IS TRAVEL BALL leaving people/players/rec & school behind...OR...

[Rartuso]

When my daughter started rec ball @ 7 there were 8 girls teams from 8-18u in just our town. She’s 11 and this year there was only 1 12u team and 1 14u team. Travel ball and other sports such as soccer, volleyball and dance are pretty much killing our softball program. Kids around here just aren’t interested in it.

 

[The Man In Blue]

Those are examples of people taking initiative!


As to the many tb teams diluting down the local talent in the community,
because there are so many teams it gives more players the opportunity to learn how to play and opportunity to get better.
if the people who are on those teams put in a little more initiative
they won't be c-level teams for long.

@RADcatcher , you and I are usually on the same page, but I highly disagree with this.

When rec coaches and rec parents decide their kid "needs" to be playing travel ball, it limits opportunities, not increases them.

Consider this anecdotal history ...

My little community rec program was founded in the mid 1970s. Up through the 90s, it used to field enough teams at each level that we never left our little town. This was 6 to 10 (sometimes more) teams at each age level from 16u to 8u.

When I took over the program in the mid-oughts we were lucky to get two 16u teams and three or four teams for 14u, 12u, 10u, and 8u. Usually we wouldn't fill all of those and moved players around to combine a few of those divisions. I liked it when travel ball would pull away good players on an individual basis. Often they would still come back and play with us.

Then coaches decided they needed to be playing travel ball. They didn't take their daughters and go play, they took "their teams" and went. I didn't scientifically track the data over my first few years, but I paid attention. Within two years of those teams leaving rec, their 12 kids would be down to 2 or 3 who still played travel ball (of course those were usually the coaches' kids) and the rest QUIT. They didn't come back. They QUIT.

Conservatively that is 75% of those kids being driven out of the game. With that, each year we would end up folding one age division or another because we only had two teams left there. That's another 24 or so kids (out of our program's usual 200+) that were told "Sorry, you can't play." Call that 10% of our annual pool. I can't provide numbers on those who just quit registering or never did register and give their kid a chance because of the reputation ("you NEED to play travel ball").

Fast forward to today ... travel ball which destroyed the local programs in this area is now practically gone itself. After two years in Mississippi I came back to find out the "travel" league has folded and most of the local tournaments had been canceled this past year. Years of discouraging and not allowing kids to play at lower levels has finally caught up to where travel cannot pull the numbers it needs to sustain around here. Many school teams are scraping together teams of kids who have never played before or simply not having programs.

It is easy to look at a thriving tournament facility on any one given weekend and say things are good. But at what long term cost? You never see the kids who quit before that or don't ever get started.

I discovered too late into my tenure that local and travel programs needed to quit competing against one another for kids and work together to promote the sport.

 

[radness]

@RADcatcher , you and I are usually on the same page, but I highly disagree with this.

When rec coaches and rec parents decide their kid "needs" to be playing travel ball, it limits opportunities, not increases them.

Are you saying you disagree with my comment I believe even C level teams can get better?

Having options #1 rec #2 travel
creates opportunity.

Fast forward to today ... travel ball which destroyed the local programs in this area is now practically gone itself. After two years in Mississippi I came back to find out the "travel" league has folded and most of the local tournaments had been canceled this past year. Years of discouraging and not allowing kids to play at lower levels has finally caught up to where travel cannot pull the numbers it needs to sustain around here. Many school teams are scraping together teams of kids who have never played before or simply not having programs.

It is easy to look at a thriving tournament facility on any one given weekend and say things are good. But at what long term cost? You never see the kids who quit before that or don't ever get started.

I discovered too late into my tenure that local and travel programs needed to quit competing against one another for kids and work together to promote the sport.

People have the choice to participate in rec ball or travel ball and they have made a choice. If it has diminished a rec ball league it has increased the travel ball teams.

*Both are voluntary efforts.


To the bigger picture in travel,
While part of softball may appear to look diluted (watered down) does not mean that the best of levels are not as good,
it means that a much greater of the time people are not watching/ competing against the top levels
because there are so many average and below average that are participating in travel ball now.
( people don't always get to see the top levels of softball in their same age brackets)

Further perspective on this draw travel ball has on people, travel offers opportunities to do things as they want to which unfortunately rec ball & high school does not offer.
So I am glad that there is a mixture of opportunities in travel ball now. For all different Talent levels.

Even with the Millions of people that live in Southern California rec ball programs struggle because there are not people willing to step up and volunteer for them. Interestingly though they will step up and volunteer for travel ball
(there is a reason for that happening).

 

[The Man In Blue]

Are you saying that you disagree with my comment that I believe that even C level teams can apply themselves and become better?

My comment is to say that while there is a greater amount of different levels of talent in softball does not mean that all the levels playing in softball will stay at their same level.


While part of softball may appear to look diluted (watered down) does not mean that the best of levels are not as good,
it means that a much greater of the time people are not watching/ competing against the top levels
because there are so many average and below average that are participating in travel ball now.
( people don't always get to see the top levels of softball in their same age brackets)

Further perspective on this draw travel ball has on people, travel offers opportunities to do things as they want to which unfortunately rec ball & high school does not offer.
So I am glad that there is a mixture of opportunities in travel ball now. For all different Talent levels.

Caveat: I wrote that without having read the other 15 pages of the thread (and I still haven't). That doesn't change my perspective, just saying I don't know what was addressed afterwards. I usually try to read the whole thing before replying, but this is a long one and I hopped on to distract me from lesson planning for a moment.

I honestly believe the "white flight" of softball has watered the whole thing down. (Yeah, I'll say it.)

When a kid wants to play softball, but there is no place they can afford to start ... it waters the whole thing down.

When a rec coach takes "his team" to play travel, it waters the competition down. He didn't put together a competitive team that created opportunity. He took the suckers along who were willing to pay. But it boosts the bottom line (team counts and revenue) while watering down the level.

When the successful coach then decides he needs a program, not a team, what does he do? Sure, the first few years he may have a couple of good teams. But then he needs to fund the program ... so he stats adding lower-level teams which are just people willing to pay. That waters down the game.

What is "C-level" travel ball other than really expensive rec ball? So why do we have it? What is wrong with allowing parents to pay 1/10th the cost and playing in the community when the quality of the game is the same? This is creating opportunity. This goes back to working together for the good of the game, not competing for the $$.

Yes, the best will always be the best and maybe that is healthy for them ... but you cannot judge the health of the sport on that. You have to judge it on what is happening at every level leading there. It isn't good in many areas.

 

[Vertigo]

What I have seen happening with the true “C” teams is that the players who do develop and get better move up to B or higher teams and the rest of the team dissolves.

What also has happened with rec (at least at my local LL) is that due to numbers decreasing, the price to play has increased. So as a parent I’m either going to decide that I can’t afford it or for a little bit more money my kid can play travel and get to play more games.

 

[radness]

( @TMIB i was editing as you posted) I do like your comments and perspective that you have added!

Here is something else I notice regardless of how much it costs...

Used to see people/kids riding regular pedal bicycles everywhere. Now it's almost hard to find someone on a bicycle that's not electric.

 

[radness]

What I have seen happening with the true “C” teams is that the players who do develop and get better move up to B or higher teams and the rest of the team dissolves.

Rest of the team dissolving would be a natural path for those people.

What also has happened with rec (at least at my local LL) is that due to numbers decreasing, the price to play has increased. So as a parent I’m either going to decide that I can’t afford it or for a little bit more money my kid can play travel and get to play more games.

That is a good point!

 

[Vertigo]

Rest of the team dissolving would be a natural path for those people.

Not exactly. When 3-4 players leave to move up and the rest of the team can’t find other players to complete the roster, the team dissolves. It’s not about those other kids not wanting to play anymore - lots of times this happens after the end of a season and the other kids “secretly” try out for another team. The rest of the team is left scrambling for players or for another team and at that point it can be too late.

 

[radness]

Not exactly. When 3-4 players leave to move up and the rest of the team can’t find other players to complete the roster, the team dissolves. It’s not about those other kids not wanting to play anymore - lots of times this happens after the end of a season and the other kids “secretly” try out for another team. The rest of the team is left scrambling for players or for another team and at that point it can be too late.

That happens even at B&A level teams.

 

[Vertigo]

That happens even at B&A level teams.

Yes it does, but it’s probably much easier for the B or A level player to find another team who will pick them up.