Can we .

[onlooker]

.......

[rbi]

Like I tell my kids, be concerned about things you can control, not what you cant, and you cant control the number of teams, what you can control is this,

#1- Finding THE best instructional 12U coach around, as with 12's its about learning the game from someone who truly knows the game.

#2- DO YOUR HOMEWORK


ALL the other stuff, wins and losses, the ASA National plaque's, people talking about how great your team is, all that stuff is temporary, learning the game early by a experienced positive coach at 12U/14U is priceless. For me someone who played the game at a high level and had success was important, they know how to teach and they know how to relate and communicate, and most 12U will go through a wall for that type of coach....

Just my stupid opinion

[Iluvblue]

Do you really think jumping to 14u would help? That is one of the biggest problems facing the game IMO. It seems as if everyone wants their 12u kid to play 14u, then when their kid is a 14u first year player by age, they want them in 16u, and then they want them playing Gold by their Freshman year, or Soph at latest. (sophs isnt a bad thing)

Some kids are capable of doing it as Freshman, but those are the exceptional players, the truly top 3-4% of players. The problem is that their are so many teams that those older teams need to pull from the youngers to get good players, thus the 16u pull from 14u, and 14s pull from 12u.


Back in 99 we had a 12u team loaded with players... I think 9-10 of those kids off that team all played college ball. We had a STUD player at every position and a pitcher that was hitting 57-58 mph from 35 ft( which was unfair to hitters). How did we do that? Because there was not this many teams, and the level of play was AWESOME.

I remember playing Dynasty that had Jenae Leles and ...last name Engle, pitched at UOp and watching our CF gun a kid at 1st base. great teams back then. Just too many today, but that aint changing.

As RBI said, you better find the right coaches and get your kid instruction.

I see lots of players that are GREAT athletes, but game smarts is avg. That needs to be handled at 14u at latest.

I know of kids back then that went on to play at Az, UCLA and 2 kids that we competed against that played for team USA.... they didnt jump up age groups like today at least not until playing a full year at 14u... and these kids were freaking all Americans and team USA members and we now have kids that go straight from 12u to 18u.



Oh well, it is the landscape we are in now. We must learn to live with it......

[ontheblack]

Two great wise replies from rbi and ILB.

My kid learned so much about the game from her 12u coach. He helped fine tune her mental toughness and also taught the girls that they needed to understand the game to the point of anticipating the coach because once they took the field, the game was primarily in their hands.

We made the mistake of making too big a jump in 14s, playing 16s that fall. While she did well on the field against better competition, the drop off in the level of coaching was not worth it.

If your kid is 12u or 1st year 14, rbi's advice here is as good as it gets:

ALL the other stuff, wins and losses, the ASA National plaque's, people talking about how great your team is, all that stuff is temporary, learning the game early by a experienced positive coach at 12U/14U is priceless.

[Tenshun]

I think most teams that are consistently at the top in the younger age groups have three key things in common.

1) They start with above average talent, 2) combine that with above average coaching and 3) finish it off with girls who have played together for a while.

I reiterate the importance of FIRST finding a coach that 1) knows the game, 2) knows how to teach the game and 3) knows how to motivate the girls. If you find one of these, above average talent will be attracted and will want to stick around. And it sort of becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy for building a top team.

[watchtonsofsoftball]

This topic comes up every offseason and it will never change. While your probably right, its something that will never go away and is part of Nor Cal softball. For that matter there are a lot of regions where this is going on. Heck even so cal has that problem . They just have more good teams than we do. But they have 60+ teams. Only difference is they have 10-15 teams that are SUPER competative every year, where as we have 2-3.

[VISoftball]

Of course having 1/3 of their population spread over 2.5 times the geography doesn't help much in Northern CA.

[bleacherpreacher]

Some of these teams don't feel the need to compete in LA. The top teams in this area I think can go to LA and play just fine. In all these organzations theres alway the one 12 team that is better than the other ones.

[bleacherpreacher]

All of these teams at best have 0-4 players assembled that are A ball material (including Garcia). This doesnt make sense to me, sorry if ignorant. If I am a 12U parent, what the heck do I do? jump to 14's lol?

Your little Garcia comment is ridiculous. Top pitchers, top catchers, top infield and out field. Maybe you should jump to 14's

[Bleacher bug]

I would agree that Northern Cal has to many 12u teams. As for your comment about the Garcia team having maybe0-4 A ball players I think you might have bumped your head!! If they only have a few the rest of us should go back to rec. watching that team I would say at least 8 or 9 are solid A Ball players.. I know it is only 1 tournament but Garcia just went to West Covina and went 3 n 0 on Sat and were ahead from what I was told 3 or 4 to 0 after 4 innings when the rain hit in their first on Sunday..

The Sac area alone has enough talent to hold probably 3 solid A ball teams in the 99 birth year and again 3 solid A ball teams in the 00 birth year. The surrounding areas have probably enough for another 1 or 2 in each birth year. I am a big believer in the Age pure teams at the younger ages. I like the thought of the larger org's trying to stay age pure. With the age pure concept you should always have one team learning the speed of the next age bracket and developing for the future, then one competing well in that age bracket and pushing towards your goal of Nationals, PGF etc... At the same time without some other teams out there you wouldn't have enough teams to play tourney's. At some point enough is enough tho. I thought we had a good amount of teams in Fall and now we have 5 or 6 new teams forming for Spring.

Probably gonna piss some dad's off but I feel the biggest problem for this is Pitchers parents. Most teams out there are coached by pitchers Dad's and most of the new teams forming are again pitchers parent's finding a home for their baby.
Of your list in order these are the only teams I know of who's head coach does NOT have a daughter who pitches. Does anyone know any others???

Heat 00, Grapes Norwood, Mizuno Garcia, Mizuno Stone, Mizuno Lep, Manteca Mayhem, Foothill Gold Niccum, couple of teams I am not sure of but out of 30 to only have 6or 7off the top that don't. Kinda tells you something