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Seasons Greetings
by Dave
Monday, December 28, 2009
I've been meaning to write something with which to close out 2009 and ring in 2010. 2009 has been a difficult year for many of us economically. I hope the next one is better for everyone. May you all have health, happiness, a few extra sheckles, and most of all, some very good fastpitch softball in the coming year. It is often difficult to summarize the happenings of a year gone by. But I'm going to try by listing out some of the themes I have tried to cover and briefly (hopefully) going over them.
I suppose the purpose of this blog is simply to share information and experiences. It has been gratifying to hear from many of you, especially when you validate some of my thoughts. I don't mind hearing when you think I am wrong about this or that but it is particularly good to hear from folks far away that my discussions are relevant to their situations. I love it when I tell some anecdote or discuss a series of events demonstrating something and someone writes in to ask if I live in their area because what I discussed is exactly what happened to them! I think when this happens, usually I live nowhere near the person and the reason my anecdote rings true is because we are not so different even when we live a thousand miles or more apart. Human nature is human nature. Sports parents are sports parents. Softball is softball, whether it is played in Ohio, Florida, Texas or elsewhere.
My most common overall theme in this blog has to do with information. There is no greater handicap than having bad information. One would be better off to have absolutely no "knowledge" than one would be if one wrongly thought one had the right information. I say that not as an expert but rather as one who has suffered from possessing incorrect information more times than I would like to admit.
I think that through experience, an inquisitive mind, decent instincts, persistence, and a healthy dose of humility, one can overcome bad information. My aims have often been to share wrong information, explain why it is wrong, and hopefully replace it with better information.
The first bad piece of information I received happened when my kids were arguably too young for organized sports. Other parents told my wife and I that if we had any design on our kids playing sports at all, we had better get them involved at very young ages, like 4 or 5. I felt that this must be wrong because I knew I was too immature at 5 to play sports. Looking objectively at my kids, I felt they were far too uncoordinated and did not possess sufficient interest to play any sort of organized sport by 5. Sports were just another activity to them like baking cookies, playing with water pistols, or going to a water park.
We had our two daughters participate in "gymnastics" which was really just a more advanced (and expensive!) version of the play areas at Chuckie Cheese or Gymboree. They tumbled and bounced around on springy mats for an hour or two each week. But they had very little interest in doing anything hard and so their gymnastics days were numbered. They had fun, were physically active but neither kid was cut out for a sport in which the tiniest, most flexible kids are granted the opportunity to spend huge sums of money in order to be tortured and eventually feel the sting of abject failure as soon as their bodies betray them.
They did a little equestrian. One kid seemed to be pretty gifted at it. She had great posture and worked very well with the horses. The other kid was coming along well too. But do you know what equestrian costs? Own a horse? Are you kidding me? I'd rather buy a new bat, glove, cleats, uniform, etc. every season!
We did the youth soccer thing but our experiences there were mostly negative. I know very little about the game despite my older sister's near engagement to a professional soccer player many decades ago and one of our high school's players eventually becoming the coach of the USA national team. I never so much as watched a game during high school. The only things I knew about soccer were those I learned in phys. ed. class, no hands, you can't punch anyone, not even Kevin Schumacher, in the face to prevent him from scoring - I had liked playing defense until that point. That pretty much sums up my understanding of the game.
We took our then 5 year old to the local soccer clinic. I say clinic but the word that really comes to mind is anarchy. The local youth sports organization hired professional coaches from some soccer academy and had them put on something for a bunch of 4, 5, and 6 year olds who were too young to really get involved in anything more sophisticated. These coaches essentially taught drills to any parents stupid enough to volunteer and then split the group up into "teams" to work those drills. Then the "teams" were brought together and what they called a "game" broke out.
I was just stupid enough to volunteer. I realized my mistake when a parent and child approached me before clinic started one day and the mother, referring to me as "coach," informed me that she was just dropping her kid off and his father would be picking him up. Seems the couple had been divorced for some time and couldn't stand the sight of each other so neither was wiling to risk being in the same place at the same time. I became the babysitter because I had opened my fat mouth and allowed myself to be called "coach." Coach? I was never a soccer coach!
My older daughter was a participant in the alleged soccer clinic but she found she didn't like the sport very much. What she disliked was the way the boys (it was co-ed) always hogged the ball and didn't let her try to kick it into the goal. The younger kid was a spectator who discovered she didn't want to try playing because it seemed to make everyone all sweaty. She was a kid who worried about dying whenever her homeostasis got out of whack and sweating seemed particularly dangerous to her. So we abandoned soccer very quickly while still worried that our kids would be relegated to the library if they didn't find something quickly.
We tried basketball. I won't go into that other than to say it was co-ed and the boys hogged the ball even more than they did in soccer. It was fun but I know my sports and could see that my kids just didn't have the desire to play this thing the way it is typically played. We stuck that out much longer but eventually, when softball really kicked in, abandoned it too. Thankfully, by then, my younger daughter was less concerned about dying from perspiration.
When we finally got onto the softball field, something just clicked. My kids didn't complain about the heat or getting sweaty. They were mostly upset because the rules of the game, as they knew them, were not being followed. One daughter complained when teams batted their full lineup rather than changing sides after 3 outs. The other seemed annoyed when she fielded a ball and threw to a teammate who couldn't catch it buyt even more annoyed when an "umpire" called an obviously out kid, safe, so she wouldn't cry. They both wanted scores to count. They wanted to play "the real game."
As a lifelong lover of baseball, it was gratifying to me that my kids seemed to like the sport of softball. They both got very serious whenever they were at practice. They didn't draw pictures in the infield dirt. They wanted to hit the ball when they were up at bat. They liked to play catch with me in the yard. They wanted me to pitch batting practice to them on off days. They just seemed to like everything about the game.
This gratification caused me to make my first big softball mistake. I allowed someone to teach my kids to pitch. I've discussed this several times before so I won't go into it now. What I want to tell you is that I was so concerned that my kids get involved in some sport at a young age that I lost my head when they found something they liked. My judgment faltered and I allowed them to become pitchers. I have been paying financially and physically ever since.
I have digressed. My point here is that when parents tell you, "things aren't like they were when we were kids. Today you have to get involved in sports by kindergarten or you will be too far behind when you try later." Nothing could be further from the truth. You can try every sport but don't get impatient and never be discouraged. Your 5 year-old is unlikely to demonstrate any real acumen when it comes to athletics and the kids who do are often done with sports by the time they reach 8. If you cannot get your kids involved with something until they are 8 or 9, do not fret and do not hesitate to do it at that point out of fear they are too far behind to participate.
Another fallacy I learned during the early years is the old "well rounded kid" conundrum. nbsp; How do you make sure your kid is "well rounded?" Have her participate in everything and focus on nothing, of course.
As my kids focused more and more on softball, we often heard that one. "Sara doesn't really take softball as seriously as your kids. She is more into her dance classes, the piano, school, her social life. And that's OK. We want her to be well rounded. That's important, you know. When it comes time for college, the schools want well rounded kids, not those who have focused on just a few things."
Well, first of all, being well rounded is important. Kids ought to do well in school. They should also pursue athletics, if they can. They should have intellectual pursuits outside the classroom. They should experience real charity work. They should have a summer job at some point before they graduate high school. Music is important. There are any number of activities kids should try to see where their interests and skills lie.
We should not take a kid and alter her life so she can spend 18 hours a day playing softball or the piano, to the exclusion of all else. But well rounded does not mean one season of cheerleading, another of gymnastics, yet another of the chess club, while never really focusing on something and seeing it through to a logical conclusion. Colleges do want well rounded kids but they want to see a well rounded kid who has a few pursuits they have taken pretty far and seriously. Being really, really good at softball, basketball, the violin or chess does not preclude a person from being well rounded. Athletics do not prevent one from developing a social life, being a scientific genius, or doing charity work.
The next fallacy involves the notion that, if you are playing rec softball, the only way you can break into "travel" is to be invited to the party. The idea goes that only the very best rec players will ever play travel and those kids will be recruited by some travel coach who sees them play rec. That is not how to get involved in travel or club softball.
The first item of this I would like to clarify involves evaluation of your local rec league. The full spectrum of rec leagues includes some that are absolutely horrendous, some that are truly outstanding, and most which are mediocre or worse. If you are uncertain of the quality of your rec league, go watch progressively older girls. If the 14s, 16s, and 18s all stink, chances are your league stinks. And when I say "stinks," please use your own judgment. You can probably tell without any assistance from me.
I remember when my kids were 8 and 10, I went to watch the older girls play a rec game. These were perhaps 16s. The first baseman had difficulty catching a throw from short. The pitching was almost as weak as it was at 10U. I believed that if my ten year old were given just a bit more training, she would have had little difficulty surviving the 16 year old league. That was a bad sign. Later I saw our local high school team play and realized that none of the kids from the rec league could make this team. That's when I knew our rec league stunk.
Secondly, if your rec league stinks and your kid really likes softball, you ought to get her involved in travel. That is the only way she is going to get good enough to make the high school team. As you look out at the 14s and 16s of your rec league, picture your kid there. That is her future if you stay with a poor rec experience and do nothing more.
Next, travel teams are put together via tryuts. They do not have scouts. Yes, they sometimes recruit kids from rec leagues but there is no organized effort. If you want to try travel, go to tryouts, multiple tryouts. If your kid doesn't make any team, have her continue to play rec ball, work on her skills, and try again next year. Do not assume that because your kid isn't the best kid in the rec league she'll never make travel. Get some instruction, practice skills, tryout, repeat.
The next piece of bad advice involves kids already playing travel. There are a couple of fallacious notions in travel softball that I have tried to make you aware of over the past year or so. The first of these is the idea that kids who are good at say 10 or 11, and only these kids, are going to be the best players later on. Often the kids who are best at 10 and 11 do become the best players in high school but that is because they work at it. They're good at 10, fall in love with the sport, and work at their skills because they love the game. They are not the best at 16 because of some natural gifts they were born with. If that were the way things worked, teams from China, Russia, Germany, Argentina, etc. would be much more competitive at the international level. Success in softball has less to do with natural talent than it does with fundamental skills worked at for years.
A kid who is tremendous at 11 can easily drop off and become a marginal player later because she doesn't put in the time and work. Likewise, a marginal player at younger ages can become an impact player after she grows, becomes stronger, and her coordination matures, assuming that she is working on softball skills. If a kid really likes the sport but does not thrive in travel ball, that is not a reason to give up. I have seen far too many stars fall and marginal players rise to think that all the best kids are easily identified by 11 or 12. If you're in travel but struggling, redouble your efforts, go to clinics, see some coaches, and keep trying.
The next fallacy is the "winning team" approach. This divides into a number of very different directions and I'll have to take these one at a time. The first direction involves parents who suffer through a bad season and then think that what they really need is to find a winning team for their kid. The idea is that girls must experience one (or more) of those winning seasons in order to feel good about themselves and really develop in the game. What cost are you willing to pay in order to have your daughter on a winning team and what exactly is a winning team?
I can think of any number of examples of kids whose parents steered them to winning teams. In one case, the kid was a pitcher who just barely made it. She typically pitched one game on Saturday, usually 3 or 4 innings, and that was about it. She wasn't good enough to play the field. She wasn't good enough to pitch on Sunday. The team won quite a bit but she was not responsible for the team's record in any way, shape or form. She gained no greater confidence. She merely pitched less than she would have on a mediocre or bad team.
Another kid tried out for and made a very good team after a pretty disappointing year with her previous team. The girl was able to break into the batting order and played some outfield that year. The next year, she broke into her desired position in the infield. She grew quite a bit from the competition for playing time. But the team's winning had little to do with it. &nbap; Rather, she had good coaches and was one of those who thrive competing with teammates. Not everyone does.
And what is winning? What constitutes a "winning team?" I have seen several teams that won quite a bit. Some teams have completely avoided good competition in the interests of sporting the best possible win loss record. In a 50 plus game season, they might have been something like 55-5. Now, I understand that it is very difficult to go through the opposite kind of season, say 5-55. But there is a whole universe of possibilities between these two extremes. And going 55-5 while playing no noteworthy teams is not necessarily a positive experience. These 55-5 teams very often fall apart because their players want more than merely the best possible win-loss record. Yes 5-55 teams also fall apart. Actually, they very rarely hold together. But if you are looking for a team to play for, you will probably be better served by going for the team with a 30-30 record that plays the best possible competition and improves as time goes on. The best teams are those which strive to play against the best competition regardless of win-loss record. The worst teams to play for are the 55-5 and 5-55 ones.
The next prong of the "winning team" fallacy says that good players always play for good teams and bad teams always have bad players. I have seen any number of mediocre players on very good teams. I have seen some of the very best players on very poor teams. Reasons for winning and losing do not always depend upon the athletic abilities of a given team's players. And the ninth kid on the best team is very often not nearly as good as the best kid on one of the worst teams. Playing on a winning team is no panacea for developing a good player.
This progression leads me up to the next prong which involves the college recruiting world. There is a popular misconception that whether a team wins or not is very important. The idea goes that if a team is winning all the time, the college coaches will come to see them and recruit their players. This idea gets manifested in some very weird discussions.
Where I am, there are several long-standing established showcase teams. There are also some teams which have stayed together for several years and been very successful in age group ball. Sometimes the winning age-group teams are within the same organization as the established showcase teams. Very often they are not.
The problem which develops is, at some point, some of the girls on the successful age group teams want to play in college. So they leave to play for the established showcase teams. The age group teams resent this and endeavor to break into the showcase world. They complain that the larger, more well known showcases discriminate against them due to politics. Often the newcomers cannot get into the better showcases and when they do get in, they play their games relegated to the "back fields" where, of course, there are no college coaches.
There are any number of problems in this prong of the fallacy. First of all, showcases do not have a lot to do with winning and losing. As their name states, they exist for the purpose of showcasing talent, to college coaches. If a college coach wanted to go see competitive ball, he or she could just go watch ASA Gold or 16U "A" qualifiers or national championship tournaments. But they do go to showcases and they are there to watch particular girls. They are not there to identify winning teams so that they will then know which teams they should focus on for recruiting purposes.
I'm not sure where this idea comes from but it exists out there. I have heard any number of discussions that suggested that the established showcase teams are not the best and this or that age group team can beat this or that showcase team. So what? What does that prove?
Showcase teams very often do not play to win games at showcase tournaments. Heck, they may not even have the absolute best softball players on their rosters. If say a showcase coach must decide between one player who might be graded at a 90% rate on her softball skills and a 75% on her academic record and another who is an 85% player and a 98% student, the coach is going to take the 98% student. That is, as they say, a no brainer.
Colleges want recruits who can stand up academically. They very rarely want a softball player who may not meet eligibility standards, let alone thrive at their institutions. Showcase team coaches are evaluated on the number of recruits they are able to place, not on their win-loss record. If you were considering joining a showcase team, would you be more interested in the coach who has successfully placed a high percentage of his or her kids over the past 5 years or the one whose win-loss record is best while less than a quarter of all players are ever recruited at all?
So if better students make better prospects at most universities; if showcase coaches want recruitable players; if the idea is to get kids and college coaches connected, where does winning fit it? It doesn't.
I can think of a fairly large number of very good softball players with poor academic records. In one case, there was a junior, the right year for recruitment, who was outstanding on the diamond but believed to be a C student and 19 years old because she had been left back so often. In another, there was a kid who could have been recruited by at least 50 D-1 schools but for her grades. In another, there was a kid who could really play and her grades were OK but her board scores were so poor that one must assume that her grades are almost irrelevant since she must have had some "help" along the way. In yet another, there was a kid who could play any position on the field, and probably could make most D-1 teams based on softball skills, but she had absolutely no interest in ever going to college for academic reasons and her high school course load consisted chiefly of remedial courses. All these girls were unrecruitable but very good softball players.
Does it take a genius to extrapolate that it is possible that a winning team might have all unrecruitable players on it while an established showcase team might have weaker players who are all highly recruitable?
To go a step further, sometimes talk turns to the relative coaching skills of some age group coach and the showcase team's coach. That's absurd. Players at the showcase level are pretty much responsible for their own softball skills. The coach you want on the showcase circuit is the guy or gal who has the relationships with college coaches. If you could join a team which won most of its games thanks to wonderful coaching and softball talent but on which the coach has no relationships with any recruiters, would you? Why? What is it you are after?
If I am going to go to the expense and trouble of letting my kid play showcase ball, I need to get something out of it. What I need is for her to get showcased. What I don't need is for her to stand proudly at the end of the year and tell me her team's win-loss record. Once you add up the airfare, lodging and meals, let alone tournament and team costs, there is nothing about showcases which should lead you to be concerned about win-loss records. The only things which matter are getting into schools and hopefully getting a little help with the costs. The only trophy in showcase ball is college acceptances and aid notifications.
Because a team's winning record has little to do with whether a player garners any attention at all, very often even the best winning programs at the 16U level begin to collapse because girls seek something different. I can think of a couple very high level teams, teams that were extremely successful at ASA 14 and 16 A nationals, which broke up subsequently precisely because it was time for their girls to seek showcase attention. Conversely, many good but not great age group teams stay together and try to force their square team into the round hole of showcase ball. These teams, their players and parents all complain bitterly about the "overly politicized" world of showcase ball. Yet they should already understand that the softball world has taken shape before they got there and will exist long after they are gone. We live in the world as it is, not as we wish it would be. if you want to play before college coaches, join a team which plays before college coaches.
Finally, while it may be an absurd picture to paint, it is conceivable that one or more of the players on the best team is not particularly recruitable in terms of softball skills. Put another way, college coaches would be out of their minds if they pursued only players from the teams which ranked amongst the highest in the land. You might get yourself an inferior player who for whatever reason is able to hide on a very good team while missing a kid who is far superior but has little on her squad in terms of pitching, hitting, or defense.
I think the notion that college recruiters go to see only winning teams stems from the same virus that causes some folks to think that college coaches will just somehow find you because you are talented. Those that believe this generally suspect that if a kid is a really good high school player, the college coaches will hear about her and just show up to watch her play. That's more than somewhat unlikely.
I remember observing a showcase team made up of some very inexperienced (showcase) kids. Coaches told the girls that they had to take the first steps. They needed to register with the NCAA clearing house. They needed to peruse colleges' web sites, choose some schools based on where they wanted to go and which schools were academically suited to them, complete prospect questionnaires, and make contacts with coaches. They needed to invite coaches to come watch them play. Then and only then would they find any success with the recruitment game. Still, you could see by many of the girls' faces that they had done none of this and still hoped to be recruited based purely on how good they were. They were a little surprised and disappointed when nobody showed up to watch them play despite being on high profile fields. There were coaches in attendance. They had come to watch kids they were already following, kids who had made the contact and played the recruitment game.
Winning records have little to do with recruiting. Yes, the teams that go deep into ASA Gold and 16U "A" nationals will garner some looks. But that is not how the bulk of the recruitment load is carried. Many colleges have little hope of landing the ace pitchers for the top 10 Gold teams. They don't even try. After you get past the obviously gifted kids, many of the rest seem like an indistinguishable pack, indistinguishable until you get to the academic record and/or meet the kid and see what her personality is like.
So those are some of the common misconceptions, fallacies, and errors that pervade our sport. I hope I have shed some light on a thing or two which perhaps confuses you. I hope I shed light today and this past year. I hope to shed more light in the coming year. Happy holidays to you. May the new year be very good to you and yours.
Permanent Link: Seasons Greetings
 
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