Travel vs. School vs. Private Coaching Conflicts

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Aug 1, 2019
962
93
MN
...the wrist flicks and downward swing paths...

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My name is Northball and I am a fastpitch-aholic. I'm not ashamed to admit I have believed and even taught these and other methods that have fallen out of favor. I'm guessing most of us have done the same so I am grateful our group can get together in the local basement and learn from one another. Next meeting I'll bring the cookies.
 
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
I will disagree with your last statement, and here's why. My daughter is a pitcher, and she threw 90 innings last spring, and will probably throw the same this year. She comes out of the school season in her best pitching shape of the year. She's used to throwing 7 inning games, so her endurance is at its peak. That helps the recruitment process a lot. I can't imagine skipping school ball and going into the travel season cold.

For hitters, it's the same. A good friend's daughter ran track last spring because her Catholic school team was really bad. Because she had no at bats in the spring, she was bad in the summer because she had no live at bats since November. For a 2024, that was devastating to her recruiting process.

So, while I don't disagree that most recruiting ignores school ball, the reps you get certainly help the travel season.

The pitching was so slow and so bad, some wondered if just having travel practices and facing our own pitchers would have been better than HS ball.

I'm sure it varies per school/city
 
Sep 3, 2015
372
63
I will disagree with your last statement, and here's why. My daughter is a pitcher, and she threw 90 innings last spring, and will probably throw the same this year. She comes out of the school season in her best pitching shape of the year. She's used to throwing 7 inning games, so her endurance is at its peak. That helps the recruitment process a lot. I can't imagine skipping school ball and going into the travel season cold.

Agree 100% on this for pitchers, my DD split time last year in HS and still had about 100 innings. Bullpens in between and come travel season, ready to go.

What’s weird is that recruiting has zero to do with HS, but in your college bio there are your HS stats.


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Apr 20, 2018
4,581
113
SoCal
Just had a HS coach, at game time, assign pitch calling to the freshman catcher (senior catcher out) who never called pitches in her life because he "doesn't know anything about pitch calling". Shameful. Dereliction of duty, IMO. For the love of God, Coach, just google it.
 
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
Just had a HS coach, at game time, assign pitch calling to the freshman catcher (senior catcher out) who never called pitches in her life because he "doesn't know anything about pitch calling". Shameful. Dereliction of duty, IMO. For the love of God, Coach, just google it.

Right? and just go random if you can't be bothered
 
Nov 18, 2022
100
28
Devils advocate, but maybe if travel coaches did not ego trip and call every pitch since they were 8 they would know how to do it by high school.

My daughters current travel coach has the girls sit next to him and call pitches- they will say curve and why and he will call In The pitch or change before calling in and let them know what he saw to change it and why. She has gotten really good at it and it comes in handy in high school. Last year as a freshman she would shake a sign off for whatever reason she had and at the start he would walk out and talk to her but by then by mid season he would let her go as it usually resulted I. A strike


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Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
Devils advocate, but maybe if travel coaches did not ego trip and call every pitch since they were 8 they would know how to do it by high school.

Yeah, I'm all for teaching girls how to do it and letting them do it. At what age will they be better at it than their travel coach? Depends on the girls and the coach, of course. But by HS I hope they're pretty decent at it, especially if the catcher lets the pitcher shake off signs.
 
Oct 26, 2019
1,375
113
My daughters current travel coach has the girls sit next to him and call pitches- they will say curve and why and he will call In The pitch or change before calling in and let them know what he saw to change it and why. She has gotten really good at it and it comes in handy in high school. Last year as a freshman she would shake a sign off for whatever reason she had and at the start he would walk out and talk to her but by then by mid season he would let her go as it usually resulted I. A strike


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Sounds like a development focused travel coach!
 

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