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Difficult Age
by Dave
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
An acquaintance of mine who had older children when I had babies suggested once, "little kids, little problems; big kids, big problems." I'm not sure that's quite correct. I questioned the wisdom of his words while sitting in a hospital room listening to my then 6 week old daughter scream (like a pig being slaughtered) during a spinal tap. I won't go further into that experience because it is too painful. The bottom line is every age has its unique problems, some big problems arise for little kids and some little problems arise for big kids. It is a little too easy to claim that the bigger the kid, the bigger the problem. A case in point is the plight of the 11 year old softball player.
I believe 11 is the most difficult year for the average player. 11 is an important transitional year. The bases remain at 60 feet but the ball gets bigger, the pitcher's plate moves back to 40 feet, and the other girls, especially the 12 and 13 year olds, rapidly become much better players. The sleepy 10 year olds get their first indications that the next year is going to be very different than the previous one as they attend their first 12U tryouts. Sometimes that first taste can spark a fire in their belly. Sometimes it can threaten to end apparently promising careers.
Let's break down some of the reasons why the first year of 12U ball can be such a harrowing experience. The first important aspect involves the age of the girls. Like all age groups, 12U can span an almost 3 year interval. That's because the girl who turns 11 December 31st is playing with or against the girl who turns 13 January 1. This is true of all age categories but I think there are more stark differences in intellectual and physical maturity from 10 to 13 than there are from, for example, 14 to 17. The 10U category can have similar complications but, at least in my experience, not that many youngish 9 year olds play club/travel ball. Most are getting their first glimpses of softball in rec leagues where they face live pitching for the first time. That's not true of all 10U softball players but it is true of the majority.
Puberty pops its ugly head up sometime in the 10 to 13 range. And that changes the mix quite a bit. As girls enter puberty, aside from the usual, unmentionable problems, they begin to grow rapidly. I've seen girls shoot up more than 8 inches during this period. I recall seeing a 10U-moving-up at a tryout and thinking she's way too small to play 12U ball. She'll get trampled. Then a year and a half later, while she was in her second year of 12U, I saw the same girl standing in front of me and I couldn't believe her size. She had reached almost her full adult height in that brief period.
Growth has some benefits and some detriments. Coordination does not follow lock-step with growth. It takes time for your nerves and neurons to catch up with your body. Obviously, a bigger, stronger kid is going to have a generally easier time, once her coordination catches up, throwing, hitting, etc. But sometimes the physical syndromes which come with rapid growth do as much to diminish a player's athleticism as the increased size does to advance it.
We often speak of "growing pains" popping up during adolescence. "Growing pains" is a somewhat poor term to describe the conditions and syndromes which can hinder or even prevent a kid from playing to her ability. These conditions are caused by growth and they should go away in time but they are more than mere "pains" and their affects can be very frustrating. I'm talking about "Osgood-Schlatter Disease," "Severs Disease," and similar syndromes which cause a dimunition of flexibility in important joints due to rapid bone growth.
An historically very athletic kid might suddenly be unable to squat down to field a grounder. Parents wonder what is going on with their budding athlete. She can make that play. Why does she seem to be unable to make even the most rudimentary athletic move out there? A once fast runner looks like she's got a full diaper under her sliding shorts as she lumbers toward first base. She was faster last year, what happened? Why isn't she bending her legs and thrusting forward as she runs? After the tryout or practice, the parent quizes his or her daughter as to why she has suddenly become so unathletic and runs as if she really does not want to play softball. The girl cries and tells her parent that "it really hurts to run (or squat)." The parent wonders if she has injured herself or is just acting hurt to disguise her apparent ineptitude. Eventually, as the condition persists, the parent takes her to an orthopedic doctor to see if there is something real behind the claims of pain. The diagnosis is clear. She isn't making this up. The condition will go away with time and, for now, the best she can do is a several-times-per-day stretching regimen to deal with her loss of flexibility.
Aside from the "growing pains" issue, there are a number of other issues. Girls and boys all grow at different times. A December-31st-11-year-old might not enter puberty until she is turning 13 while a January-1st-13 may have already gone through this very difficult experience. Girls get their periods at different times. I know of a fellow who will be reading this piece who has two daughters almost 3 full years apart. The girls had their first experience of womanhood within months of each other. There's no telling when this will visit upon your daughter.
Girls react to the "curse" in different ways. I remember a father warning me that when his daughter gets "it" you can pretty much count on several days of her being incapable of playing any sport. He told me it will always be during an important tournament and you can expect her to go 0-fer at the plate, make horrendous plays in the field, and/or, if she is a pitcher, have some very bad outings. Fortunately for me, that wasn't even close to my first experiences. My daughter pitched her best during "that time of the month." And whatever pain or discomfort she was feeling was taken out on the ball while she was at bat. She pitched like Jennie Finch and hit the ball like her name was Crystl Bustos. But every girl is different and each has to learn how to deal with the issue while playing. I'm holding my breath as another daughter of mine approaches that age! You just do not ever know how it will affect them.
Physical syndromes and puberty aside, let's examine some of the other reasons girls have trouble in the first year of 12U ball. 12U ball is quite a bit different than 10U. Girls pitch, throw and hit the ball a lot harder. They also run a lot faster. These differences change the entire style of play and make it a lot more similar to older age groups than 10U ball typically is. Some of the games I have sene played at 12U more closely resemble high school ball than they do 10U games. And some of the players seem more close to high school abilities than some of the best 10s I have watched.
12U ball is a speed game in which the defenses' ability to make complex throws is tested. Good 12U players have strong, accurate arms. The 11 year old generally does not, at least until she develops it. Balls are hit harder making infield plays more difficult. And because base runners are quite a bit faster at this age, even the routine grounder can yield a base hit when fielded by an 11 year old who has neither a strong arm nor a quick release.
11 year olds must practice their throwing as often and as long as possible. I remember the parent of one 11 year old I had under my charge questioning why so much of my practices were focused on throwing. He hadn't seen a good quality 12U game before and I understood that he just didn't know. I told him throwing was critical in 12U and if he wanted his daughter to succeed, he had better supplement the amount of throwing I did in practice. He didn't heed my advice. His kid's 11 year old year was extremely tough. She didn't have the arm to see much action at her choice of positions.
Another 11 year old I had tried to get to throw more frequently whose parents didn't listen was my second baseman for a number of reasons I won't go into. Eventually I had to remove her from the position because her throwing was so poor. In one of her last performances, I watched as a routine grounder came straight to her, she fielded it cleanly, and the runner beat it out by two steps. I didn't know what to say as I watched the lolly-pop throw floating towards out first baseman's outstretched glove. The runner had time to take 6 full steps as the ball floated from her hand, 30 feet from first, towards its intended target! If you've got an 11 year old moving up to 12U ball, take this advice, throw as often as possible. Make long throws, make hard throws. Work on quickly removing the ball from the glove and performing a quick release throw to the bases.
Pitching changes quite a bit from 10U to 12U. If you;ve ever compared a dominant 13 year old pitcher to the average 10 year old, you can see what I mean. There are certainly some impressive 10U pitchers but the typical one throws the ball no harder than 45 with not that many (good) change-ups mixed in. 12U pitchers throw harder (50 - 55, possibly 60), hit spots, mix their speeds and movement, and generally make it more difficult to hit the ball.
At least in my experience, there are easily ten times as many change-ups thrown in a well-pitched 12U game than there are in a 10U one. I've seen the rare 10U pitcher who has a very good change and isn't afraid to use it but mostly I have seen girls still trying to master the pitch. You can't be very successful in 12U ball without a good change. Good 12U batters will hit the fastest pitch if the speed isn't varied no matter how fast it is.
Often 12s struggle to hit change-ups. 11 year olds in majority struggle desperately to deal with them. Even if an 11 year old learns to deal with them, she may have trouble hitting balls thrown deliberately just off the corners or above/below the best hitting zones. Successful 12s begin hitting their spots a majority of times.
Of the things I notice most frequently with 11s trying to deal with good 12U pitching, a few particular problems are common. One is the ability to pick good pitches at which to swing. 11s often take pitches thrown right down the middle at the knees for strikes, sometimes the third strike. They also swing at pitches which are just above the zone. A related problem is the tendency to swing under the ball. 11s are constantly "under the ball."
The laws of physics tell us that, all other things being equal, a faster pitch generally does not drop as much as a slower one. The younger girl expects the ball to drop similar to the pitches she has been hitting the past two years but it doesn't. Instead it stays up because it is faster and gravity doesn't have as long to work on it. I can't tell you the number of times I have watched frustrated coaches telling girls in batting practice to swing above the ball or "aim for the top half" because they keep swinging under the pitch. They have their pitching machines turned up to mimick 55 so the girls are prepared to deal with fast pitchers but because the machine is generally close to the hitter and because of the higher speed, the ball drops even less than a live-pitched 12U pitch. And the 11 year old hitter just has not programmed her brain to expect the ball where it arrives. This is an experiential thing that should pass after a lot of hitting practice and even more patience. But you do not see many dominant 11 year old hitters in tournament ball.
11 year olds often have trouble discerning what is over the plate as opposed to just off the corners. I've seen girls swing at a ball a foot outside then take the next one over the inside corner and get mad at the called third strike. Sometimes the opposite occurs. I think the problem here is that the 11 year old just has not seen many pitchers who deliberately throw balls out of the strike zone. That doesn't happen much in 10U ball where girls are struggling somewhat just to throw strikes. There are more pitches down the middle in 10U ball than there are in 12U. And as girls get older, they'll see even less strikes unless they learn what to lay off of. 12U would be difficult enough were it not for the pitchers' increased location abilities. It becomes almost impossible to make decent contact with it.
The final hitting problem which is common among 11 year olds trying to make their way in a 13 year old world is their inability to drive the ball out of the infield. The 12 inch ball weighs quite a bit more than the 11 and when it is thrown at good velocity, one must swing hard with proper weight shift in order to drive it. 10U hitters might have drilled balls past outfielders but when they move up to 12U, they have difficulty driving those few balls they make contact with past the second baseman. This will pass as their strength improves. If your budding superstar 11 year old is having this problem, just be patient and get her some time in the cages or at the tee so her swing will get stronger.
One of the things you can use to teach the first year 12U player about the strike zone and pitch movement is the bunt. Bunting helps them learn the track of the ball better than just getting in there and taking hacks. I don't mean that you should take a crop of 11 year old players and make all of them bunt everytime they get up to bat in games but you ought to do some of that and you ought to have them bunting against live pitching in practice. Another thing is to get them as many real at bats against live pitching as possible during practice. When you do have live pitching, make sure to put a coach in back of the cage and indicate to the batter whether a pitch was a ball or a strike so they know when they have held up against a strike at the knees or swung at a pitch above the zone.
I've told you that I think 11 is the most difficult year in fastpitch softball. I say this because in percentage terms, girls grow more during this time than during other age groups, they gain more strength and coordination, and because the game gets more complicated as individual abilities improve. Throwing is drastically better in 12U ball than it is in 10U. Many girls have been playing tournament ball for a full 4 years in their 2nd year of 12U while newbies might be in their first, second or third year. A girl might just be entering puberty and all the fun that entails as she steps up into 12U. Her opponents have already gone through this difficult year and, having survived, are ready to succeed. The pitching is very difficult to deal with. It is a very hard year indeed.
I recognize that their are exceptions to all these observations I have made of 11 year olds. I have seen that rare team comprised entirely of 11 year olds which has great hitting, incredible defense including great throwing, a couple of incredible ace pitchers, etc., etc. What I'm trying to say here is, if you are the parent of an 11 year old, please be patient. Don't get frustrated. Your daughter needs your understanding now more than ever. The answer to the problems you are facing is practice and perseverance. Too many leave the game or move back into less competitive situations at 11 because they think they are not good enough. Stick it out and things will be fine.Labels: youth tournament teams
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