Committed, SR Season - What to do???

[radness]

Our concern is we don't want her to step off the gas. We don't think it is appropriate for her to take it easy the summer before she is thrown into the fire of college ball.

If you were her parent what would you encourage her to do?

Kindly,... in your post #46 is looking back at some of the hardships.
In your recollection of some of the HARD things that have happened Seems you are conflicted by past decisions to have kept her foot on the gas pedal.
Now
Seems that you're seeing she's enjoying taking time off and that maybe you are feeling bad that you didn't give her that opportunity before.
Suggest write a list reflect on all the positive and great experiences she has had in this softball Journey because
*Remember it is *everything she has done including the injuries and everything else, has given her life lessons and knowledge to make the decision to move forward into college.

Who said robbed? I know I didn't. If she didn't enjoy those summers of traveling to CO, CA and all over the south she could of called it quits after her team won state. She embraced being recruited in 8th grade, NCAA pulling back on her class to 9/1 of JR. Camps, 2 surgeries that forced her out 6 months each time, covid year etc. Like I said, I didn't say she was robbed. But like you said, whatever.

Hard things happen everywhere in life. It is not tagged to softball alone. There are probably Bountiful better quality good life lessons that she has drawn from softball. Look to those things.

 

[_MIA_]

Some may view it that way in rec league. Once you cross over to travel coast to coast, although fun, rewarding it becomes more business and long term for most. The game has taken her/us places that we would not have seen otherwise. I don't think when she does stop playing will she look back and think my childhood was neglected. Like I said in my original stance, she is sleeping in on the weekends, no hotels/planes and working out with her trainers during the week. Treating the summer like a college athlete.

You've changed my mind. The phrase is great..now one of my favorites..

 

[Rolling Hard]

Some may view it that way in rec league. Once you cross over to travel coast to coast, although fun, rewarding it becomes more business and long term for most. The game has taken her/us places that we would not have seen otherwise. I don't think when she does stop playing will she look back and think my childhood was neglected. Like I said in my original stance, she is sleeping in on the weekends, no hotels/planes and working out with her trainers during the week. Treating the summer like a college athlete.

Now just find some local team(s) that will allow her to guest play, maybe every other Sunday. Even if you have to buy them lunch or a bownet its going to be cheaper than travelling.

 

[Bob Ullman8]

Long post but I need perspective and help.

Backstory: DD's team is done with their summer season. It actually ended on a pretty bad note IMO. The team was supposed to be flying out to Cali on Friday for PGF Nationals where the team would have been playing in the 18U Premier division. However, the day we were flying to CO we found out that Breeze Airways canceled all of their LA flights from Norfolk VA for the remainder of the summer. They refunded our money for 16 tickets and said "sorry". Of course I started to look for tickets immediately and found nothing that was under $900 round trip & those flights were over 12+ hrs in length. Unfortunately that is just not feasible for many of our players and families. So we had to cancel. Of course a couple other factors played into the cancelation including the fact that we have basically no pitching. We have one healthy pitcher and she took major lumps in CO (20-3 loss in one game as an ex). We would have taken one of the org's 16U pitchers but she is just as hittable. Many families (mostly of committed players) couldn't see spending the money to go when we just wouldn't have pitching to sustain us. I was on the fence - I wanted to go because I want my DD to play the highest level talent but with 3 of us flying this year the total cost would have been pretty close to $6K when the trip was all said and done.

So we finished with a local showcase tournament in VB this weekend and now we are done. The team graduated 7 seniors this year. That leaves 7 girls. Out of those 7 girls I know of 3 who are coming back to the team, my daughter is one of them along with our pitcher and one utility player. The other 4 are moving on to other teams - for many reasons to numerous to get in to here.

DD is committed to go to UMBC Fall 2023. Her future coaches did come to some of her games this summer and she mashed - she has the grades to get in - there is no concern she will not get to sign her NLI in November. Our concern is we don't want her to step off the gas. We don't think it is appropriate for her to take it easy the summer before she is thrown into the fire of college ball - especially D1 level ball. DD is going into a winning program & will have to fight for everything. Her hitting coach (and employer since she works at the facility she trains at) tells her this all the time. Now is actually the time for her to work harder than she ever has. Of course that also means she needs to play the best talent levels out there. She needs to keep mashing balls off of ASU & other college committed pitchers. She needs to get faster off of college level fielding. She just needs to play at that high level.

"Early" tryouts start tonight for her org - DD is going to help and gauge the talent. Things have gone downhill and we are not sure the level of talent will show up for the tryouts and if there is no talent then the team won't want to pay for the higher level tournaments. Or we will play them but we will blow hard and be on the back fields in crappy locations against other crappy teams. DD will likely be one of 2 seniors on the new team and TBH she doesn't care for the other girl (it happens). The 16U team will probably bring up a bunch of girls but although that team was scrappy they didn't have IDT level talent, hence why they were in regular pool at Sparkler.

Our area of SE VA is a conundrum. It's got tons of lower level local/regional teams who are B level at best. DD's org and one other org (which we would never ever ever join - ever) have the highest level teams in the area whose top teams travel to the big showcases like PGF, IDT, Legacy, Scenic City, etc. None of the others do. There are orgs in Richmond and NoVa and even down south in NC but DD doesn't want to travel 2 or more hours for practice and she DOES want to attend practices with her team. We want her on a competitive team which will push her and will also play the high level talent teams she will see in college, she doesn't want to travel hours to practice with the team. If you were her parent what would you encourage her to do?

I agree that your daughter needs to keep playing excellent ball. If it were my daughter I would have her play for Kevin at Jersey Intensity. He plays every major tournament in the country. You definitely don’t want to play on the back fields.

 

[PJR202]

I agree that your daughter needs to keep playing excellent ball. If it were my daughter I would have her play for Kevin at Jersey Intensity. He plays every major tournament in the country. You definitely don’t want to play on the back fields.

you replied to a question asked 20 months ago.

 

[Bob Ullman8]

you replied to a question asked 20 months ago.

better late than never