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Just Softball
by Dave
Friday, August 08, 2008
For me, tomorrow is the start of the official tryout season. My team will be conducting tryouts all weekend. My kids will be attending various organizations' tryouts this weekend, the next one, possibly some weekdays over the next few weeks, etc. I expect that many of you will be trying out for teams as well. So I thought I'd say a few words about tryouts before you head out to face this sometimes daunting task.
First of all, it's just softball. Really, that's all that is involved, playing a little softball. You know softball, don't you? You've played it a few times. You've been to countless practices even if you've never dabbled in this travel stuff before. There is nothing much aside from knowing how to practice that you need to know.
Basically, most tryouts are run like fairly well organized practice. You fill out a little paperwork telling the organization what experience and training you have had. Don't fret if you've had neither training nor much experience. That likely won't be considered to exclude you from the roster. They're just asking in case it might matter to them. Most of the time, this information just sits on a piece of paper which is never consulted much.
After the paperwork is completed, if there are a large number of participants, you may receive a number to paste to the back of your shirt or something to hang around your neck so those who are evaluating your skills can make notes about you. That's far easier and less embarrassing than asking "hey you, what's your name" after you make an awful error or dazzle everyone with your fielding skills. If there are more than 20 kids at the tryouts and they don't hand out numbers, there may be something wrong about this circumstance. That doesn't mean there is something wrong but how are they supposed to evaluate a bunch of kids when they don't know who they are looking at?
At this point, there will probably be some opportunity to warm-up. The group may do some running, agility work, or baserunning. Hopefully the organization provides kids the opportunity to stretch, etc. But sometimes they don't and while that, in and of itself, is maybe a bad sign, you should still endeavor to warm-up and stretch a bit on your own right after the papers are filed. Did I forget to say come early because you need to get the paperwork out of the way and the last thing you want to do is arrive right at the starting time in order to be the last kid filling out paperwork while everyone else is warming up.
If girls are told to warm-up by throwing, it is not a great idea to try to dazzle the coaches immediately by getting your arm up to its usual 65 mph speed while loosening up from 30 feet. Instead, use the opportunity to get loose and move around a bit. I feel it would be better if girls demonstrated that they know how to loosen up. It drives me nuts when I have seen my teams in the past whipping the ball from close quarters before practice gets going. Invariably, one of the kids whipping the ball gets stiffness or soreness in her arm or shoulder and needs to sit down right as practice gets going. When I see kids trying out who whip the ball at each other from 30 feet, the hair raises on the back of my neck.
More important than showing one's arm strength from 30 feet is a continuous flow of throws and catches. If kids can't have a clean game of catch from 30 feet, what's going to happen when they move back to 60 or begin doing long toss? I want to see balls flying back and forth, hitting leather, not grass. Ideally, when there are those few errant throws, I'd like to see feet moving to the ball rather than arms stretching out in failed attempts to make catches. Even better than that would be a bunch of girls who move their feet to the ball, shuffle into throwing position athletically, and then make nice, even, accurate throws back and forth to each other. I would much rather see this than a bunch of balls bouncing around and one or two girls showing Div 1 throwing arms as they try out for my 12U team. I can't speak for all coaches but when I see one kid whipping the ball rather than warming up, I can't help but think, "there is a poor teammate who is just oh so sure she's the best kid around." That is probably a faulty judgment but that's what I'm thinking when I see this. I can't help it.
After warm-ups, perhaps some running or agility stuff, usually fielding drills begin. Some tryouts involve a line of grils receiving a couple grounders from some spot in the infield and then "next." Some tryouts involve a coach actually given instruction to the girls as they field a few balls. When that happens, the coaches are possibly more interested in how the kid responds to correction than they are concerned that she is ready for the next level with the skills she already possesses. Every organization, team, and group of coaches have different perspectives on things. But if a coach is providing instruction, very likely he or she is trying to see how you react to constructive criticism. Give me nine girls who react well and I suspect I can build a decent team. Give me 12 superstars who will only take instruction from mom and dad during tournaments and I might as well back up my equipment and go home.
Because big tryouts with lots of girls are often difficult to run, there can be a lot of standing around between iterations of drills. Not many kids will ever decide to do this but to the extent you are standing still, it would be best to keep doing some sort of stretching so you are limber when your turn comes. Very few kids do this because they generally like to socialize in line. But if you are cold and tight when your turn comes, don't blame me. I warned you to try to remain loose.
Usually after infielding drills, there is some sort of outfield drills. At the younger ages, this can be really trying. Some girls have never fielded a flyball before. Even at older ages, when the catchers are forced to do everything everybody else does, there are some tough moments during the outfield drills. The thing to remember is, don't get overly stressed out. Just do the best you can and let errors roll off your back. If a coach sees some kid go into a meltdown because she missed a flyball, he may be more concerned about the meltdown than the error. And when she notes that she's trying out for catcher not outfield, the coach might begin wondering what will happen when she suffers a passed ball with a runner on third the first time. I often find myself watching catchers in running drills or fielding flyballs and feeling sorry for them. I know they are going to be very tired when the catcher part of the tryout begins. But that's part of the overall experience. And the pitcher go through the same thing.
Once everything besides hitting, pitching and catching has been completed, it is generally time to hit. I expect that some kids will get into the batter's box with the expectation of drilling the ball so hard that the coaches will come up to them and demand that they sign team commitment papers after the first pitch from the machine. I've never actually seen that happen. Actually, I've never seen any kid actually hit the ball particularly well in tryouts. There are reason for this but I just want to say that I've never been impressed with how hard anyone has hit the ball in tryouts, particularly not on the first pitch!
Usually hitting tryouts are run via some sort of machine. Usually they use crummy balls - sometimes the kind of balls you aren't supposed to hit with that new composite bat your parents just shelled out $300 for. Some of those are beaten up and wouldn't fly out of the infield if Barry Bonds hit them, even right after a good juicing. Most coaches are observing much more than how hard the ball was hit. They want to see fairly sound mechanics. They want to see good balance. They want to see bat speed because while you can train a kid to hit the ball, it is difficult to make a timid hitter aggressive.
If coaches are giving advice to hitters, this is pretty much the same as when they did it with fielding drills. They want to see the "intangible," coachability. I remember one tryout I was involved with some years ago. This one kid was struggling. She just couldn't hit a machine pitched ball (we'll get to that in a minute). I felt bad for her. So I stopped feeding balls and walked up to her. I said, "Hey, I know you can hit because I can see you take a good hard swing. You don't need to do anything here to prove to me or anyone else that you can hit. Relax kid, this isn't going to make or break your oppportunity to join this team. How about you meet a couple balls and then start to drive them? Just relax and pretend you are at your old team where you are a big hitter. Make some contact and then we'll see where we go from there." The kid met my eyes and listened intently to what I said. I walked back and prepared to feed this kid some pitches. On they first pitch, she fouled it off and I said, "That's it. Just a little contact." The next pitch she swung and made contact again, this time hitting the ball into fair ground. After that she relaxed and then hit some hard ones. I wasn't interested in this particular kid that year but that's a different story. If I had an opening I most certainly would have invited her. To me, she demonstrated that she was coachable in some of the most stressful situations she would likely face.
Back to the general and away from the anecdotes for a second, some kids just cannot hit pitching machines. I really have no idea why that is. But I'm sure the phenomenon exists. I've seen it too many times. A select few girls actually ruin their ability to hit by facing machine pitched balls. They just can;t seem to get the timing down and then their swing goes to heck and they need thousands of iterations at the tee to get it back. These same girls knock the cover off the ball when they face real pitching. It is a very strange thing but it is something everyone should be aware of.
Conversely, there are some girls out there who can only hit machine pitching. I know this to be true because in my past I can think of several times when girls have been added to a team I was involved with because they hit well at tryouts, yet they never hit well in games. Again, I don;t know why this is but I have seen it.
Sometimes I suspect the speed of the machine can play an important role in these two strange happenings. One time I was supposed to evaluate hitters while somebody else operated the machine. One girl hit, the others did not. I walked out to the machine and asked the operator what speed he had set the thing at. he told me he had it set about 5 mph slower than anything we expected to see with this team. I asked him to turn it up to a couple mph over what I believed would be the slowest speed we would face. The other girls began to hit and the "big hitter" never touched another pitch.
At one tryout I attended not as a coach, they had a bunch of girls in different age categories from 10U to 14U. the 14s went first and those girls hit the pitches pretty well. Then the 12s went and very few made any contact at all aside from bunting. The reason was the machines were set to someplace between 55 and 60. When the 10s stood in, they slowed the machines down to 40. And those girls hit the balls better than the 12s!
One other anecdote I have for you is, at another tryout, there were two machines pitching side by side. The operator of one of the machines noticed that the pitch speed seemed wrong so he lowered it. Then he pointed this out to the operator of the other machine but that guy decided he wasn't going to lower the speed down to a reasonable level. The girls on the left hit and those on the right did not. I hope somebody was smart enough to figure this out but who really knows!
Another of the things which troubles me in hitting tryouts is the use of balls of all colors besides yellow. Come on now, fastpitch softball is played with a yellow ball. What's up with the white, orange, blue, grey, etc. balls? Some kids can hit yellow with red laces and nothing else. Some kids can apparently hit grey but will never touch yellow. They do sell yellow machine balls with red lace lines drawn on them. Somebody should be smarter than that. It would all be ridiculous if weren't for the fact that what most coaches are watching is the quality of the swing, not the contact. So, if you're trying out, just take your hacks, listen to any coaching, and don't fret the fact that you missed every pitch.
Oh, and when the coaches say bunt a couple, please be prepared for that. Nobody needs me to tell them that softball is a small ball game a lot of the time. As a coach, if I had my druthers, 12 girls on my roster would be able to put down a bunt. I wouldn;t mind seeing a few slappers at trouts as well. But the worst possible thing happens when some kid steps in, does OK on her bunts and hits a few balls, but then switches over to slapping and cannot make any contact. If you are going to slap at tryouts, it would be advisable that you be able to make contact before trying it out. Once you say that you can slap and then move to the left side, you cannot just miss a couple and then say, "I'm really just learning so now I'll go back to the right side." Once you claim you are a slapper and move over, you have to stay in there until you hit a few or the coach says "next." You are committed and you must slap. If you give up, you are saying more about your lack of any kind of mental toughness than you are about anything else. if you want to slap, make sure you can do it.
At this point, tryouts are probably over for most kids. Three hours have probably gone by fairly quickly and it's time to go home. Before you leave tryouts, make sure you understand what is expected of you. Many times we have been told that we must come back on Tuesday or tomorrow for an additional try-out. Some teams use a single day to make their selections. Some do not. If you didn't hear anything before getting ready to leave, ask a coach. And check with your friends to find out if they heard anything differently. Many times, the guy who is going to give the goodby speech is busy talking to some parent. You don;t know who he is. He finally finds a polite way to end that conversation and then comes looking for the girls. He never notices that 10 girls already left when he informs everyone that they need to come back tomorrow.
After this point, most likely it is time for the tired, sweaty pitchers and catchers to show their stuff. If there are a large number of pitchers and a small number of catchers, it is just possible that somebody else is supposed to warm-up the pitchers, somebody else meaning dad. Sometimes the coaches or evaluators will announce, "OK pitchers, go warm-up" and they don't particularly care if the poor pitcher has nobody to warm up with. If you are a pitcher, you should attempt to bring along dad or a catching friend to get you ready for your tryout.
I haver seen one interesting phenomenon play out in tryouts. There are only a few catchers available for say two dozen pitchers. All of these catchers have a friend who is tryout out for pitcher. They willingly catch for their pitcher friend and then when she's ready somebody else comes up and asks the girl to catch for them or their daughter. A few will comply with such requests, most won't. The girls who decide to catch opften get beaten up and then have trouble when tryouts move to the catching portion. If you are a catcher, get yourself warmed up, not a bunch of pitchers you've never met before. If you are a pitcher, bring someone along to warm you up.
So, now the tryout is over and you;re wondering what's next. Hopefully somebody has told you but often things are too disorganized for that. Many times, kids and parents just sort of melt away without proper instruction. Then they wait for some sort of phone call which never comes. The result of this is the kid and her parents will never come back again to one of your tryouts. They'll play for the Devil himself before playing for you. But that's the way things seem to work. There can be very little real communication around tryouts unless the team decides they really want you.
A few organizations do a really good job of communicating with those who come out for their teams. But even those organizations often do not give you the courtesy of a phone call when you are not being asked to join the team. I understand that. But I don't like it. Personally, I have always found a way to communicate with kids who tried out for my team that, while I thought they were wonderful kids and very good softball players, I just didn't have space on my team for them this year. It is a slightly uncomfortable job but, in my mind, a necessary one. Still, if you are not going to be asked to join a team, chances are much better than 50% you will never hear from them.
If you are interested in a team and the organization provides the opportunity to answer any of your questions before you leave the tryout, it would be best that you come with a set of questions at the ready rather than winging it. if you try to wing it, you are probasbly going to ask a bunch of questions which have no valid bearing on whether you join the team. You remember how it was back in your school days, don't you? There was always some kid whose hand went up immediately whenever the phrase "does anyone have any questions?" That kid asked some of the most innane, irrelevant question imaginable but he was pretty sure he was demonstrating his smartness by asking questions. When parents do that, coaches get irrittated. There are some valid questions you can and should ask. But the more detailed the question, the more detailed the expected response, the more the coaches are going to try to short circuit your questions. And you can ask some important questions when they ask you to join the team in a few weeks. Save something for then since the coach will probably be less tired from conducting 8 hours of boring tryouts when he or she calls to invite you to the team.
I would focus any questions on facts that differentiate one team from another like costs, fundraising responsibilities, plan for winter workouts, number and type of tournaments - going to nationals or not, and things of that nature. What is mostly inadvisable are questions like "how much pitching time is my daughter going to get?" or "can you offer me guarantee that my daughter will be your first string shortstop?" Any coach who can guarantee a certain amount of playing time before fall workouts and scrimmages, games or tournaments, before winter workouts, before your kid actually plays a tournament on some day in April or May, is essentially lying. Those things are not predictable at this point. And anyone who asks such questions is immediately suspect. You get the call asking you to play and want to know precise answers to these and other questions, then you tell the coach you'll get back to him in three days, then when you call five days later to say, "yes," he says, "sorry, you asked so many questions that I felt you weren't interested so when you didn't call 3 days later, I offered your slot to someone else. We can't wait forever, you know."
Well that's my advice for the day. Go to tryouts. Don't get nervous. It is just softball and you've played and practiced hundreds of times. Get there early and loosen up. Don't fret errors and missed swings. Be coachable, if you can be. Do things as well as you can and don't become upset if you make mistakes or can't hit the stupid machine. Learn what you can by asking questions but don;t expect the main coach to spend three hours with you explaining every detail imaginable or providing you a written guarantee about how much your kid is going to play. Ask smart questions you really need the answers to but keeop in mind that if they are interested in you playing for the team, there will be other opportunities for getting more information.Labels: Tryouts
Permanent Link: Just Softball
 
Treat Your Guests Reasonably Well
by Dave
Thursday, August 07, 2008
There's a reason why we call players not on the normal roster who come and play for us "guests." They have been asked to come to our place as visitors and we are responsible for showing them a good time. You don't invite a guest to your home, ask them to pay for the pizza and then let them sit there, not knowing anyone, not getting into the social mix, and just winging it on there own.
There are a couple fundamental reasons to have a player come to one of your games/tournaments as a guest player. Perhaps you have something scheduled for the day on which some big "boy band" event happens to be in your area and all your players went to great lengths to procure tickets because the team didn't have anything planned - you forgot to send out that e-mail telling them that you had scheduled one more tournament. Maybe 5 of your players went down with injuries last week or are required to attend the field hockey clinic at the high school the same weekend you scheduled games. Or maybe you are not a huge fan of conventional tryouts and would rather see a player in live action before committing one of next year's roster spots to her. The nature of the circumstances under which a player is guesting usually determines proper etiquette. But whatever the circumstances, there is definitely an etiquette to follow.
I suppose having a player guest for a team as a means of trying her out is the easiest possible set of circumstances. You want to see her in action so you are going to play her at her preferred positions. That part is easy. But keep in mind that unless this girl already knows you and at least some of the kids on the team, she is going to be more nervous than she should be. This game is tough enough without having loads of peripheral distractions. The guest/tryout kid has to simultaneously show her stuff, get to know the girls on the bench, and also adjust to your coaching style. That's more difficult than "just playing the game." And the coach needs to consider some other aspects of the guest arrangement as well.
As a coach, you need to make her feel relaxed - you need to coach her (mentally) a bit more than you might normally expect to. You must take time to introduce her to the girls and explain the circumstance of her guesting. It would be great if you could explain things to your girls without the guest around and let them know that as much as the kid is trying out for your team, the team is also trying out for her. If this is a desired/recruited player, it would also be helpful if you spoke with team parents so they understand that they are also being "tried out" - they need to be at least friendly to the kid's parents. This can be complicated by the fact that one or more of the player-parent combinations is likely to view this kid as a threat. Sometimes, one of the coaches might perceive the kid as a threat to his or her kid's playing time. That can be very messy since the coach may want the kid to succeed a bit less, to say the least.
I have watched a few kids guest in this tryout scenario. In one case, the kid was very definitely desired for this particular team which happened to be a very good caliber 16U squad. She was a very talented catcher and the team needed to improve its depth at that position. Nobody so much as said "boo" to the father of the kid. She did happen to know a few of the girls though not particularly well. She pressed and was more than a little upset over her lack of performance at the plate. Still, her defense more than made up for that and my understanding is she made the team. Regardless of outcome, I believe things could have been handled better.
In addition to the high level of stress, as well as social and competitive aspects of a guest tryout, there is something else to be considered. Most of the time, the kid trying out for your team is on another team. Sometimes, she may have already come to an understanding with the coaches and players of her existing team. Sometimes she is in a circumstance in which she is basically sneaking around, behind the existing team's back. There isn't much you can do when the player is "secretly" guesting for you but you have to take at least reasonable steps to not blab this fact all over the place. You don't want to make such an issue of the kid guesting for you that everyone in the free world knows about it - her guesting results in a front page photograph in the local newspapers!
I know you are going to play this guest player because you want to see her in action. But before you invite her, consider who the teams you are expected to play are, where the thing is going to be held, and anything else which might cause one of her coaches, teammates, or somebody friendly with one of them to see her and announce to the world that she is tryiong out for your team.
I heard a story recently about a kid trying out at a high profile tournament in our area. She already was on a team which was pretty good but for several reasons, wanted to play for a different good team next year. They asked her to guest at this tournament without considering that it was scheduled at a time when nobody else was playing, everybody in the softball community would likely show up to watch, and other circumstances would conspire to cause this kid's guesting arrangement to become common knowledge. In the second inning, a little brother of one of the rostered players received a text message asking whether his sister's team had any guests playing for them. The message asked who was there besides the regular team. The brother replied "some girl named Sarah." By the fourth inning, some adults associated with the guest's existing team just happened to be out for a drive when they stopped by to watch a little softball. That wasn't the best circumstance for the guest girl.
Little things can sometimes mean a lot. I heard a story once about a kid on one team guesting for another at a tournament. The team she was guesting for arranged for her to have a uniform but the kid didn't have time to find sliders, socks, and she was forced to use her batting helmet, complete with the existing team's logo, etc. Those articles were starkly contrasted with the team's bland uniforms. Additionally, the game was played at a place where the guest kid's name would be announced by a PA system each and every time she came to bat! So this kid went out onto the field wearing a few articles of clothing which identified her as a guest. Then when she came to bat, she sported the batting helmet of her existing team, and her name was broadcast just in case nobody knew exactly who she was! At that game, there were only a few fans but one of them happened to have a friend who had a friend whose brother coached the kid's regular team!! Ordinarily, he might have said, "hey I saw a kid wearing your team's colors guesting for so and so." Then maybe word would get back to the coach and he would begin trying to investigate it to see who was unhappy. As it was, a quick mobile phone call was placed to the friend telling him the name of the kid. He called his friend who in turn called the coach's brother, who in turn called the coach. Before she had her second at-bat, her existing coach knew she was guesting for this team. It didn't take a genius to know she was trying out and the kid sat a bunch at her next couple of tournaments when she wasn't asked to join the team she guested for.
So much for guests trying out for teams. There are pitfalls to this arrangement but I suppose most people understand that going in. When the guest is coming because the team needs her, there are other considerations.
Normally, when a team is short a player or two, they will look around and try to find a kid who can fill a slot so they don't have to drop out of a tournament they probably have already paid for. Sometimes several guests are needed just to complete a tournament. If you've just got 9 or 10 kids available, usually there are not too many problems. But you must make sure your guest players understand what their commitment for that day or weekend is.
Once, I saw a team compete pretty well at a tournament, reaching the semi-finals. This particular tournament allowed teams to begin games with 8 players. That was a good thing because their guest player left between the quarter- and semi-finals because she had another important social engagement! She hadn't realized that the tournament involved two seeding games followed by elimination games all in the same day. She had no idea that the team needed her for possibly as many as 5 games that day and those would go until bedtime. She showed up for the 8 am game, stayed for the 11 o'clock one, was surprised to learn that there was another at 1:30 but stayed because she wasn't doing anything else, and then left before the semis because she was going to some boy band concert that evening.
On another occassion, a team had suffered a bunch of injuries and invited a girl to play with them. This particular girl was involved in other sports and did not have enough available free time to make a full commitment to a travel softball team. But she wanted to play travel because she was a gifted player who was bored out of her mind messing around with rec. The team would not have allowed her to play because of her inability to commit to the full schedule but they suggested that maybe she would like to play a few tournaments when they were convenient for her and the team had roster openings. All parties agreed and off they went.
The coach went over the schedule in detail with the girl and her parents. The next tournament would be her first guesting because the team needed girls due to injuries. The kid and parent agreed. As it happened, the team's schedule was a late starting one with the first game at 1:00 pm. They would play that game, then another at 2:45, and then the third seeding round game around 5:00. Elimination games would be the next day. This girl showed up late to the warm-up for the first game (ten minutes before the scheduled start) but the father let the coach know that she really didn't need a warm-up because she had just attended a 3 hour soccer workout. Then after the second seeding game, she told her father that she was tired and hungry, and wanted to go home. So they left and were not seen again until practice the next week! They didn't come back for the last seeding game and never showed up for the elimination round!! Yet she still showed up for practice because she and her parents assumed the arrangement was still in place!!! Something wasn't properly communicated by somebody.
In addition to communication of the exact nature of a tournament commitment, there are other responsibilities a coach needs to live up to when he or she has players guesting in order to field a team. The guest player is doing you a favor by being there. If it were not for her, presumably, you would not be able to play and your $400 to $500 tournament fee would simply disappear down the drain. So, you have got to play her. If you've only got 9 live bodies, that's easy. But if Sally decides that her seats for the Jonas Brothers weren't good enough for her to actually miss games, after all; if Jane decides her sore ankle or shoulder are feeling much better today; if Mary was merely confused about dates and actually did not have an out-of-state religious observance to attend, you've still got to play your guest player(s) while sitting rostered ones. If you feel obligated to play the rostered players while sitting your guests, you are doing a disservice to the kid(s) who came in order to help you and the rest of the team out of a jam.
I recently experienced a circumstance in which a couple guests players came to a tournament because the team thought just 8 of its rostered players would be available. Two girls from the existing team showed up and the coach now had 12 kids available. The guests sat the bench, ran for pitchers and catchers, got in a grand total of three innings worth of actual playing time each after driving a long distance to be there, and left angry. That's ridiculous. Mary told you she would be out of state. Jane was injured and couldn't practice all week - and never told you she was feeling better. Sally wasn't going to be there. It isn't the guest players' fault that two of these girls decided to show up. You've got to play the guests or you are not ever going to be able to get guests again. Word is going to get out that you do not treat guests as guests. Before long, everyone is going to know that you are a team which invites kids to sit the bench while your real players come and go as they please.
Finally, I have received a number of questions about how to treat guest players when they come more than once. I have had a few personal experiences in this area and here are some thoughts. First of all, in a "normal" tournament season of say 10 tournaments, you don't want to have a circumstance in which one kid comes and plays for you 4, 5, or 6 times while receiving use of a uniform free and not paying her share of the team's freight. It is bad form to ask a guest player to pay in order to play a tournament - yes, some folks have actually suggested that they ask guest families for a proportionate share of the cost of tournaments. That's like asking one set of guests at your annual party to bring the main course. Guest players don't pay. But when the same kid shows up for half your tournaments, all bets are off.
One year, I coached a team of not particularly very skilled players. At one tournament, we were going to be short a couple rostered players. A father approached me and told me he had found a kid to play for us. It was his daughter's friend who was on another team's roster but that team hadn't pulled together enough players to do many tournaments. She was looking to guests and maybe join us as a regular.
We got her a uniform, etc. and invited her to come to our next tournament. I played her every inning despite the fact that, had she been a member of the team, she would have sat at least a whole game - she wasn't that good and we had a total of 10 there. Before our next tournament, the father approached me again to let me know that she knew about our next tournament and he had arranged for her to be there. I wasn't too concerned because we could play her some due to the thing being on a very hot day and a kid or two from our usual mix being unavailable. When, before the next event, the father again approached me regarding his guest player, I got my back up.
I told the father who had orchestrated this guesting arrangement that, first of all, she wasn't particularly good and would have to sit significant amounts of time in favor of other players. He reacted strangely and told me I was wrong about the girl. So I began listing her mistakes including physical and mental errors. He backed off and was satisfied that he could change my mind at a later date, perhaps in the heat of actual games. Then I said, "hey look, this kid will have played more than half our tournaments so far. Guesting is one thing but playing for us, most of the time, while not having to purchase a uniform like everyone else, not having to pay the team fee like everyone else, not attending practices like everyone else, is just not going to work. At this point, she has to join us or not - she cannot just guest with us at every tournament while some kid who has paid and comes to practice sits." He claimed he understood and suggested I call the kid's father.
So I called and called while never connecting to anyone until, later that week, the father deigned to return my voicemails. I told him that if they were going to play for us, they had to join us and pay. The father said he understood but wanted to know if we could prorate the team fee. We had already played 4 of our 10, she would not be available for 2 of the remaining tourneys, and he wanted to pay 40% of the team fee while not purchasing the team uniform since we had, obviously, already absorbed that cost. I told him we don't do that. I didn't bother to point out that his kid had already played 2 of the previous 4 and that being on the team meant a full commitment, financially and otherwise. We agreed to part ways. And I believe the team father who had invited the "guest" harbored resentment against me for the duration of the season. I too harbored resentment because it was clear that the two men were attempting to manipulate me. They believed they could string me along and the guest kid could play with us while not paying her way. Live and learn!
In conclusion, a little common sense goes a long way. Guests don't pay. Guests do play even when that means rostered players who just show up because they feel like it have to sit. But guests who live in your house and eat three squares a day must pay room and board. If you've got guests trying out for your team, you need to use some common sense while not getting them in trouble with their existing teams. We coaches need to show guests a good time. That likely will require greater efforts than normal on our part. We must introduce them to our friends and neighbors. We must tell them when the party begins and ends - make sure they commit to the times we need them. And we murt remember that guests and fish share one thing in common, after three days, they both stink.Labels: youth tournament teams
Permanent Link: Treat Your Guests Reasonably Well
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