High school softball

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Aug 10, 2016
686
63
Georgia
Strong disagree with this.

Kids should be encouraged to participate in other activities, yes, but when you make a commitment for a season and are told that should be your priority, that needs to be your priority. This isn't a year-round team. HS ball is a short-term commitment. Nobody is saying she has to dedicate her entire life to the sport.

Why should every other school activity take priority (remember, choosing Activity A over Activity B means you're prioritizing Activity A)? And why should the coach just be OK with kids missing whenever something else comes up?

My policy is that softball comes first after academics (band is a class, which makes it academic). It's only a bad policy if you think it's fine to have 6 kids at practice because the rest of them found other school hobbies to take up their time everyday.
Well at our school it *IS* a year round team. They get basically Nov-Feb off. Start back up 4xweek in the spring and then 3-4x week in the summer. You are allowed to not come in the spring if you have a spring sport. And you are allowed to miss in the summer for travel tournaments. And he'd prefer if you scheduled any actual vacation around the 3 weeks off we are allowed each summer. Luckily our vacations are pretty much just travel tournaments so that's not even a problem.

Also ROTC is a class as well which I would consider something academic. The fact that she is missing leadership meetings for softball shows her commitment to softball.

And not sure it even matters but she did talk to her HC - and he's "allowing" her and her friend to march in the parade but they have to rush back to try to get there in time for some practice. And I was never worried about any penalty for her. I'm still anxious every day to see if she is even playing - so why it would bother her if she had to sit a game? She sat for one game in our double-header this weekend. That's not even an issue.

Edited to add: We have 3 freshmen on our varsity team who start every game. They all play for nationally ranked teams - are nationally ranked players. We've heard two of them admit that they wish they could quit HS softball already or not do it next year - they won't because their parents would never let them. But we're not even 2 months into the season and these girls are exhausted. We had 4 games scheduled for this week - which means DD is gone from 6am-9pm. Luckily the fourth got moved to next week. But when do kids get their homework done? My kid is up to past midnight almost every night trying to finish things - and then you have teachers who want things done by 11:59pm. These teachers don't care that you have a softball game. We had a digital day today so DD was able to actually wash her SB uniforms and her ROTC uniforms - there just isn't enough time in the day for SB to take up 1/2 of it. I don't know what other high schools do or how much they practice. Maybe I'm just complaining for no reason and everyone has the same issues but it's just a lot.
 
Last edited:
Jul 14, 2018
982
93
And not sure it even matters but she did talk to her HC - and he's "allowing" her and her friend to march in the parade but they have to rush back to try to get there in time for some practice.

You almost make the coach sound reasonable!

Seriously, though, good for her for going to the coach and advocating for herself. You should be very proud of your junior officer in training!


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May 11, 2014
275
43
So what is the penalty for a coach who makes a bad coaching decision during the game. Does he run foul poles. Who makes out the practice schedule, bet it's the coach who picks and chooses what's best for themselves. Lest people think I'm anti-coach my son is an assistant football coach so I know how hard coaching is.
 
Nov 18, 2013
2,255
113
That's horseshoot. Kids should be encouraged to participate in other activities (Band, Chess Club, ROTC, etc ). If a player has to miss a practice or 2 due to a conflict in schedules, specially in another school activity, there should be no consequences. I bet this type of coach would have a different policy if his number 1 and 2 pitchers were in the parade.

I’m all for encouraging other activities. That doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences for missing one or the other if they conflict. I see nothing wrong with a policy like missing the next game after a missed practice or running poles or whatever. As long as it’s applied consistently. That should be the same for pitchers, but of course we know it’s usually not.

Even without a policy a consequence of other sports or activities could be a kid more committed to softball is ahead of yours. One to two practices isn’t going to be a difference maker. Over the years placing other things ahead of softball can make a big difference. Im not saying it’s good or bad. Some kids, like my son, prefer more sports/activities and could care less about playing in college. DD wanted to play in college. They’re both happy.
 
Nov 18, 2013
2,255
113
Well at our school it *IS* a year round team. They get basically Nov-Feb off. Start back up 4xweek in the spring and then 3-4x week in the summer. You are allowed to not come in the spring if you have a spring sport. And you are allowed to miss in the summer for travel tournaments. And he'd prefer if you scheduled any actual vacation around the 3 weeks off we are allowed each summer. Luckily our vacations are pretty much just travel tournaments so that's not even a problem.

Also ROTC is a class as well which I would consider something academic. The fact that she is missing leadership meetings for softball shows her commitment to softball.

And not sure it even matters but she did talk to her HC - and he's "allowing" her and her friend to march in the parade but they have to rush back to try to get there in time for some practice. And I was never worried about any penalty for her. I'm still anxious every day to see if she is even playing - so why it would bother her if she had to sit a game? She sat for one game in our double-header this weekend. That's not even an issue.

Edited to add: We have 3 freshmen on our varsity team who start every game. They all play for nationally ranked teams - are nationally ranked players. We've heard two of them admit that they wish they could quit HS softball already or not do it next year - they won't because their parents would never let them. But we're not even 2 months into the season and these girls are exhausted. We had 4 games scheduled for this week - which means DD is gone from 6am-9pm. Luckily the fourth got moved to next week. But when do kids get their homework done? My kid is up to past midnight almost every night trying to finish things - and then you have teachers who want things done by 11:59pm. These teachers don't care that you have a softball game. We had a digital day today so DD was able to actually wash her SB uniforms and her ROTC uniforms - there just isn't enough time in the day for SB to take up 1/2 of it. I don't know what other high schools do or how much they practice. Maybe I'm just complaining for no reason and everyone has the same issues but it's just a lot.

Is this a private school? Requiring kids to play outside of the regular season wouldn’t be allowed in most states. I agree it’s too much of a HS coach to expect.
 
Aug 10, 2016
686
63
Georgia
Is this a private school? Requiring kids to play outside of the regular season wouldn’t be allowed in most states. I agree it’s too much of a HS coach to expect.
No regular public school. The spring workouts are not the full team - he does them in groups so it's not a full team workout and it's usually drills and weight training. Then they do the official tryouts at the end of the school year. The summer is when they can practice as a full team and they sometimes scrimmage other schools. We didn't do it the last two summers but there used to be early summer games they'd play in June.
 
Jun 20, 2015
848
93
Your HS seasons, off season and practice stuff is completely different than here in Ohio. august is No contact month for players and coaches, very limited fall practice times and any softball activities, season starts in Feb, limits on travel ball teammates playing on same HS team, etc.

Different worlds.
 
May 14, 2015
493
43
Bismarck ND
Wow you guys have some hardass coaches lol. DD has done two sports (softball-track/field) during the same high school season and the coaches were great with it. She did have to choose what she did at the end of the year as both high school state tourneys are the same weekend. Softball wins out, and the track coach understands. No backlash from either coach. We got it lucky I guess
 
Oct 3, 2011
3,478
113
Right Here For Now
Plain and simple. I am a HS coach and TB coach both. I would never make the requirements that your HS coach does. Why? Because 90% of my HS team wouldn't make practice due to all of the other HS activities that the other sports coaches "make mandatory" even though their not allowed by our state HS association. They don't show for the other practices, they don't play during season. Thus, our SB team sucks. How do I combat this? I can't because there's no support from the AD. That's also why I chose to move on to a different program for next year,

That said, rules are rules. If you don't like them, complain to your AD. If you get no support, then she shouldn't play Senior year. It's not like playing School ball means anything other than playing for the school name and showing school pride anymore. With the huge budget cuts in college scouting programs. the limitations in number of college contact days and college programs playing in simultaneous seasons as most high schools, a majority of the games college coaches even show up at are the state semis, quarters and finals at best.

Since you stated your team is so-so, I wouldn't worry about it. Also, if your DD is in the JROTC program, It sounds as if she has much bigger dreams than HS softball.
 
Feb 1, 2021
273
43
I know this is one of the "probably missing the point" comments, but my DS is going thru some of this right now. He is in 10th grade and a heck of a soccer player. Basically, he is the entire team and his coaches are sketchy af. He is being taken advantage of to better the stats of the coach's kid who is an 80 pound no-talent 9th grader. When the kid doesn't score, my kid gets his butt chewed because he didn't do this right or do that right to help him.

He told me this week he doesn't want to play high school soccer anymore. It tears me up but in the end, it is his decision and despite MY feelings, I don't feel he will ever regret his choice. This team is a mess and I can physically see how much he hates it on his face anytime he's playing.

Not playing when it isn't fun anymore or even when you feel you are giving everything and it is never good enough should always be an option. Don't feel bad. Priorities change and that's okay.
 

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