Question about playing up

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Aug 23, 2016
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My DD is 10 years old, 5'4" and 140 lbs. This all-star season (we just finished our fifth tournament) I think she's played 2 games where she's been the biggest kid on the field. It's more common for her to be about average-sized compared to the competition. I don't think it's safe for a small 6-year-old to be playing against kids that size. How do you think she'd do if she's sliding home and collides with a catcher twice her size? How would she do if the shortstop applies a hard tag to her when she's trying to steal 2B?

I also don't think that it's a great match socially. DD and her teammates are starting to talk about boys and hair and puberty and other conversations that aren't the best subjects for a kindergartener. And it's possible that 10U teammates might not want to have anything to do with a kid that young. They might treat her like a cute kid sister but not as an equal.

She's so young and right now the focus should be on fun and not trying to find her the toughest competition. At this age the most important thing is learning to love the sport.
 
May 23, 2019
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You mentioned she is shy. My daughter is terribly shy as well. Last year, as an 8U my dd made the 10u all-stars. The girls were so good to her. They treated her like a little sister they liked. But she never let herself ...relax, enjoy, be silly the way she does with girls her age. She felt like she ......had to be big? I don't know exactly what was going through her head.

At this age, I can't imagine my dd enjoying being on a team with girls 3 years older. As someone said earlier it is not always about being challenged. I'd keep my dd down.
I really understand what you mean when you say you don't know what's going on in her head, at home I have a silly girl but in public it's just the opposite,, but also even though we would be playing in the 10u I think we would only have 4 girls that would actually be in that age group, the team would be mainly an 8 year old group
 
Sep 29, 2014
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NO, NO and just in case you missed it NO!!!

If you had said she has had a big growth spurt and towers over every 9 year old you know, maybe but still...NO!!

Tiger unfortunately with everything you have listed out I'm really only seeing one solution...you will be coaching rec/select 8U ball next year...you said girls were fine adults were terrible....if you want something done right you have to do it yourself unfortunately, unless of course work schedule makes this impossible, I made it work with a crazy work schedule because I found two assistants I had absolute confidence in when I had to travel out of town. (I actually missed about 20% of games)

From reading above if it will be mainly 8yr olds then play 8U. We all understand the heartache with situations that just aren't a match but at 6 years old please don't be in such a hurry.
 
Last edited:
Nov 18, 2015
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As was previously said - so much to unpack on this one.

Congrats on having a very talented softball player in the family.

But please consider the safety aspect of this. If she plays 10U this Fall, she'll be 6, and most girls will be 9 or 10. I'm assuming she's in Kindergarten? She could be playing against 4th and 5th graders. Has she ever faced kid-pitch before? Has she ever faced kid-pitch using a real softball? (my league uses the softer "incrediballs" through 3rd grade).

According to a hand-held Jugs radar, my 10YO seems to be consistently in the 35-38 mph range. I know that sounds slow compared to what other 10U dads post, but when you see it, most would say she throws hard. You're really not getting out of the way of it when it's thrown from ~32 feet away. I'm just trying to say - 10U pitchers are wild, and softballs hurt at almost any speed, probably more so when you're on the skinny side. In short - if the Jugs is accurate, I don't know how safe I'd feel stepping in against someone throwing mid-40's.

If you have a few weeks to decide yet, that means you also have a few weeks to let other team members know you're on the fence about playing that far up. There may be other parents with similar hesitations that are waiting for someone to be the first to step-up and say "can we all really think about what we're about to do?".

I haven't experienced it myself, but this forum is full of new-team scenarios such as: weak rec league, good All-Star team, coach wants to "keep kids together", and thinks the only way to do that is to form their own team and find better competition, and the first season or so is great (sometimes - lots more behind the scenes work than anyone realizes!), but then parents realize that travel / select is much more of a commitment than rec or All-Stars, and one or two drop out, and the the coaches realize they need to hold tryouts, and being a new team, they're not well known, so turnout's limited, and the team has to constantly search for guest players, and that new back-up catcher we desperately needed has a great attitude, even if she's a little lacking skill-wise, but WOW, did you see how intense her Dad got during that last scrimmage...

I truly hope your story ends differently - thanks for letting us offer our opinions - and as others always say - enjoy the ride - it ends much too soon!
 
May 29, 2015
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cnardone brings up another point I have been mulling over whether I wanted to comment on or not ... I don’t want to seem as if I am piling on.

If your daughter is terribly shy, placing her with kids that are 4-5 years older physically and emotionally is not going to help her overcome that. It’s likely going to intimidate her even more. Sure, as kids grow that gap means less, but at that age the gaps are huge.

I grew up and played in a small community so I get it. The program I ran was in a small community, so I get it. There just aren’t many options. But the way to fix that is to be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem. Bailing out only puts the nails in the coffin of community programs. Get involved in the league and help fix it — you have many years to invest!

When I took over the local program, it was run OK but the numbers were dwindling quickly for just this reason. Coaches felt their daughters needed better competition. But instead of going and finding better competition, they took their daughter’s friends to go try to be competitive and ended up souring many girls on the game. Those girls quit altogether.

I put over 200 kids through our program every year, yet by the time they reached high school we could barely field a team. 2 of my daughters 4 years we had a roster of 10. One of those years, we had to forfeit a quarter of our schedule because we had injuries and could not field a team to even play.
 
Jul 14, 2018
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I'm going to give you the 'no' answer from a slightly different perspective.

My daughter is about 3'11 48 lbs

At 10U, girls are just learning to pitch, there are a lot of walks and a lot of hit batters. If you're considering moving your daughter to 10U so that she can face "better competition," let me clue you in on something: she is unlikely to ever see a strike at her height. If facing better competition means getting some swings in, I can promise you she will walk 90% of the time she's at bat.

She's got plenty of time. If she's that advanced, she'll be getting better just hitting off of a tee in t-ball. Challenge her to put the ball in a specific spot, stand close or far away to simulate inside and outside pitches. But don't rush it. Walking every at bat because the pitchers at 10U can't thread a needle is a good way to turn her off from softball.
 
Oct 9, 2018
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Texas
I totally agree with Rick on these reasons. I think 10u kid pitch turns off a lot of girls to softball because of the lack of balls to hit.
 
Jun 8, 2016
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I totally agree with Rick on these reasons. I think 10u kid pitch turns off a lot of girls to softball because of the lack of balls to hit.
This is the reason I moved my DD to TB once she was ready for kid pitch. Rec kid pitch around here was horrible. That said, around here at least, for the most part there were plenty of pitches to hit in 10U TB.
 
May 20, 2019
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Dont forget that confidence is very important in this game. Let her shine as a top player in her age bracket. If she is looking for new challenges to master work on learning every position on the field or start pitching lessons.
 

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