Daughter is an "International " player 🇮🇱

[Tide_will_Roll]

My 14 year old was selected for the 16U Team Israel team for one of their summer tournaments.

She's happy and excited she was selected and I am very proud of her.

 

[Dabears17]

My 14 year old was selected for the 16U Team Israel team for one of their summer tournaments.

She's happy and excited she was selected and I am very proud of her.

A friend of mine's DD played on Team Italy one year in one of the summer tournaments and had a blast.

Congratulations!

 

[Tide_will_Roll]

A friend of mine's DD played on Team Italy one year in one of the summer tournaments and had a blast.

Congratulations!

Thank you!

 

[uncdrew]

Very cool. We have a friend on the Great Britain team. Very cool opportunity. Gotta admit I'm jelly.

 

[Hillhouse]

So, I have mentioned this before and on different platforms.... read to the end for a "did you know?" segment. lol First, I'm happy for the people who've posted about their kid getting to play internationally. It's a pretty cool thing!

Every country does it differently but, almost all softball playing countries in the world (and there's more than you may realize) are seeking players from the USA to both enhance their own team and help bring new drills and coaching techniques to those countries.

We all saw the Mexican Olympic team in 2021 that was made up mostly of American players who didn't make the USA team. Every country is different in terms of what is required to get a passport, and you need a passport from whatever country you want to represent internationally.*** (see below for more). Each and every country has different rules about how to get a passport. Some will grant one if one of the kid's parents comes from there. Some will grant a passport if a grandparent came from there. And for others it might be a great grandparent. Sometimes that ability to get a passport for the purposes of playing international sports for that country depends on which political party is in power at any given time world wide. So there's a lot of variables.

My last time playing for the USA team was 2000. In 2004, I played for Great Britain in an invitational tournament in Holland. The key being "invite" tourney, I didn't have a GB passport. My grandfather came from Scotland, and one of the GB softball people was pushing to get me a GB passport to play for them internationally. I assume it was too costly or not possible to do because I never heard back from them after playing in that tournament. Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians, etc. all have an easier time as part of the British Commonwealth. As Archie Bunker once said, "we threw England out of here a long time ago" so, I guess I wasn't eligible. lol

My son was born in the USA, making him a citizen automatically. His mother is from Denmark. After our divorce, she took him back to Denmark when he was about 5. He has both passports, but is already qualified for Paris 2024 Olympics but will be swimming for Denmark. Believe it or not, USA swimming found out he has a US passport and contacted me a few years ago about him changing teams.

*** did you know, the only country the USA recognizes Duel citizenship with is Israel? It's true. In the case of my son, while Denmark might consider him a duel citizen, USA only recognizes his American status. Someone from Canada who marries an American can obtain a USA passport, and Canada would consider them duel. USA does not. USA would only recognize that person as American. People think getting married means instant US citizenship. No. There's a substantial process, and like most things it ultimately comes down to money. Trying to keep a long story short, my ex-wife moved to USA in Aug 2001. A month later was 9/11, and when they rebooted the INS to be Homeland Security, they basically told her she had to leave the USA. She had to leave the USA in Oct 2001, we rushed a wedding and got married in Denmark Jan 2002, and it was still 4 months before she was legally allowed to enter the USA. She had a green card at that time, giving the ability to work. So if you ever wanna hear someone rant and rave like a madman about the US/Mexico boarder crisis, don't get me started!! The amount of money and hoops we had to jump through to do it the right way was hard. And now, the migrants (or the new politically correct term is now "new comers") are going to get the same status my ex had, after we spend $thousands and actually had to get married, is not something I'm very happy about. I'll just leave that right there.

If you're still reading, and you have a girl in college that wants to continue to play softball after college, I have contacts everywhere from Taiwan to Australia to all over Europe. Nobody has to stop playing softball after college. They can literally play year round all over the world if they want. I've already helped dozens of people do this, I'd be happy to help anyone else who wants to do it. Don't expect to get rich, but it's hard to put a price tag on getting to go see the world by throwing a yellow softball around!!!

*** The rules used to allow players to choose their Country they will play for each year. In softball, Texas coach Mike White and BYU coach Pete Meredith were born in New Zealand. Both married Americans and ended up with citizenship and live here full time. But in the 1980's and into the mid 1990's, it was common for Meredith and White to pitch for the USA in the Pan Am events, then return to play for New Zealand in the World Championship. USA Softball finally got wise to this circa 1997-98. They made both guys commit the USA team for the 2000 World Championship in South Africa (I was on that team too) if they were going to play for the USA in the 1999 Pan Am games. But, going all the way back to 1987, New Zealand did not select Meredith to their World championship team because he didn't go back to NZ that winter for their season. He spent that winter in the USA, so he was not selected. Neither was another NZ pitcher Steve Schultz, another with USA and NZ passports. Neither were selected by the NZ team so they played for the USA. Meredith dominated the tournament and USA won Gold in 1988. Immediately after that tournament, NZ changed their policy and Meredith was back on the NZ team in 1992 for the next World championship. lol Meredith didn't pitch for NZ after '92, but White would go back and forth until he wasn't allowed.