High School Practice

[riseball]

We are fortunate to have three 18u A travel coaches and one is an assistant coach for a D3 School. The JV however is a completely different story.

Yes you are extremely fortunate and I would bet have a strong program.

 

[CoogansBluff]

Our middle school team practices or plays five times/week, so I'd definitely think a high school going only 2-3x/week is pretty light. I wouldn't mind if the middle school team did less, given the quality of the practices, but she enjoys it.

 

[riseball]

As a TB coach I can only imagine what we could do if we had our players 3 hours a day, 5 - 6 days a week for even 1 month.

 

[James Smith]

A lot of players quiting softball would be my guess.

 

[ScottyDont]

Our first high school game is 4/1 and tryouts for the team are this coming weekend. No wonder softball in the northeast gets no respect.

 

[rdbass]

As a TB coach I can only imagine what we could do if we had our players 3 hours a day, 5 - 6 days a week for even 1 month.

Let's not forget High school only has their players for 2,3, or 4 months. Where as TB has them for most of the year.

 

[iMlearning]

Yes you are extremely fortunate and I would bet have a strong program.

For our area, it is strong, and both JV and Varsity are made up of mostly TB girls. Of the 12 girls that made the first varsity cut, I know at least 9 are on TB teams and I'm not sure of the others. Several girls are still in BB playoffs, so they have to give them the opportunity to tryout also.

 

[starsnuffer]

We have a 2-hour limit on practices (this is common for NFHS) that we try and ignore and we do every day and Saturday. But the indoor gym time has been cut back to 45 minutes, and due to it rotating, our time could be dinner time. So the players wander around school for hours if it rains, and we try and find who else is not using their time or do stuff in the halls. With JV it just won't work to do approx 6-7 (their time)--parents lining up in the AD's office to complain.

Not sure why this jam up happens, our school has more turf fields than ever, which should take the other sports outdoors. I have tried for years to fix this to no avail. The answer this year was "Don't do everyday for the first few weeks, and trade off time with another team to get longer session."

So I spoke with another school about issues like this and their coach said JV can't practice when it rains (or snows) because there is not enough gym space. So especially if your school only has one gym, yes it could happen.

Yeah we do things like schedule 20m "setup" time and 20m of "teardown/cleanup/field grooming" time before and after practice to stretch out that 2 hours. After it gets dark we move into one of the auxiliary gyms and work on things like sliding (on wrestling mats with sheets) and bunting off of live pitchers. The ceiling is high enough to do outfield work too.

Scheduling was tough until wrestling season ended, but now we just have to split time with the cheerleaders (talk about a year round "sport") who only need to practice indoors when it rains.

People say it's a lot, but the season is so short, and with 2 games a week alternating with practices there really isn't that much time.

-W

 

[GOINGDEEP]

We have a 2-hour limit on practices (this is common for NFHS) that we try and ignore and we do every day and Saturday. But the indoor gym time has been cut back to 45 minutes, and due to it rotating, our time could be dinner time. So the players wander around school for hours if it rains, and we try and find who else is not using their time or do stuff in the halls. With JV it just won't work to do approx 6-7 (their time)--parents lining up in the AD's office to complain.

Not sure why this jam up happens, our school has more turf fields than ever, which should take the other sports outdoors. I have tried for years to fix this to no avail. The answer this year was "Don't do everyday for the first few weeks, and trade off time with another team to get longer session."

So I spoke with another school about issues like this and their coach said JV can't practice when it rains (or snows) because there is not enough gym space. So especially if your school only has one gym, yes it could happen.

Why wouldn't you practice JV right along varsity? Our schools around here have been doing as long as I can remember. Especially outdoors. The JV will one day be the V. Learning to hit off V pitchers, learning to catch V pitchers, learning the "running game" of V players, and learning to field off V hitters advances them quicker than not using those training tools. ( my opinion ) We do a lot of mixed squad games at practice.

 

[JAD]

A lot of players quiting softball would be my guess.

Not to mention some pissed off parents! LOL