Did I do the right thing? (leaving a team)

[radness]

Dealing with adversity is one of the best lessons you can get from competitive sports.

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Definitely interesting to see how and when parents grow through this with their kids.
Parents own emotions and interpretation involved in that.
Some of that not the kids interpretation.

 

[Sparky Guy]

Thanks. I understand that this won't be an isolated incident in DD's life. We had really hoped that once DD and I voiced our concerns to HC, that effort would be made to correct it because it is our jobs as parents to mold their minds and hearts. We teach DD that she never has to put up or tolerate abuse, nor should she ever be mean to anyone else.

As a coach you can never dictate to a team who they like or don't like on the team. No matter what the age. It's human nature and you'll never control it.

What I do with everyone of my teams is to sit them all down and give them my "Demands" speech. It's very short and simple. I tell them there are two things I demand from them as a coach, everything else is up to them.

The first thing I demand is their best effort at practice and during games. I let them know if they make mistakes we'll work on them. I let them know to not be afraid of making a mistake. I tell them if you're going to make a mistake make it a big one. That way we know you're trying.

The second thing I demand is they respect everyone of their teammates. I tell them they don't need to be best friends with everyone on the team, but they WILL respect them on and off the field.

In all the years of coaching I've only had one girl who I needed to have one-on-one with about her behavior. Luckily it stopped and I didn't have to deal with it again.

At 8U you're dealing with a lot of inexperience with the coaches on how to handle the social side of a group of young girls who've not fully learned the life skills on how handle dealing with contrary people. For young girls not being part the "group" can be a tough thing to learn how to deal with.

 

[BucketSquatter]

How much time was left in the season? Was the team going to restart in fall, as in August, or in 2022? If it's just a few more weeks, I'd stick it out. If it's through 2021, then I'd consider pulling her if she's being bullied. I can't judge if she's being bullied. Only you can make that call.

Also, do you mean this literally: DD wound up batting last every tournament we played, even though she's a double or triple hitter with excellent consistency while we went three and out most of out 1st innings.

I've never seen a consistent doubles/triples hitter bat last on any travel team, and I've never seen a team go 3-and-out most of the time in the first inning unless they were complete entry level biting off more than they were ready to chew. So if you're exaggerating here, then I don't know if you're exaggerating the other stuff as well. Also, you talk her batting last, then say your DD doesn't care where she bats. If she doesn't care where she's batting, then batting position is no reason to leave a team early.

So it comes down to the bullying part. If it's truly bullying, then get her out of there. If it's just that she doesn't fit in, and the season is about to end, stick it out. I can't answer.

One other thing. You say this: After my wife and I had a discussion, and after having talks with a few friends who coach older TB teams about what was going in, I made the decision to pull her from the team mid season.

Was your daughter in on these discussions? Did she come to you questioning whether she wanted to stay on the team? How did she feel about leaving the team before she left?

They were going to play for the rest of the year, then hold tryouts because they were losing 5 players, DD being one of them.

I think I've stated before, that our reason for leaving had nothing to do with where DD bats or what position she plays, and I probably shouldn't have even included it in the op, was just observations we saw. She really does hit very well. Being a left handed batter, she seems to find 1/2nd base gap or the 1st baseline with line drives that burn to the fence, or just hits flies over the outfielders heads. There's some things in her swing she works to change (bat drag here and there). I'll admit that when we started practicing with 10u teams, she had a lot of adjustments to make, but she's improved quite a bit. When I get a chance, I'll post some videos on here .

My DD was included in these conversations. After discussing what was going on, that you grow up to deal with these things in life, and assuring her I wouldn't be upset with whatever decision she made (she previously told her mom she thought it would upset me in a private conversation with her if she left the team) we decided to leave the team, let her practice with some older age groups along with some 8u teams until tryout season started, and start fresh. Shes picked up a couple times this month and really enjoyed some of the 8u teams she's practiced and played with. Couple of those teams are ones we faced before in games, and they asked what had happened. Others never asked so we never bothered to mention it.

We thought about moving up to 10u this fall, but most of the teams around here are asking for 2010 players. She has only the fall season left so we're going to let her age out of 8u.

I think this has been a learning experience for all of us. She's the oldest of my kids, and as a father it seems like I'm learning something new every day about raising a daughter. I get horrified whenever I hang out with her teenage cousins (glad I got some time before dealing that that )

 

[Greg Tudor]

U said that all the girls have been heavily in each other’s lives since birth. has there been drama b4 the start of the travel team with these girls ? If not Y now ?


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[Greg Tudor]

Only when not allowed, such as tournaments. But yes, you had around 5 to 8 coaches on field during practices.

One pitched in college, and I never understood why she didn't want to go ahead and get a player or two familiar with pitching. Moving up to 10u after the fall, it could've been beneficial to go ahead and get one acquainted.

Y 5-8 coaches for a 8u team ?


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[BucketSquatter]

U said that all the girls have been heavily in each other’s lives since birth. has there been drama b4 the start of the travel team with these girls ? If not Y now ?



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(EDIT: To answer your question about why so many coaches during practice, I don't really have an answer lol. I suppose because the other parents kids coached the other rec team, they're allowing them on field since their daughters are on that team???)

Not all of them, about 6 of the different coaches kids.

We live in a smaller town, and most of us all grew up playing ball together, and went to the same high school within a couple years of each other. That set of coaches grew up as friends and still are, so naturally their daughters are following the same path, church together, school together (except for one, she goes to private school and her uncle recently made the state senate). So in spring 2020, we all signed our girls up for 8u rec, and all these friends ended up getting split up because of the need for two teams and their dads volunteered to coach. We went through spring, and during the fall season DD's coach reached out to me and said the youth league was going to start a tb org for softball, very similar to how they do their travel baseball org, which is designed to be a development/feeder tree for the high school, and wanted DD to play for it. We had been thinking about TB, and jumped at the idea since it made sense logistically (6 minute rides to practices). So when tryouts rolled around (most of the team was already set in stone, there were two spots up for grabs) all of the friends were now together on a team. I will say that out of everyone who tried out, even the ones who had those spots locked down pre-tryout did deserve them, it wasn't like better talent got denied.

The problems started then. The other girls would emulate one particular girls behavior once they got around her. Her dad was an AC for DD one season and he's a great dude, but his daughter could be really mean. She'd throw tantrums if he corrected her, would let a ground ball skip by her and never even make an effort if she was mad, and he impressed me with his restraint at times. But back to the point, she was the one that if she didn't like you, she didn't want other teammates liking you and her friends would follow suit. It was disheartening to see this at such a young age. I'm sure a lot of folks on here may disagree, but I think at this age you should be teaching kids the concept of a team, how you should lift up one another, not just a select few. I taught my daughter this, at least.

So time went on, steps were taken as I previously mentioned before, and here we are. We went to a tournament this past weekend to check out some action, and one of the coaches recognized DD from a previous tournament and ended up giving her an open invitation to any practices that team has until they hold tryouts or DD lands on a team; we're heading to one tomorrow.

 

[JayW]

8U travel ball? Yeah, you made a mistake.


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[BucketSquatter]

8U travel ball? Yeah, you made a mistake.


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Good to know

 

[bmakj]

8U travel ball? Yeah, you made a mistake.


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possibley but not necessarily.

as long as you go into with realistic expectation, goals, it can be good. but just keep in mind, the dominant players at 8u and 10u and to extent 12u are not the dominant ones at upper levels much of the time. at lower age levels, players further along the physical development curve with fiar to atrociious fundamentals can outshine those behind the curve just due to physical development. seen it happen, DD played with a dominant pitcher at 10u, appearance wise she could have fit in on a 14u team. pitched hard, fast, little wild, but blew a lot of hitters away. also played 3B, cannon arm for the age,and good and powerful hitter. FF to 14u, still pretty much same size, and most of the pack has caught up to her, still a good player, but nowhere near dominant in any aspect of the game.

 

[uncdrew]

The softball world is small and has a long memory. Just be careful and truthful in your interactions so as to not limit DD's options down the road.