My brother started coaching my niece a couple of years ago at 8u on their town team. He became president of the rec program, became the 10u head coach, got tons of parents involved and they had over 150 girls register for rec softball. He then formed a town travel league that has an A and B division and has something like 60 teams in their league at all levels across multiple counties.. They do playoffs,, championships and an all-star game. This past year he started doing tournaments as well (open to town travel teams outside of the league). I think they charge $200 per team for the league and maybe $250 for the tournament - all ump fees are covered, and he offers free clinics for any girl on a registered team in the league. He is doing amazing things for town softball in his area. His philosophy is that if girls decide they want to go club then he has done his job to prepare them. His goal is to build the town HS into a power by having all of these girls working through the levels of his program. It's rare, but It can be done
Great podcast about the state of youth sports
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- Jun 18, 2023
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This is essentially the situation in our town. Hell, it's NJ, might be the same leagues. We've got two teams in the 3/4 division now, a 10u, a 12u and a 14u. We had about 60 girls in the in-town 1/2 rec games, which is pretty close to about 50% of all girls eligible. But in NJ, and specifically ours, towns are smaller, so you struggle more to find enough kids that you don't have to pull up 9 year olds to 10u, etc than having too many that some feel slighted. Trying to keep things engaging and competitive enough that they keep at it basically.
- Jul 1, 2022
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You need a strong all star program tied to the rec league. A strong program will keep top families invested in the league. The league would have to provide resources to the all star program, such as paid pitching clinics, uniforms, tournament dues, etc.
Our league had a fundraiser this year and some proceeds from that went towards paying some of the cost to send the top 10u all star team to OK City to watch the WCWS and play at a tournament there.
The fact is that the league needs the top players/coaches more than the other way around. Once a strong all star program is built you'll see the league grow: good players from next town over will start signing up for your league becausr the level of play is much higher.
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I think this has been our problem - we don't have that all-star program. And so to keep people in the league our travel director (because we do have a local travel affiliate) tells the good coaches to create C level travel teams which don't have any requirement to participate in our rec program. There are local leagues whose C teams also participate in rec and that keeps the level of rec play up.
And to @The Man In Blue 's point above, that has most distinctly watered down our travel program. One of our former travel coaches who is still on the board recently asked the travel director if that program should be A or B level, and he kind of punted on the answer. But the reality is our program used to have A level teams and now has more C level teams every year.
Society changes. Always has.
More options now.
More change is inevitable.
Along with that, it has always been~
The people who are the doers will go somewhere and build. The people who are lazy will sit and wait as the sport passes them by.
Being that people are the root of City leagues and sports. The coaching and organizational skills will only be equal to the ability of those people stepping in to coach. That is the ceiling. Or sky's the limit!
In the community I live in now the level of volunteer parents coaching is *not at a *coaching *level.
Really they are out on the field acting as babysitters. Nearly zero coaching instruction for this community. And it shows how completely underdeveloped the softball youth are.
With all the resources available at our fingertips to be able to offer some sort of better practices and structure. What I see are either lazy volunteers or complacent ones.
It is the smaller percentage in the community that chooses to step up for themselves to utilize resources to help develop their kids. These are the people that are the doers! These are the people that will either build something themselves or go to what is being built somewhere else and be part of structure with goals!
More options now.
More change is inevitable.
Along with that, it has always been~
The people who are the doers will go somewhere and build. The people who are lazy will sit and wait as the sport passes them by.
Being that people are the root of City leagues and sports. The coaching and organizational skills will only be equal to the ability of those people stepping in to coach. That is the ceiling. Or sky's the limit!
In the community I live in now the level of volunteer parents coaching is *not at a *coaching *level.
Really they are out on the field acting as babysitters. Nearly zero coaching instruction for this community. And it shows how completely underdeveloped the softball youth are.
With all the resources available at our fingertips to be able to offer some sort of better practices and structure. What I see are either lazy volunteers or complacent ones.
It is the smaller percentage in the community that chooses to step up for themselves to utilize resources to help develop their kids. These are the people that are the doers! These are the people that will either build something themselves or go to what is being built somewhere else and be part of structure with goals!
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This is key!!! I kept a solid group of players together for 5 summers. We were very competitive and won lots of tourneys. If you can continue to develop the better players in the program that will make the league competitive too. I would tell the parents, I can't wait to do it again next summer. I'll see you at tryouts in the spring. We were able to field two all star teams per age division except for 14U. I looked back at the number of teams this past spring. Must have been at least 60 teams (6U-12U). I noticed they offered a more competitive division for the "elite" players at 10U.
It also helps that organization offers multiple sports for boys/girls. Football, soccer, lacrosse, basketball, softball, baseball. They are well funded and very organized with very professional people at the top. They also have had a symbiotic relationship with the school district since 1961. All of the sports facilities are attached to various schools.
https://sbmsa.org/
- May 13, 2021
- 693
- 93
This is absolutely the truth, there are 10u teams that cant beat good 8u teams. I am not sure what these teams or players gain from playing "travel ball"
