Is Norcal getting to many teams?

[Missinit]

Is Norcal getting to many teams

Just wondering if Norcal is getting to a point where the talent is so thinned out that it wont be able to feild a competitive national caliber team.

For instance, how many 12u teams are there gonna be north of Bakersfeild this year.

Start a list of teams you know of.

3 Grapette 12s. (crazy)
2 RR
AASA
Smash
Smackers
Cant name all of them but 22 12u at the Grapette National tune up tourny, wow!

[CheckWriter]

12s is where most girls make the jump to travel. How else is a DD supposed to find out whether this is the activity that will be sucking every free moment out of their parents' live for the next 10 years? All the advice about "doing research" doesn't apply to 12s. All the parents of those rec ball girls don't know anybody in travel ball. There is no 1-800-travelguru.

What is "Nor Cal" to do? Limit the number of teams?

It is just the nature of the beast. A lot of those first year 12s will move on to soccer, or volleyball or to full time texting. I don't think there is anything that can or should be done.

JMO

[softballmom65]

Come on people. Lets be realistic there are way to many new teams popping up all over Nor Cal. Yes it is truly taking away from a Nor Cal being able to form a national contender. so many coaches want to start a team so there daughter can be a starter. I mean come on if she don't have the talent then she don't have it. I have looked at the 12U this year and have seen how watered down it is. All these teams forming and spreading the talent thin. I went to a couple of try outs and have only seen one team that has a good group of returners. A lot of these teams are offering positions to anyone that shows up just so they can have a team that there DD can start on. It's not always about inning or starting. Now is the time for your DD to have a good coach that will help develop her skills, good group of girls who support each other and have fun together and a core of parents that will stay together and do whats best for there DD and themselves!!!!

[CheckWriter]

good group of girls who support each other and have fun together and a core of parents that will stay together and do whats best for there DD and themselves!!!!

Just curious, how do you do that if you don't get on a team?

How do you learn about better and worse coaches if you have never played travel ball before?

Most girls start by getting together with the girls that played all star rec together through 8s & 10s and they like all stars, but are starting to have a hard time getting through the regular season just to get to all stars. So, the dad(s) [or mom(s)] that did a pretty good job coaching all stars, where the girls had fun, played some good games and got a lot better by playing better teams figure: "I guess the next step is travel ball." But the closest team is 45 minutes away and 8 of us live practically walking distance from our community park. We can invite a couple of girls to join us and a travel team is born.

What is wrong with that?

I know that is how my older DD got started and that was when we still lived in So Cal.

Was our first game at a friendly a rude awakening? Oh yeah!

Girls complained about how hard our coach hit the grounders in practice. After practicing 5 or 6 times, the girls' first game ever as a team happened to be against a team that about 2 months earlier won the 12U ASA National Championship. Time ran out in their half of the second inning with the score in the mid 20's.

By the end of the fall, we were playing .500 ball and the following spring went to Western Nationals and did OK. My DD is now on partial scholarship in the Pac10. If she had gone and tried out for a "National Contender", she may have ended up hanging out at the mall instead of playing ball.

I'm sorry that all these teams are diluting the quality of the teams to the point where your DD can't have the appropriate supporting cast for you to win a National Championship.

I just think all these girls deserve a chance to play and find out if softball is the sport for them. The only way that can happen is there enough teams for everyone to play. Besides, a large percentage of those girls won't come back, and then another chunk won't go to 14s. Then driver's license and boys and you lose another significant percentage. Just find a coach that can teach her a little bit along the way and, as you put it:

have fun

Again, JMO, we can certainly agree to disagree on this one.

[Jar19201]

I think that the number of teams in Nor Cal can be an issue when trying to create teams that can compete at the National level. It has watered down the overall strength of many teams. I think one thing, besides the number of teams, that causes this is the parent(s) that will leave a good team to go play for a subpar team so that their daughter can be the #1 pitcher, or starting SS, when they could have played for a much better team and been a #2 pitcher or 2nd baseman.

We have reached a point where kids and parents would rather leave a team that is going to get their kid some positive exposure to go to a team where they get to be a BIG fish in a small pond. This isn't all parents, but much more common in the softball game of today.

The high number of teams out there give these kids opportunities to do this. What the parents don't see ahead is that this is actually going to hurt their kid's opportunity to be seen, and build the character it will take to COMPETE for a position or spot when they reach the 16 and 18 level. They will have learned how to run away from competition when they don't ge their way.

This is a generalization on how I have seen the game change over the years. This doesn't apply to all girls on all teams, so please don't take what I am saying as a judgment on your specific situation.

[Iluvblue]

My views on this topic are somewhat skewed because I have been very fortunate to coach some really talented players.

Are there too many teams?? heck yes, but that is from MY perspective of dealing with really good players, so in many cases a pretty decent player wont make my team. Does that mean she shouldnt be able to play the game?? nope, and I guess that is where these additional teams play a part.

When I first started 12u in 98 there were literally the Rebels, Sacrifice, Maybe a Grapette 12u, the Shamrocks (Galt), Breeze and I am sure I am leaving a few others out, but that was about it in 12u.

On any given tourney you might have 8 total teams in an age division... hell, you have 20 or more in each age division now.

Problem with this is that any Joe can have a team, and players and parent lose out in this scenario as well intentioned adults know so little about actually raising the level of play for the players. I have also heard horror stories with schedules, canceled tourneys, fees disappearing, and on and on.

think i am wrong??? In EVERY single tourney we played last year (Minus nationals and the Premiere qualifier) i could pick out 4 teams and predict that those 4 would be in the finals. Id have been correct in probably 90% of those tourneys.
My point? Only a select few teams are REALLY good with any consistency. The rest?????

is this a bad thing??? i dont know, I guess it just depends on what teams you are with and who your kid is.

[CheckWriter]

leave a team that is going to get their kid some positive exposure

I think 12s is just a bit early to worry about exposure.

Also, from our experience, #2 at a position gets really old. Especially when that kid can go 0 for a month and still bat 4th. You want to be on the best possible team where you will PLAY.

If you get pigeon holed, sometimes the only way to get "noticed", no matter how hard you work, miss no practices (unlike the #1) and how well you play, is to go to another team where you can get an objective assessment.

[Jar19201]

Well when I was speaking about exposure, I wasn't referring to 12's. However, that 12's team also has to be prepared and have the talent to compete at 14's. So, being choosey and looking for the best talent at 12's is what a coach has to do so that the group is ready when exposure tournaments do come.

As far as "Especially when that kid can go 0 for a month and still bat 4th"....does that happen? Sure it does. Is it the norm? Definitely not. Competitive softball coaches coach competitively to win and to help a young lady's life, so making those type of decisions happen rarely.

"You want to be on the best possible team where you will PLAY." Being a starter on an average team where a kid isn't learning or progressing isn't productive for the kid, nor is it going to help that kid succeed and last in the game. So, I do agree you want as much PT as possible, but there is also something to be said about picking your team, organization, and coaches wisely, and many kids will learn more by staying with a team, learning, and getting better at the skills portion if the right choice is made on who to play for. Being a big fish in a small pond can cause a kid to plateau very quickly.

If a kid is at a place where they are "pigeon holed" then it probably wasn't the best choice to play there, and it may be hard for us to hear this as parents, but maybe on any given team, our kid truly wasn't as good as the #1. It was just hard to see.


Coaches don't make money doing this, and believe me I know, some do it for their own ego. But, for the most part, I think coaches I have seen are doing this because they are trying to help and not trying to degrade or treat kids unfairly.

[Iluvblue]

Coaches don't make money doing this, and believe me I know, some do it for their own ego. But, for the most part, I think coaches I have seen are doing this because they are trying to help and not trying to degrade or treat kids unfairly.




I agree with this statement, but the best intentioned person can not overcome lack of organization, lack of communication, lack of knowledge of the game, and just an overall lack of leadership skills.

[CheckWriter]

but maybe on any given team, our kid truly wasn't as good as the #1

Maybe we are getting orthogonal here.

So let's say you are on the "best" team and she plays in pool and show cases but never when it "matters." You staying? Or do you go to the "second best" team and play (almost) every iniing of every game and bat 3rd and hit a game winning or game tying RBI once in a while later in the tournament?

I still say B. I know that is what older DD's college coach told us the kids should do.

I'm not talking about going back to rec ball to be 10 x better than anyone else on the team. I'm talking about going to a good team with good instruction where she can contribute and be in the top 5 of 14 instead of the bottom 5 of 14.

It has worked out a lot better for us.