- Oct 2, 2017
- 2,283
- 113
I think travel makes it very hard for girls who want to keep their commitment to other things in their lives to compete. Because the travel teams practice more, they often create a shortage of practice fields for the rec teams, so girls who exclusively play rec get behind other girls. Some high school coaches also coach travel ball, so they either have potential players on their team or they've met them along the way at tournaments and such, and girls who only play rec are not only behind in skills, they are behind in reputation. Because of that, there has been a blooming of travel teams. Because of that, there has also come an explosion of tournaments, which make money and are needed to give all these new, expensive travel teams places and times to play. Because of that, it's hard for rec teams to schedule umps, because those guys are already umping a whole weekend and may not think an evening or two during the week is worth it.
If you want to blame rec for this, you could say it was when P&Rs started sponsoring travel teams. They started to give a priority to the travel teams, because they were working harder and were more prestigious, and in the process siphoned off the best girls and coaches from rec teams. But that also spawned the travel organizations, who then siphoned from them. So in the end, you can say that the P&Rs are responsible, but i think it's a stretch.
The bold above is an excuse IMO. What about at home. A lot of rec players do no practice at home with Parents or siblings.. They rely stictly on Coaches at team practice. That is the primary reason why they get behind, lack of practice outside of the team. I'm not even talking about taking lessons. It's simply getting out there with your kids and play catch. swing a bat. etc. for 30 mins a couple times a week.