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Feb 21, 2017
198
28
I know it is awful to say, but I am thrilled that her HS softball season is over!

DD is a sophomore and it is her 2nd year on Varsity. What a disappointment!

Something I wish HS coaches would think about: Please don’t pull up younger players if they’ll only get a rare opportunity to prove themself. Are your upperclassmen really that good that they’re teaching these younger players about the game and serving as mentors? Or are you creating a clique of entitled starters who know they are untouchable?

The girls are not developing and the pressure to be “perfect” during their rare appearances is high. Softball is a game of failure, the bench player doesn’t have the luxury of shaking a strike out or an error in the field off! Do you realize the damage that you do to a player’s self esteem?

I don’t want my child to be handed anything but I do want her to get a fair shot at proving herself. It would also be nice to know she is being corrected and supported on areas of weakness/during tough times.

Maybe I am expecting too much and/or wearing those rose colored glasses. Regardless, it is frustrating and heartbreaking to see your child’s love of the game and confidence in their abilities fade away.

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There is a lot going on here and I don't think the issue is that simple. Really the Varsity team should be the best players, and I think what you are arguing is that the players were not used well to maximize everyone's abilities. After watching different coaches I realized it more about the coaching and culture than anything else. Love or hate him Bill Belichick has figured this out because TB12 is held to the same standard as guy 53 and guy 53 is told his contribution is as important as TB12. I know people might say it isn't 100% accurate but for the most part Belichick treats it that way with arguably the greatest QB vs a guy who could be cut tomorrow.

The point is this, few HS teams have a TB12 player or that much variation. Even then a coach is going to play the best 3-5 kids all the time but the difference between player 8 and player 12 on a HS roster is never that big (range my vary) so making them all feel valued makes the team better. They need to believe they matter so when you need one of them to step up, she will.

What I see is the good coaches get this. Unfortunately most HS coaches run the "best 9" out all the time and Suzie who never played TB or is 0-for-her-last-95 AB or is a error waiting to happen is run out everyday regardless of performance. She has no incentive because she plays regardless of failure (and often becomes entitled) and the bench kids have no incentive because they won't play beside a crumb. I have never understood why you wouldn't see if you find a diamond in the rough or see if someone gets hot. I have the feeling some coaches think the kids are dumb and they don't actually know who is good and who is not...they would be wrong because IME the players have a better (more honest) grip on that than most coaches.

This applies to some TB teams too...
 
Apr 16, 2010
924
43
Alabama
I read a good article from Jerrad Hardin the other day. It discussed this very thing. I am defnitely not saying the OP is in the same boat but the example the writer gave was "What kid should sit so yours can play?". To me thats the best argument I have heard. There were several parents around our team complaining about playing time this season. They would watch for every error or K. Most of the time I personally couldn't see a situation where they could replace anyone and better the team. When they did get opportunities they did not take advantage of them.

I guess DD is lucky to be in a program where ability trumps age. We had a senior lose her spot after senior night because DD returned from a season long ankle injury. We had another benched during the first game of the state tournament and she didn't see the field again. At least in our situation the two that sat did not put any effort into improving themselves outside of the HS season. The same thing could be said about several others that sat but had complaining parents.
 
Mar 28, 2016
164
18
In our school in BC we use Junior/Senior in place of JV/Varsity. I know for Basketball that if a coach pulls up a junior to play on the senior team, they have to get the minutes of the 5th starter. This seems to prevent getting pulled up and stashed on the bench.
 
Sep 10, 2017
52
8
Southeast US
My DD dealt with this last year as a Freshman. HS team was full of TB players, every single girl was at least a solid softball player.

My daughter got a few opportunities to hit, but it was always “perform NOW or you may not get another shot” type scenario. She hated it, her Mom ad and I hated it. It wasn’t that we expected her to play every inning, it’s just that when she did get in it was like the expectation was higher than a few of the every game Varsity players had. We had a couple girls that were 0 for infinity, but that was always okay and they never came out.

That said, she started every game and played every inning this year, and led her team in batting average this season.

I know coaches have a tough job, but they often leave a lot of talent on the bench because they make up their mind so quickly about that starting 9 - who often will be out there come hell or high water.


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Jun 6, 2016
2,714
113
Chicago
Rules just must be very, very different in some places, because whenever I see posts like this I'm kind of confused.

I call JV players up all the time, and they often sit the bench. But the alternative is they'd be at home because there's no JV game that day (or, sometimes, they're missing a practice, which depending on the plan may or may not be more valuable than being with the varsity team).

Are you all playing under some kind of insane rules where once you get "called up" you can't play in anymore JV games or something? Or is this just complaining about wasting time going to a Varsity game with little chance of getting in? If it's the former, I get it. I would never "call up" a JV player if it made her ineligible to play in future JV games, but boy would that be a really dumb rule so I can't imagine that's the case. I also can't imagine that's the case because nobody pays attention to JV games to even bother policing that.

So, um, what kind of rules are we talking about here? I think that context is super important to the discussion.
 
Feb 21, 2017
198
28
I don’t think there are weird rules just poor roster and team management.

In our world, our HS HC kept calling up JV kids until he had 20 players on Varsity and 11 on JV and there were still JV games to play, and those kids never went back down, they just rode the pine even when there was a JV game. I can’t see how that make sense in any world (not my DD but still no sense). The other example is when a HC coaches pick 9 kids to start and the rest of the kids ride the pine every game regardless of what happens when in reality the difference between many of these kids is negligible so why not try a some out to see who can preform. Now I understand it is the prerogative of the HS HC to put the best 9 on the field in his/her view but tell me, when a ball is hit directly at the LF who drops it, picks it up, throws over the cut in to RF...we score that a double so the LF has no errors and she isn’t a bad fielder to go with her 0-fer with 3 K’s. Yes this happens often with our coaches so I think it is competence that is in question.

I realized that just like players, sometimes the game is too fast for the coach, that is the issue we have. The hope is they make a lineup that wins because they cannot adjust on the fly.


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Jun 6, 2016
2,714
113
Chicago
I don’t think there are weird rules just poor roster and team management.

In our world, our HS HC kept calling up JV kids until he had 20 players on Varsity and 11 on JV and there were still JV games to play, and those kids never went back down, they just rode the pine even when there was a JV game. I can’t see how that make sense in any world (not my DD but still no sense).

No, that really doesn't make sense, especially when it's that many, and especially if they're missing out on actual game action.

Some coaches are just kind of dumb with this stuff. I made a couple dumb decisions with my Varsity roster this year (I basically had three bench players/RF rotation who were the exact same type of player, which limited by options and limited their individual chances). Coaches make roster mistakes. It's weird they don't undo ones when they can though. Do they not realize they're allowed to send JV players back down?
 

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