this: the guy does these things with no ulterior motive, but it comes back to him in spades anyway. He is loyal to players, and in large measure, the Shockers receive more loyalty back than a lot of other teams.


NOW, if Buccellato's players were approached DURING the season, he would not be so accomodating. Someone is going to get a call, and a piece of his mind. Which is NOT a pleasant experience. It has happened a couple of times, but not often. But during the off season? Every player is fair game at that point.


If you search every internet forum out there, dating back for years, I think you will not find an instance of the Shockers ever complaining about this subject. Despite the fact that they have had a number of players recruited away.

I don't think you'll find many teams that HAVE complained, actually. Almost ALL of the complaints (in Northern California) are either authored by people known to be a part of one of a couple of prominent organizations OR by someone who signed up on the forum the same day they authored their first post, which is always a complaint about this very subject. In other words, by people who don't want to post under their usual screen name. And in the later case, the poster always seems to REFERENCE one of the same two prominent organizations. I don't think it is over-reaching to make an assumption about which organizations such posters represent. Who incidently, do quite some recruiting themselves.

Even if the last sentence WASN'T true, I think the organizations in question - and their parents - would be far better served to creating an environment where players want to STAY, rather than complaining about teams stealing them away. And would do better airing any grievance they DO feel they have in a private phone call, rather than on a public board like this.

My $.02, since you asked.

[dittoz]

Scott, some day, some where... I'm gonna shake your hand!

[lv2earat8]

My daughter graduated from law school and earned a good job at a nice law firm. After a few years of long hours and being very successful she was offered a job at a competitors firm.

They offered a lot more money, nice office, secretary and big bonuses.

I told her she needed to stay where she was because they gave her a chance and got her exposed. I told her it did not matter if she would learn more and compete with and against the best in the business. I told her they promised all their employees playing time so don’t be fooled.

She called me a fool and said she was appalled.

[ssarge]

My daughter graduated from law school and earned a good job at a nice law firm. After a few years of long hours and being very successful she was offered a job at a competitors firm.

They offered a lot more money, nice office, secretary and big bonuses.

I told her she needed to stay where she was because they gave her a chance and got her exposed. I told her it did not matter if she would learn more and compete with and against the best in the business. I told her they promised all their employees playing time so don’t be fooled.

She called me a fool and said she was appalled.

My obtuseness I guess. I can't tell if you are being sarcastic, or using hyperbole.

Hyperbole is legitimate, but recognizable, too. I'm pretty certain your daughter didn't call you a fool. And no kid is "appalled" when a parent reminds her of the values that have been instilled all her life. So IF that happens, well. . . .


There was a time not too many decades ago when people came out of college, joined a company, and quite often stayed there until retirement. It was an expected outcome which often did come true.

I don't know what the chicken / egg was, but 20-25 years ago, people stopped feeling the need to stay with one company. Wasn't always leaving to make more money. A HUGE trend was prople taking jobs which perhaps paid LESS money, but offered more freedom in benefits and flexible time off, because time with family was a huge priority for a changing work force. At about the same time, companies stopped feeling the obligation to retain employees throughout an entire working career. Two-tier wage systems became the norm. Pension plans - the traditional incentive TO stay at a single company - went away, and the whole landscape changed.

Not saying that is good - in a lot of ways, it isn't. It IS reality. Very few people spend their working career with one company any more. Some who tried end up getting laid off after 20-30 years. Some employees who change companies end up happy. Many do not. That's the way it goes.

The best that can be hoped for in that kind of landscape is that the employee and the employer are honest with each other, and conduct themselves with integrity when severance happens - no matter who initiates it.


Club softball is not dissimilar. VERY few players spend their careers with one organization. Many do not even spend their final 2-3 years in Gold ball with one organization. For a variety of reasons, and the changes are precipitated by the team as often as by the player. Is this disloyalty? I don't think so. The implied contract when you write a check for a season is that you will stay through the season. And that the team will keep you through the season. Even that is merely implied in Northern California - there are no written player contracts. But it seems a reasonable expectation.

After the season ends, both parties look at alternatives, or at least have that right. Why is that an issue for ANYONE? Why should a player be criticized for trying to find a better deal for herself? Why should she not have the right to make that decision (whether it is ultimately a good decision, or a bad one - THAT seems like good life training to me, for a 16 YO kid). Why should any team not have the right to attempt to better itself by competing for players whose implied contract with a former team has lapsed?

I think those are all OK things. I think it is fair to expect BOTH (or all three) parties in such a decision-making process to communicate well, and honor their commitments. Obviously, that doesn;t always happen. But it is a reasonable expectation and obligation. But I also think it is reasonable to expect that a kid wants to know she is getting the right environment for whatever are HER goals, and I think it is reasonable for a team to attempt to improve itself.

And put even more bluntly if your team is losing a lot of kids to other organizations, WHY? I'm sure there is no one reason, but I am also sure the reason is NOT that another team is giving them money, or promising them more time. (If you're the kind of player getting "wooed," you're getting all the time you want anyway. And nobody complains about NON-starters being wooed away). SO THAT part of this discussion is completely irrelevant.)

Personally, I think if kids are consistently leaving any one program, there is an issue there. There is a reason. I recognize it is uncomfortable to explore what that reason may be, and it is obviously easy (and human nature) to blame someone else. And sometimes the guy whose job it would be to explore it IS the reason. That can be tough. But the answer usually IS internal, if it is a CONSISTENT problem.

Again, just my $.02. Which BTW, I find much easier to express now that I am NOT coaching.

Regards,

Scott

[ssarge]

Scott, some day, some where... I'm gonna shake your hand!

That would be my pleasure.

Best regards,

Scott

[truth]

Personally, I think if kids are consistently leaving any one program, there is an issue there. There is a reason. I recognize it is uncomfortable to explore what that reason may be, and it is obviously easy (and human nature) to blame someone else. And sometimes the guy whose job it would be to explore it IS the reason. That can be tough. But the answer usually IS internal, if it is a CONSISTENT problem.

CG, care to comment?