Are we all getting less girls playing?

[LEsoftballdad]

Talk about an old thread...

We have fewer girls playing softball here in NY. It's a three-fold reason.

The first is declining birth rates. Our senior class has 185 students, but our 3rd grade class has 130 students.

The second is other sports, such as lacrosse. We get 16 girls to show up for HS softball tryouts, but lacrosse gets 42.

The third is poor coaching. This one's a killer. Bad coaching, especially at the youth levels, drives girls out of the game and into the arms of lacrosse.

 

[_MIA_]

The OP was 12+ years ago..lol

 

[Towny9]

The OP was 12+ years ago..lol

Dug in the DFP archives

 

[radness]

Talk about an old thread...

We have fewer girls playing softball here in NY. It's a three-fold reason.

The first is declining birth rates. Our senior class has 185 students, but our 3rd grade class has 130 students.

The second is other sports, such as lacrosse. We get 16 girls to show up for HS softball tryouts, but lacrosse gets 42.

The third is poor coaching. This one's a killer. Bad coaching, especially at the youth levels, drives girls out of the game and into the arms of lacrosse.

Why is there better coaching in Lacrosse?

 

[marriard]

It is all about the people running things and how much they care... Because caring = commitment.

Back when my DD started; it was pretty common to have the travel people and the rec people together - because there wasn't travel during HS season.
The great thing about travel parents is that they are committed; which meant rec had more people running it who were willing to put the work in. Few other reasons - but this is a big one.

That changed as travel become year round - now rec didn't get the travel girls playing, but also lost the people who were willing to put the work in. So rec struggled - and struggled a lot. Quality of play suffered, numbers suffered and so on.

Locally that has started to come around the past couple of years. I am seeing rec numbers recover - and primarily because they more successful travel teams are realizing they need to have a place to farm players from and realize it is on them. Also cities are looking for people to run their rec leagues since they are failing and are open to have basically free organization in return for field access.

We now have more travel orgs running rec with people who are commited and that has started a recovery in numbers. Locally we are now surpassing our highest # of players involved and the city has started giving us more fields as our numbers are growing and baseball (which isn't there let) has had player number issues.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

Why is there better coaching in Lacrosse?

It's an easier sport to play. My best friend's daughter just committed to play at SUNY Binghamton, a big D1 in upstate NY. Neither he nor his wife ever played the game, and his daughter never took lessons. They're not expected to travel after they commit, so once school ball ends, she won't play until she gets to college. He will play local events next summer to keep her sharp, but that's it.

She's a 2024, and her travel is done already. And she got 75%.

Now compare that to softball.

 

[radness]

It's an easier sport to play.

Will leave that to the lacrosse players to comment as I have not played that sport. However did play field hockey and would say that field hockey is an easier sport then softball. Less skill sets needed.

Remember watching a comedy TV show that the mom was forcing her son to play the violin to get a scholarship. Her reasoning was that in her research over the years that is the one scholarship that would go un-obtained and so she knew it would be easiest to obtain.
Hence the goal for how her son was going to get into college paid for.

 

[Rolling Hard]

Talk about an old thread...

We have fewer girls playing softball here in NY. It's a three-fold reason.

The first is declining birth rates. Our senior class has 185 students, but our 3rd grade class has 130 students.

The second is other sports, such as lacrosse. We get 16 girls to show up for HS softball tryouts, but lacrosse gets 42.

The third is poor coaching. This one's a killer. Bad coaching, especially at the youth levels, drives girls out of the game and into the arms of lacrosse.

Field hockey is rapidly growing too.

 

[CoachJD]

Dug in the DFP archives

The person who bumped it dug real deep just to troll the board with nonsense.

 

[Rick M]

It’s interesting to see a thread from 12 years ago that expresses many of the same concerns we still hear about today: declining numbers, watered down talent, losing kids to lacrosse. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Speaking of lacrosse, it’s definitely an easier sport. DD has friends who play club and varsity lacrosse. Having never played in an actual game, she can hang out with them, pick up a stick, and throw and catch with the best of them.

They’re always telling her: “You’re really good, you should be playing lacrosse!”


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