- Jun 8, 2016
- 16,118
- 113
They probably just needed a better point guard.
The Saga of Rebuilding a School Program: A parent-coach's journal
- Thread starter PJR202
- Start date
Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch
Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.
Awesome. Glad to hear we aren't alone in this endeavor. It can be difficult to keep my eyes on the prize, but those of us involved refuse to let our kids suffer if there's something we can do about it. You're exactly right about the perception of softball. I long for the day where we aren't constantly looking for girls to invite, or harrassing the ones who went to another sport, trying to woo them back over. I want getting on the team to be an achievement. I want the LL kids to be going to the MS and HS games because they WANT to.
And then I want it to continue after my girls move on. I'm hoping to stay involved as a pitching coach in the years to come.
I wish you the best luck in your journey!
That's an awesome story. I think we have the right people in place to really come out and compete with almost anyone by the time my freshman is a junior. We should have experienced pitchers, strong hitters, and some size. Pitching is just SO important and we're still far behind. I've taken some steps to rectify that, but nothing happens fast in this world.
This is a great topic. It is always fun to hear about other people's journeys. They are all different.
Our HS program is highly successful. A recent 6A state championship and almost another. Semis two years ago and four rounds in last year. Good coaches. The last 3 #1 pitchers went to PAC12 and SEC schools.
The new coach that took over last year was stunned to hear how few girls were coming out though. Maybe 8 years ago we had V, JV, and freshman teams. Then there weren't enough to field a freshman team. The coach then was a good coach, but not a program builder. He just expected good player to show up from the club ranks. Which they did for the most part. Two state POYs in a row and that championship. His last year, JV had maybe 5 or 6 club players, and was thin after that.
This year the new coach had to scrounge PE classes for enough players to field a JV team. V was still full of good players though, so they did well. Had so send a V player down to pitch for JV one game. But by and large, the V players in coming years arent going to come from the JV team. We had two move up this year and two freshman. 2021 4 freshman went straight to V. That was some kind of a record. The nickname for freshman on V used to be "Token", because there was usually only the one. We are expecting some real talented freshmen this year and next, so we will see.
We are now trying to reestablish ties with the middle schools, which had not been a thing with the prior coach. We need to encourage more participation and drive more excitement. MS here is no-cut for the first part, then cuts for a brief season against the other MS in the district (7 others). Our MS usually finishes 2nd. Top 3 schools are competitive. Others are not so good.
The other thing is that our main feeder Wreck league shut down for good during Covid after years of declining numbers, so the skill base just isn't as good. That league used to have over 40 teams. I think it had 9 total in 3 age groups by the time it folded. That is a whole different conversation. The result is fewer kids with any experience coming in to make a JV team and potentially move up to V.
Our HS program is highly successful. A recent 6A state championship and almost another. Semis two years ago and four rounds in last year. Good coaches. The last 3 #1 pitchers went to PAC12 and SEC schools.
The new coach that took over last year was stunned to hear how few girls were coming out though. Maybe 8 years ago we had V, JV, and freshman teams. Then there weren't enough to field a freshman team. The coach then was a good coach, but not a program builder. He just expected good player to show up from the club ranks. Which they did for the most part. Two state POYs in a row and that championship. His last year, JV had maybe 5 or 6 club players, and was thin after that.
This year the new coach had to scrounge PE classes for enough players to field a JV team. V was still full of good players though, so they did well. Had so send a V player down to pitch for JV one game. But by and large, the V players in coming years arent going to come from the JV team. We had two move up this year and two freshman. 2021 4 freshman went straight to V. That was some kind of a record. The nickname for freshman on V used to be "Token", because there was usually only the one. We are expecting some real talented freshmen this year and next, so we will see.
We are now trying to reestablish ties with the middle schools, which had not been a thing with the prior coach. We need to encourage more participation and drive more excitement. MS here is no-cut for the first part, then cuts for a brief season against the other MS in the district (7 others). Our MS usually finishes 2nd. Top 3 schools are competitive. Others are not so good.
The other thing is that our main feeder Wreck league shut down for good during Covid after years of declining numbers, so the skill base just isn't as good. That league used to have over 40 teams. I think it had 9 total in 3 age groups by the time it folded. That is a whole different conversation. The result is fewer kids with any experience coming in to make a JV team and potentially move up to V.
Thank you for reading!
It's crazy to think a 6A class school could have any problem coming up with 25-30 kids. We're a 2A and I believe HS had 18 last season.
Programs can be so fragile, year to year. Cultivating players from the ground up has to happen every year forever. Just a year or two of slacking can hit the program hard. I fear that a couple years after my freshman graduates, the program could be in trouble again. There always has to be someone coming up to pick up the torch. Some sucker parent...
If I don't suck too bad as a pitching coach, I intend to keep doing that in the years to come. Just having competent pitching can go a long way. I completed the Pauly intermediate program mid summer, and study pitching from all sorts of sources every day.
No kidding. 2600+ kids, 900 freshman this fall. 25 came out for softball in the spring.
And a couple of those quit after tryouts, including the girl that was going to be the only JV pitcher. She did come back after a couple days of contemplation.On the flip side 100 showed for volleyball tryouts.
I bet you will do the program proud as a pitching coach. When you put that much real effort into learning and give the girls what they just would never get otherwise, its a success even if they dont end up at UCLA. Sometimes it is about learning, improving, and having a great experience.
Thanks for the vote of confidence!No kidding. 2600+ kids, 900 freshman this fall. 25 came out for softball in the spring.
On the flip side 100 showed for volleyball tryouts.
I bet you will do the program proud as a pitching coach. When you put that much real effort into learning and give the girls what they just would never get otherwise, its a success even if they dont end up at UCLA. Sometimes it is about learning, improving, and having a great experience.
It's insane to get those kind of numbers with such a deep pool of athletes. Volleyball is big here as well. A lot of girls try it for the first time in HS even though MS has a team. Basketball and soccer are big too. I don't understand the soccer love. For one, it's a crapload of running and very little scoring. But also, why would you want to be one of like 40 kids on the sideline when you'll get on the field EVERY game in softball and do very little running by comparison? Soccer also has school seasons in fall AND spring here, which really hurts us in the spring. I hate soccer.
HaHa! Yeah, with ya on that. My coworker has a volleyball girl and a soccer girl. He says " I hate soccer. It's so boring."
Back on topic: I think part of the issue is that Softball is really intimidating. There are SO MANY skills to learn vs many other sports. Hitting, catching, throwing, running bases, where's the play, etc all adds up. Each skill takes hundreds of hours to be competent and thousands to be elite. Soccer is run, kick, occasional header. Yeah, I know it's more than that, but there is just less stuff to spend the hours on. Volleyball is similar. Softball is hard and that hard ball coming fast can be more scary. Kids are new to the sport are still ducking away from warm-up throws. Now ask them to stand in the box against decent pitching. They back up in the box real quick after that first pitch!
The rest of 2020 was off-time. Everyone was tied up with whatever else, so we reconvened in February for the 2021 MS season. We had basically the same team, minus my DD1.
DD2 (7th grade then) had started taking pitching lessons in January 2021. She said we needed pitching, so she was gonna do it (the savage in her was coming out), and for the monthly equivalent of a new compact car payment, we got lessons going. By the time mid March rolled around she was a galaxy away from ready, yet still probably could throw as well as anyone other than our starter. And since I knew all our "pitchers" from #2 and down were going to throw a walkfest, I made it clear that I didn't want DD2 in the circle at all that season. I saw no need to put her through a walkfest right off the bat when it wasn't gonna be any better than the girls were weren't really pitchers but didn't care to get in there because they knew the motion.
I took great pains to carefully cultivate DD2's birth and maturation as a pitcher, and continue to do so to this day. I know her well, and how her mind works. We build the house one block at a time. As we continued to practice at home and in lessons during the 2021 campaign, ee worked on the mental game, how to combat distraction, cheering, subtle comments, walks, scenarios, etc, and I believe it was the right way to go. The kid was still learning the game overall, so her title of pitcher would wait until fall. We learned the game together, really. She trust me and listens to me, which I know is a real luxury as a sports parent, and I flat-out consider the functionality of our relationship a GIFT.
The 2021 season was a real kick in the teeth. We were loads better than the team in 2020 that didn't see a game, but we were still awful. We won two games, which were against a team with about the same defensive abilities as ours, but didn't quite have the pitching to match our one and only trained pitcher. She had a rough season otherwise. Lots of growing pains there for everyone, for sure. We had a couple kids quit, a kid called the coach a b***h, we had a lot of crying, explosive tantrums, etc. It really was chaos at times. As assistants, the wizard, Ed, and I had to navigate some embarrassing moments...things we just had no control over. We saw some things that should just never, ever happen in the dugout or on the field, and we took notes. And the load put on our head coach's shoulders was pretty heavy. We averaged a total of 6 innings across two games at each date, and she managed to get 19 girls playing time. It was a hard lesson, but a valuable one.
Don't have 19 players when 17 of them still have no idea what's going on. Less kids, more experience.
Our last game was the district tournament. We were run-ruled in three innings. It was a complete s**t-show from start to finish. Couldn't hit, couldn't field, everyone is crying. That day is when it REALLY sunk in for me how important the mental game is. They had the skill to do better that season on defense. Did they have enough reps? Definitely not. The ability was there, but it wasn't automatic yet. They couldn't operate efficiently without 100% focus, and when you're a tween-ager wearing a glove for the first time and the scoreboard is ticking up like the electric meter outside the house, it's damned hard to focus. We were just still so brutally far behind that all the progress we made was just to get us to about the level of a mid-grade 10u team.
On the way home, DD2, who had been playing CF, was nearly bawling. She told me how embarrassing the game was. She was the most upset I've ever seen her.
I was numb to it all at this point...lol. So I just casually said "so what are you gonna do about it??"
She stopped crying and stared out the windshield into the dark and said something like "I'm gonna be ready to pitch." I said "You need to be a leader. If you want to see change, take the reigns on the field."
She stayed silent after that. The meant the gears were grinding. I've always felt like in that moment, a little tiny, tiny flame flickered to life. Now, it wasn't exactly a roaring blaze as the softball journey continued into the fall, but bit by bit, that flame continued to grow and stay lit even when the winds picked up.
Next up. Spring LL and Fall Ball.....y'all. And an update on the HS.
DD2 (7th grade then) had started taking pitching lessons in January 2021. She said we needed pitching, so she was gonna do it (the savage in her was coming out), and for the monthly equivalent of a new compact car payment, we got lessons going. By the time mid March rolled around she was a galaxy away from ready, yet still probably could throw as well as anyone other than our starter. And since I knew all our "pitchers" from #2 and down were going to throw a walkfest, I made it clear that I didn't want DD2 in the circle at all that season. I saw no need to put her through a walkfest right off the bat when it wasn't gonna be any better than the girls were weren't really pitchers but didn't care to get in there because they knew the motion.
I took great pains to carefully cultivate DD2's birth and maturation as a pitcher, and continue to do so to this day. I know her well, and how her mind works. We build the house one block at a time. As we continued to practice at home and in lessons during the 2021 campaign, ee worked on the mental game, how to combat distraction, cheering, subtle comments, walks, scenarios, etc, and I believe it was the right way to go. The kid was still learning the game overall, so her title of pitcher would wait until fall. We learned the game together, really. She trust me and listens to me, which I know is a real luxury as a sports parent, and I flat-out consider the functionality of our relationship a GIFT.
The 2021 season was a real kick in the teeth. We were loads better than the team in 2020 that didn't see a game, but we were still awful. We won two games, which were against a team with about the same defensive abilities as ours, but didn't quite have the pitching to match our one and only trained pitcher. She had a rough season otherwise. Lots of growing pains there for everyone, for sure. We had a couple kids quit, a kid called the coach a b***h, we had a lot of crying, explosive tantrums, etc. It really was chaos at times. As assistants, the wizard, Ed, and I had to navigate some embarrassing moments...things we just had no control over. We saw some things that should just never, ever happen in the dugout or on the field, and we took notes. And the load put on our head coach's shoulders was pretty heavy. We averaged a total of 6 innings across two games at each date, and she managed to get 19 girls playing time. It was a hard lesson, but a valuable one.
Don't have 19 players when 17 of them still have no idea what's going on. Less kids, more experience.
Our last game was the district tournament. We were run-ruled in three innings. It was a complete s**t-show from start to finish. Couldn't hit, couldn't field, everyone is crying. That day is when it REALLY sunk in for me how important the mental game is. They had the skill to do better that season on defense. Did they have enough reps? Definitely not. The ability was there, but it wasn't automatic yet. They couldn't operate efficiently without 100% focus, and when you're a tween-ager wearing a glove for the first time and the scoreboard is ticking up like the electric meter outside the house, it's damned hard to focus. We were just still so brutally far behind that all the progress we made was just to get us to about the level of a mid-grade 10u team.
On the way home, DD2, who had been playing CF, was nearly bawling. She told me how embarrassing the game was. She was the most upset I've ever seen her.
I was numb to it all at this point...lol. So I just casually said "so what are you gonna do about it??"
She stopped crying and stared out the windshield into the dark and said something like "I'm gonna be ready to pitch." I said "You need to be a leader. If you want to see change, take the reigns on the field."
She stayed silent after that. The meant the gears were grinding. I've always felt like in that moment, a little tiny, tiny flame flickered to life. Now, it wasn't exactly a roaring blaze as the softball journey continued into the fall, but bit by bit, that flame continued to grow and stay lit even when the winds picked up.
Next up. Spring LL and Fall Ball.....y'all. And an update on the HS.
Last edited:
You're 100% right. The simplicity of basketball, volleyball, and soccer is the lack of gear. It looks like something easy to catch-on to. And it's not, really, but if the get into it and like it, then it doesn't matter. We lost 'em.
Saves the parents some dough too.
