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The Vicious Circle Of Hitting
by Dave
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Chris writes in to say/ask:
"The Achilles heal of our new 12U team looks to be hitting. We do great in practice and we dedicate a lot of time to drills, yet when they get in game situations, there appears to be a lack of intensity. We have tried all sorts of things to get them "fired up" and we still see weak swings. The coaches and dads can't help but compare the girls approach to hitting to that of boys. 'Boys just seem to get in there and want to pound the ball.' 'Boys don't think, see the ball - hit the ball.' I am sure you have heard all of this. I am guilty of saying these things myself. We then try to think of ways to make the girls more aggressive. Of course this is fruitless since there likely is no way to do that.
I wonder if you would be able to share some of your observations in this area. I know we are not alone. I talk to coaches and Dads on other teams and we all can't figure it out. We can't figure out how to motivate them with a bat in their hands."
To begin, let me say that this is not a "girl thing." I do not believe boys are naturally more aggressive at the plate than boys are. I feel confident in stating this because I have seen plenty of girls act aggressively at the plate. These are not all tomboys, either.
I have a daughter who is one of the bigger girly-girls you'd ever want to meet. She is a make-up hound who spends inordinate amounts of time fixing her hair. Yet, when she gets a bat in her hands, watch out! In school gym class, the boys move back when she gets up. Recently, a baseball-playing boy on her gym team got frustrated with his classmate-teammates and told them to "swing the bat like that girl." I have not seen anything yet which would make me believe that girls are naturally less aggressive at the plate than boys are. They are, however, more selective but I'm getting ahead of myself so let me start at the start.
What you have identified is what I think of as the "vicious circle of hitting." A girl cannot be confident until she hits the ball. She can't hit the ball until she is confident. This is one of the most important aspects to the mental side of the game.
I once put together a team which included one particular girl. She had an excellent swing as a result of year-round, weekly, one-half-hour hitting sessions with a competent instructor. At tryouts, she hit very well off the machine and I was encouraged in the strongest terms possible by the head of our organization to bring this girl onto my team. I complied although I knew she wasn't a very good real-game-situation hitter. But I took her partly because we needed another kid and partly to appease the head of our organization.
My instincts on this girl were proven correct when she repeatedly struck out every time up for several tournaments. But I had to find a way to get her going. We had a younger group and our hitting was not particularly strong. I needed this girl to swing the bat effectively. So I began experimenting with some techniques I knew from my youth.
When I was a young boy playing baseball and other sports, I often day-dreamed about the sport in the current season. These day dreams became rather vivid and nuanced. During baseball season, I would picture myself up at the plate with a specific kid on the mound pitching to me. Everything would move in slow motion as he went into his wind-up. I would see the ball come out of his hand and track towards me. I would begin my swing at exactly the right moment and drive the ball well over the outfielders' heads. I relived this moment over and over in my head as I wasted away the hours before some game. By the time game-time rolled around, I was pretty much in a frenzy. I would get up to the plate in a very aggressive mood and often did exactly what my primitive visualization had prepared me to do.
To express things a little more clearly, I visualized success and then experienced it. That didn't happen naturally before I actually got my first hit. My first hit happened before I began visualizing. The first hit happened mostly because the bat happened to hit the ball via some sort of accident! But at the time, I didn't recognize that and instead began expecting to get hits every time up. The original hit plus the spontaneous practice of visualization caused me to walk to the plate EXPECTING to hit successfully. The visualization and success began to feed upon each other. Big hit caused greater visualization caused greater expectation caused more success.
So, rolling the clock forwards from playing years to coaching, I had this girl with a swing I didn't need to correct, yet she didn't produce for my team. Before one of her at-bats, while I was coaching third, I called time-out and signalled for the girl to come down to see me. I had her look off in one direction while I spoke slowly and deliberately to her. I said:
"You, my dear, are an outstanding hitter. I've watched you swing for several months now. There is nothing wrong with your swing. There is no good reason for you to not hit the ball. This pitcher is OK but she's not great. I'm convinced that you should hit her and hit her hard. If there is some reason why you should not be able to hit her, like your arms are both broken, please tell me now so we can pinch-hit for you. Now, go up there expecting her to throw you a strike and when she does, rip it!"
Of course, the girl walked confidently to the plate and promptly struck out. My little motivational speech was not nearly enough. But that was OK. We were just getting started.
After this game and tournament were over, I had a long talk with the parents of the girl and explained kind of the same things I had explained to the girl herself, before the at-bat. I expanded on the subject by going into some visualization techniques.
I told them they would have to help out at first but then she should be able to do this on her own. I told them to have her sit or lie down in a quiet place where she wouldn't be interrupted. She should picture herself at a game, waiting in the on-deck circle or gathering her helmet and bat as she waited in the hole. She should picture the opponent in the field, hear the sounds of girls cheering, smell the infield dirt and outfield grass. Any particular observation she might make while playing a game should be conjured up while she lay there waiting for her turn at-bat. While doing this exercise, I suggested slow, deep breathing. Anything you can do as a self-hynosis technique is worth trying.
Finally her turn at-bat would come and she should visualize the walk to the plate including picking up the batter before's bat or whatever else might happen. Then she should picture herself stepping with one foot inside the box and the other out to check the coach's sign. Then, not getting a take or bunt sign from the coach, step inside the box and get ready for the pitch. Picture the pitcher as she begins her wind-up. Then, as her arm comes in a downward arc, slow everything down to a crawl. Very slowly picture the ball coming out of the pitcher's hand, decide if this is going to be a strike, prepare to swing if it enters your zone, then swing and make solid contact. Watch as the ball shoots past the SS and into leftfield, drop your bat, run to first, make a wide turn to see the ball has shot past the leftfielder and is rolling towards the fence as the runners on base round and head for home, decide to go for two or three, and finally make it with a good hard slide.
Now, and this is really important, everything is still moving slowly and you get up from that slide. As you come to a standing position, you look around at the faces of the fielders around you. They are angry, sad, or both. They are apparently upset that those runs scored and they couldn't get you out as you took another base. Then you look to your team's dugout. Everyone is jumping up and down in slow motion as the last girl to score picks up your bat and heads back to her screaming teammates. You did it. You got a very big hit.
The parents worked at this technique for a week or two and the time came when we were in another game at another tournament. I again called timeout and did the same thing with the girl. This time I told her I expected her to get a hit to leftfield. I let her know that I was 100% confident she could do it. So, naturally, the pitcher walked her on four very wild pitches!
I'm not going to leave you hanging here forever. Eventually the girl did get a hard basehit to left. Once that happened, I instructed her parents to continue with the visualization but let her do it alone from now on. Their only job was to tell her to go visualize before the family got into the car on gamedays. I told them eventually they wouldn't have to do anything at all except respect that she would be performing visualizations all the time - so leave her alone when she doesn't feel like talking before games!
I told the girl herself something a little different. I said, "you know this visualization stuff you are doing? Well, from now on, I want you to come back to this game and picture that hit you got today. I want you to go home, sit down and create a mental recording of this hit. Then I want you to do some visualization this week using that hit. After your next big hit, you can use that one but I also want you to use this one. Eventually, you'll have a bunch of different hits to draw upon and then you can decide which ones you want to remember but my point is, I want you to use fresh, live memories rather than older stale ones."
From that point forward, the girl was far more aggressive, confident and successful at the plate. She needed to get a hit to build up her confidence. Then she needed to use visualization to make hitting successfully happen routinely. She needed to build an expectation in herself that every time at the plate, she would get a hit.
That experience pretty much outlines everything I have to say about convincing a girl that she should expect to hit. But I want to answer Chris' question more methodically. I've kind of jumped ahead and written the final points before the preliminary ones. Now I need to go back and write a logical progression.
The first things any player, coach or parent should be concerned with are swing mechanics. You can be a hitter without proper swing mechanics at an early age but gradually your hitting will falter as you see better and better pitching. So with hitting as with most other things about this game, it is mechanics first, foremost and always.
Any coach should make sure his or her girls have good swings and then that there are plenty of opportunities to reinforce this via many repetitions at the tee, with soft toss, with whiffle balls and, of course, with live pitching. Lots of swings is critical but no less so is lots of experience with live pitching. Hitting is as much an eye thing as it is a physical thing. The more experiences seeing a fastpitched ball come out of a pitcher's hand, the better. Pitching machines do not simulate live-pitched balls.
In practices, try to work-in your pitchers. You should be able do this at an indoor facility during the winter months. You certainly can do this when you get to outdoor fields. Don't just have all your players standing around while your pitcher throws to one batter at a time. Set up stations where somebody can take swings at a tee into a net, another can hit soft toss, another can hit at a stick, and another can hit whiffle balls. Keep as many girls as possible active. It is efficient, it prevents boredom, and it will make your girls' swings stronger.
When you are not, strictly speaking, running a full-blown batting practice, take other opportunities to train the girls eyes. I have outlined the drill known as "3-ball" before on this blog but I'll go into it briefly now because I see it as a great way to train your hitters' eyes in addition to giving your pitchers and catchers a workout.
"3 ball" involves two players, one of which is a pitcher and the other a "catcher." Give your pitcher two balls and the catcher a third one. Place the girls about 45 to 50 feet apart. The pitcher has one ball in her glove and the other in her pitching hand. The catcher has one ball in her throwing hand. The drill commences with the pitcher walking into an abbreviated-motion pitch. She pitches the ball to the other player who catches it with her glove and then throws the ball in her throwing hand back to the pitcher as rapidly and hard as she can. The pitcher in the meantime removes the ball from her glove by grabbing it with her throwing hand. She catches the thrown ball with her glove and immediately pitches the other ball back to the catcher. The catcher in the meantime has removed the other ball from her glove and prepared to take the next pitch. She throws immediately back to the pitcher and so on. As balls are thrown poorly, the players do not retrieve them but rather continue the game / drill until all three balls are gone. On the rare occassions when nobody makes a bad throw, the drill can end after a specified amount of time, number of throws, or when both players reach exhaustion.
This is an intense drill in which the speed of the exchange is key. It allows a pitcher to make 20 pitches in the span of about 2 minutes or less and is, therefore, a great conditioning drill for pitchers. It also encourages a quick exchange so it is a good tool for imporving catchers release times. That can benefit other players too for the same reason. The side benefit, the reason I mention it in this context, is it also trains girls to see fast pitching, assuming you have some pretty fast pitchers on your staff. In order to play the catcher part of this game, you simply have to pick the ball up right out of the pitcher's hand. So, to me, this is almost as good a drill for batters as it is for pitchers, catchers and fielders.
In addition to performing the "3-ball" drill, coaches should also try to get their players, other than catchers, to catch their pitchers. This can be in warm-ups before live pitched batting practice, before or during games, or any other circumstances available. The point is, get your batters as many opportunities to see real pitching as possible whether they have a bat in their hands or not.
Aside from what you can do with drills and practices, it is also important to get girls in as many realistic situations as possible. This is one of the primary driving forces for good teams to conduct as many scrimmages as they possibly can. The only way to really get game situations is to play games. This is why all major league baseball teams, colleges, and even high schools play loads of scrimmages and as many games as possible.
Aside from the defensive benefits of playing lots of real games, hitters rely on this to get them swinging right. If you think of a player who suffers an injury, first he or she goes through rest, then rehab, then they start taking steps to get out on the field. But even after they are completely healed and ready for action, they're still not in game shape. It can take several real games to get back into the hitting groove. For young girls, this is just as important.
My personal experience tells me that girls usually take quite a while to start hitting. When they move up an age group and face the better pitching there, it usually can take as long as 5 tournaments before they start making good, hard contact. That's not true for everyone but it is for many. It can try your patience. But my point is, they're never going to hit unless and until they see enough pitching. So make it happen and be patient.
Another element of this process involves something I alluded to before. Girls are just plain more selective at the plate. I think that should be considered a good thing because this game is different from its cousin, baseball. The standard 12 inch softball is quite a bit bigger than the baseball. It is, therefore, easier to hit a strike right down the middle. For that reason and for others, pitchers in youth softball usually throw fewer strikes than their baseball brothers. In the earliest years, that probably has to do with the difficulty of the pitching mechanics. Later, perhaps in 12U, the mechanics are better but the pitchers seem to throw fewer strikes because A) the girls hit the ball hard if they throw it down the middle, B) they tend to hit balls down the middle right back at the pitcher, C) umps are usually pretty generous east and west (on the corners) in softball, and D) usually the fielding ain;t great so succesful pitchers learn to work the corners in order to get miss-hit balls that make easier outs. The result is girls who become good hitters often become highly selective. But if you want to drive the ball, you need something you can drive. So the best softball hitters have to be selective.
Another thing I have noticed is girls are more selective because in the early years, when pitchers are struggling to get the ball over, they experience more success by being patient than they do by being aggressive. If you draw a walk with the bases loaded in the final inning of a tied game, your teammates will mob you just as energetically as they would if you hit the ball over the fence. If you step up to the plate and weakly ground the first pitch to the first baseman, you feel cheated and have to wait a really long time for your next at-bat. Being selective can have substantial rewards and it prolongs what is usually every kid's favorite part of the game, hitting.
The trouble starts when pitchers not only get better control but also get smarter and recognize when a girl is trying to work out a walk. Then the selective girls tend to go down looking and, while that is frustrating, you really don't want to encourage them to swing indiscriminately at every pitch since the pitchers will recognize that too!
The best approach I have to deal with this phenomenon is to talk to your girls constantly. Teach them what I call the "EXPECT" approach. The expect approach is related to visualization in that it involves pre-circumstance mental preparation. What it means is, whether you are in the field, on base, or at the plate, you are there expecting something. What you expect is going to make an impact on what you do when something happens.
The best way I can explain this is through personal experience. I remember playing the outfield as I got older. There isn't much to do while you are out there standing around waiting for action to come to you. Yet you have to be ready. What I used to do was stand there thinking I hope this guy hits a screaming linedrive into the gap. I'm going to get such a huge jump on the ball and run as fast as I ever have so I can catch it and really get under his skin. That didn't happen all that frequently but when it did, you can bet I was ready to make the play. Also, whenever there was a runner on second, I used to stand there hoping with all my might that this batter would hit a hard single to me. I would charge it and throw the runner out at the plate. I had mentally prepared myself for success. And it worked whenever the circumstance happened.
With batting, you have to go to the plate "with an idea." That's an overused phrase but what it means is you have to step into the box ready for a pitch to be thrown in your hitting zone. You expect either a ball or strike to be thrown whether you recognize it or not. If you expect a strike, you are ready to swing. If you expect a ball, you aren't. I want my hitters going into the box expecting a strike but ready for a ball. It's a fine line but every hitter steps in expecting something. As a coach or parent, you want your kid to step up there ready to hit anything really good. You have to talk to your players about that. They do not do it naturally.
At this point, I would stress visualization if I hadn't gone over it already. So instead I'll summarize what I have said already and provide one closing thought. In order to be a successful hitter, you must:
1) have good swing mechanics reinforced by tons of iterations of tee hitting, soft toss, etc.;
2-4) get loads of experiencing seeing and hitting live pitching via practices and drills, and playing loads of scrimmages and games; and
5-7) take the right mental approach - Expect the pitcher to throw you something hittable while also being prepared not to swing at sucker pitches, be confident, and practice visualization.
Girls are not naturally less aggressive than boys are. They are more selective than the boys because the game, the ball, and pitching in fastpitch are different than they are in baseball. Don't discourage selectivity. Learn to work with it.
And, finally, if you get really annoyed that your daughter or your team is not being aggressive enough at the plate, if it frustrates you to no end that they go down looking or flail weakly, if you really wish you could get inside their heads and teach them to aggressively smack the ball around, I have an exercise for you. Go get yourself a top level high school or college pitcher. Pick up the bat and step up to the plate. Now, show me what you got. I've got five right here that says you strike out 4 out of 5 times and go down looking twice. This ain't baseball.Labels: batting, Visualization
Permanent Link: The Vicious Circle Of Hitting
 
Serving Two Masters
by Dave
Monday, November 05, 2007
You simply cannot serve two masters. This truism is valid in almost every aspect of life. I was reminded of that fact while driving, while working in my previous profession, and then recently in a few youth sports settings.
We live in a world in which "multi-tasking" is supposed to be virtuous - indicative of a strong work ethic or possibly some sort of higher level intellectual capabilities. Yet we find the need to prohibit certain combinations of activities as a matter of public safety. For example, some localities and states prohibit the use of mobile phones while driving. Some believe this is heavy-handed big brotherism and some see the need for it. My state enacted a law prohibiting hand-held phone use while driving. At first I was annoyed by our over-reaching government but gradually came to understand the logic of it. Some human beings can probably use a hand-held mobile phone and drive perfectly safely. I just haven't met one yet.
I was driving the other day when I noticed the guy in the car in front and to my right had his hand pressed against his ear in an awkward manner. I gathered that he was on the phone and decided to invoke my defensive driving skills. The car swerved in front of me as the lanes went from two to one and the other driver seemed to lose his sense and forget that there were other cars on the road. Then we came to a traffic light and stopped. The light turned green but the guy didn't notice. We sat there waiting for over a minute and then I politely tapped my horn. After a few moments of finishing his comments, he began to move just as the light turned yellow. I didn't lose my patience and instead backed off a few extra car lengths from this multi-tasker so as to reduce the risk of collision. I was glad I had done this when he made a sudden turn without signalling from one normally very busy street onto another. As he turned right, I guess he was unable to make the full turn using just one hand so he came to a complete stop halfway through. I almost hit him in the tail because I never expected the car to stop. Then he completed the turn and continued on his way. It was very dangerous driving. I was never so happy to see a police officer get out of my way.
A long time ago, I was just getting out of college and beginning my career with the second or third largest public accounting in the world. In addition to working roughly 100 hours per week, I was required to sit for the CPA examination. That took multi-tasking to a new level but the thing which sticks out to me was the material I had to learn regarding what was then called the "audit" portion of the exam. Auditors perform a public service by attesting to the approximate accuracy of publicly held companies' books. In order to perform this function, auditors must maintain independence. Part of the material emphasized that it was insufficient for auditors to maintain independence in fact. They must also maintain independence in appearance so the public has faith in their work.
Public accounting firms go to some lengths to maintain that appearance of independence. One of the requirements imposed upon employees was that we could not hold stock in any company which was also an audit client of the firm. On the day I started there, they quizzed us about our stock holdings and forced anyone who held an investment in an audit client to immediately divest themselves of it. I started work with this one fellow who had received a gift from his grandfather of 100 shares of stock in a company which had gone bankrupt during the years between the gift and his first day at the firm. The stock had become virtually worthless via a plan of reorganization in that bankruptcy. But our firm required this young man to rid himself of the stock because the company was an audit client. By the way, this guy was an attorney who worked exclusively in the non-auditing part of the accounting firm's practice. And the firm itself continued to provide consulting services to the public company in regards to, shall we say, some iffy practices. But that didn't matter to the bosses who just wanted to make sure nobody held any stock in a client. Of course, as Enron showed us, sometimes the independent auditor's whole business model is reliant upon its audit client's purchase of non-audit consulting services!
I mention these two incidents as a backdrop to some things I witnessed in youth sports. One incident involved my brother's kids' soccer organization and two others were in my personal youth fastpitch softball experiences.
One of my brother's kids is a very skilled soccer player in southern California. Several years ago, this kid tried out for and made a very competitive team. The way things were organized, the team had a player-parent manager who handled mostly administrative tasks and a paid professional trainer who really did most of the coaching. I understand this type of structure is common in competitive youth soccer. The problem was the trainer was the son of the head of the organization. The team paid a hefty fee for the trainer and eventually parents believed there was a lack of independence between the team's best interests and the career of the organizational head's son. Many parents felt the team was shortchanged, overcharged, or both. About half bolted for another organization.
Regarding my own softball experiences, in August I had my kids try out for a number of teams because I wanted them to experience tryouts and because I thought perhaps they might be interested in one of the teams. One of these organizations had a track record of producing some very good teams. Their tryouts drew a large number of talented kids.
After this team's and several others' tryouts, we decided not to play for the particular organization for a variety of reasons which are the real substance of this article and which I'll get to shortly. What struck me was the coach's demeanor when she called to invite us to the team. During that call, she seemed almost apologetic or insecure. She didn't give us the good news that we had been selected. Instead, she sheepishly asked if we were still interested. Apparently, she had called expecting us to say no. I happen to know that this call was early in the process so I suspected that the coach made a few calls prior and had yet to receive an affirmative answer.
I believe my assumption proved to be correct as I noticed the team posting information regarding additional tryouts weeks later. This struck me as odd given the very good attendance and the fact that the talent level was perhaps better than most. They had a dozen quality pitchers, numerous catchers, as well as plenty of infielders and outfielders. In the weeks which followed, they advertised for pitchers and catchers when they easily should have been able to stock up right then and there.
From what I gathered, in the two age groups for which my kids tried out just one or two pitchers decided to stay. I had the opportunity to watch one of those teams play and the pitchers who joined were not their number 1, 2, or 3 choices. From what I could tell, they were well down the talent rankings. I also noticed that a few of the catchers were playing up an age group when their talent levels should have had themplaying in their own age group. The result was catching talent on one team was weak.
In the game I watched, the team's opponent discerned the lack of catching talent quickly and took advantage. The opponent had decent hitting but, because the undermanned team had rather poor defense in addition to the catching quandary, the opponent elected to play small ball until they were stopped. I saw 4 runs cross the plate before an out was made.
Then the opponent started hitting. They hit several balls too hard to handle but this was primarily due to the substandard pitching rather than any great skill of their batters. Eventually the starting pitcher had to be pulled and replaced with another girl. This other girl's principal skill was that she was far slower than anything the opponent had seen recently. The team continued to score though outs were recorded and eventually the inning was over. The game ended via run rule shortly after this. I felt we hads made the right decision by not joining this team.
The reason we decided not to join this organization was because we believed they served too many masters. The trouble begins with a few salient facts. First of all, the head of the organization has children playing for a couple of the teams. Second and more importantly, he runs a facility which rents out space to sports teams and which conducts training specifically for fastpitch players. Third, the organization is by far the most expensive in the area for youth softball. The expense plus suspicions regarding multiple masters has caused the organization's reputation to dwindle quite a bit.
Most teams charge a few hundred dollars plus some fundraising which covers uniforms and about ten tournaments, usually including one of their own. Most teams conduct winter workouts either in some school gym or other facility the organization has arranged to use for very little money. Some orgs have to arrange time at facilities which charge significantly more for usage and that adds $200 - $400 more to the overall cost. The total expense is usually around $600-800 or so.
The team I'm focused on charges more than $700 in addition to the figures I have just discussed. Presumably their charges include the same items but, despite many conversations with the org's head, it remains unclear to me whether the team charges include the cost of training, etc. Former players for the organization have indicated that there are subsequent charges for this. The rumors and rumblings suggest that the organization exists for the benefit of the head's children who play for the teams which do most of the heavy traveling, and to guarantee business for the training facility. Now, I cannot vouch for the accuracy or validity of these concerns. The point really is, to the casual observer, there seems to be significant risk that your money is being spent to support things well beyond the benefit of your own kid.
The thing which really but a bug in me regarding this organization came from conversations I had with the org head. Early in the tryout process, he was very complimentary with respect to my kids' pitching. Later he was less complimentary and suggested that he could give me some drills to straighten them out. I told him I'd be happy to listen to any drills he cared to share with me. He never shared anything. My sense was he was pumping me to bring my girls for paid, private instruction at his facility. The experience with the org head left me wondering if I would spend the next year or two in discussions with folks who would be encouraging me to bring my kids by the facility for lessons. I wasn't going to pay top dollar for the privilege of being solicited at every turn. Who needs that?
Another organization I have been involved with charges a very modest fee to play for them. It is among the least expensive organizations of which I am aware. Players pay a fee to join and commit to a certain level of fundraising. The founder of the organization runs the whole thing, never delegates a single task to anyone, and does a poor job of communicating to members. Most folks don't mind because they know leaving this team would end up costing them money.
Still, this does not prevent folks from scrutinizing the books in absentia. Any moron, particularly me, can figure out the costs of running a travel organization. It is common knowledge that insurance in youth sports can be had on the cheap. Tournament costs are posted to the web via e-teamz and other places. Uniform costs are available via a number of web sites. It doesn't take a genius to add up normal costs, divide by the number of roster spots, and figure out what they should be charged. We parents, have a lot of time on our hands during tournaments. We often sit and hash out things like this because we have nothing else to do!
I should say, that with the amount of money this organization charges, there is absolutely no valid question as to any real substantive malfeasance. Yet concerns are raised when one team or another shows up at the same tournament sporting new equipment while another team doesn't get so much as a dozen balls for practicing. The head of the organization coaches one of the teams and they all seem to have special stuff which other teams do not. Then it becomes known that a couple economically challenged families on the organization head's team have received "scholarships" to participate while another substantially economically worse-off kid on another team hasn't even been considered for one. Questions get raised and if there aren't any answers, it muddies the pond quite a bit.
In this one particular organization, there is a fairly substantial amount of fundraising and word has it that this money goes to paying deposits and other charges associated with running the organization's tournament. The organization head claims that's what the fundraising is for. But, here, again, people can figure things out for themselves. It isn't difficult to calculate out the costs of running a tournament. Porta-potties cost so much. Umpires get a set amount per game. There are other charges which can be arrived at by anyone willing to think things out. I've been through the exercise of calculating out income and costs of running the organization's tournament. The final result should, without question, be a profit. Yet the organization head claims they just break even, after all the fundraising is taken into account. Nobody believes that for a minute but that is the explanation he gives to anyone who inquires about fees and fundraising. We often talk about it with a wink and a nod. And any time there is an increase in the organization's charge, talk immediately shifts to the possibility of jumping outside the organization. That is already starting to happen. The organization could prevent this by simple honest communication.
Youth sports organizations should stand free and clear of any for-profit business. They should also make a complete accounting of how participants fees have been used. When parents are being solicited to sign up, it should be made absolutely clear what the charges are for. After the season has run, some sort of financial sources and costs statement should be presented. It should be a faithful depiction of the facts. No delibrate obfuscation or hiding of realities should be attempted. Nobody should be left whispering in the background implying malfeasance. This approach becomes more necessary when relatives or associates of the org's head are benefitting in a way which might raise eyebrows. That can be in the form of one or more of an organization's officer's children playing within the organization and receiving an apparently disproportionate allocation of organizational resources. That can take the form of other non-family members being a part of both the business run by the head and occupying a paid position within the not-for-profit sports organization.
You simply cannot serve two masters equally well simultaneously. Most people watch out for these kinds of scenarios. I know I did and I'm glad I had at least that much common sense. For those who knew less or ignored that little voice in their head, I hope things work out.Labels: parenting, youth tournament teams
Permanent Link: Serving Two Masters
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