JV softball

[CoogansBluff]

Let's say your daughter is a freshman who tries out for a high school team that has some 30 travel players. She is the best freshman and might be good enough to start for varsity in the outfield, low in the lineup. But also not so outstanding that she might not wind up batting #3 on JV, especially if the coaches give points for seniority. This is a school of 30 travel players, and it's hard to stand out unless you're really special. She's good, but not special.

Varsity team traditionally finishes top 3 in their league and maybe wins a round in state playoffs. Big school. Being a bench player would be a good experience just because of the practices and the teammates. Coaching is pretty good.

JV team, on the other hand, will play about 15 games, 4 of which will be competitive. The other 10-11 will be extreme blowouts, like 15-0, 20-1, etc. Coaching on JV probably won't be good, but that remains to be seen. Teammates will actually be pretty decent since there are so many travel players at the school, but still below the level of her own travel team.

Here is the important piece that is not typical in these questions --

Your daughter will be at a different high school next year. So while most JV teams provide the opportunity to build equity for the future, this team offers her nothing but a one-year deal of playing games mostly against terrible opponents.

Daughter doesn't feel she's too good for JV, but just thinks it wouldn't be very fun, wouldn't push her, and there would be little to gain since she's leaving the school next year. She would consider focusing on her travel team, her hitting/throwing, a few weekend tournaments. Might even play lacrosse or run track instead.

What do you think?

 

[jacman]

I think JV would be my last of the options. Almost a toss up between the other two, but I think I just barely lean toward varsity SB in the situation described. Good experience on a solid team that helps her grow as a player, and might give her a little edge heading into a new team.

Still, TB sounds solid for her, and more time to work individually on skills is always a plus. And if she wants to try something non-SB for a change, this sounds like air might be the best time for that.

Doesn't sound like either is a bad choice. If my DD was in that boat, I'd probably let her pick what she wanted (except for JV: not enough challenge to grow). With this girl entering the recruiting window - if that's her direction - this might be a chance to deeply enjoy things before more performance pressure hits just ahead.

 

[riseball]

Let's say your daughter is a freshman who tries out for a high school team that has some 30 travel players. She is the best freshman and might be good enough to start for varsity in the outfield, low in the lineup. But also not so outstanding that she might not wind up batting #3 on JV, especially if the coaches give points for seniority. This is a school of 30 travel players, and it's hard to stand out unless you're really special. She's good, but not special.

Varsity team traditionally finishes top 3 in their league and maybe wins a round in state playoffs. Big school. Being a bench player would be a good experience just because of the practices and the teammates. Coaching is pretty good.

JV team, on the other hand, will play about 15 games, 4 of which will be competitive. The other 10-11 will be extreme blowouts, like 15-0, 20-1, etc. Coaching on JV probably won't be good, but that remains to be seen. Teammates will actually be pretty decent since there are so many travel players at the school, but still below the level of her own travel team.

Here is the important piece that is not typical in these questions --

Your daughter will be at a different high school next year. So while most JV teams provide the opportunity to build equity for the future, this team offers her nothing but a one-year deal of playing games mostly against terrible opponents.

Daughter doesn't feel she's too good for JV, but just thinks it wouldn't be very fun, wouldn't push her, and there would be little to gain since she's leaving the school next year. She would consider focusing on her travel team, her hitting/throwing, a few weekend tournaments. Might even play lacrosse or run track instead.

What do you think?

For the sake of discussion let's assume that there was no HS softball at your DD's school. Would you have her play in a local rec league for 3 - 4 months until TB starts back up? It sounds like that would be no different than her anticipated HS experience. For most, HS softball is rec ball with an abundance of team spirit and more than anything a social experience. In the alternative you may want to encourage her to do something more productive with her time. Unless she has blazing speed and would benefit from track I would strongly suggest Lacrosse. It also looks better on her softball resume than JV or even Varsity Softball.

 

[CoogansBluff]

Why only one year at this school?

New school opening. She'll be zoned there.

The player can only tryout and then the decision is out of her control. You don't know if you're going to make V, but what do you do if you make JV, not play? (Awkward)

Yes, very awkward. She does not want to be seen as a diva. Her words.

Most kids don't want to play JV for the reason of hurt feelings/embarrassment as everyone keeps telling them it stinks. Once they are there, however, they like the chance to mentor, the ability to work on things without being under a microscope, having some easy wins (believe it not), being with kids in their grade, and most of all, not sitting on the bench. Even if the competition is low as you say, not one kid ever says it is not fun (we do anon. surveys at end of year).

Our JV teams have about half competitive games and half not, so here I would say go on JV if the coaching is good, but only you know what is going on there.

It won't be a case of hurt feelings/embarrassment if she makes JV. There would be some travel-ball sophomores on the team who also are pretty good. She's just a freshman.

And what you say might happen certainly might. But it's a gamble. Spending 10 hours/week on something is too much if you don't really enjoy it.

 

[CoogansBluff]

For the sake of discussion let's assume that there was no HS softball at your DD's school. Would you have her play in a local rec league for 3 - 4 months until TB starts back up? It sounds like that would be no different than her anticipated HS experience. For most, HS softball is rec ball with an abundance of team spirit and more than anything a social experience. In the alternative you may want to encourage her to do something more productive with her time. Unless she has blazing speed and would benefit from track I would strongly suggest Lacrosse. It also looks better on her softball resume than JV or even Varsity Softball.

The varsity team would be beyond rec because she's a 9th grader, and the top players are juniors/seniors who also are travel players.

JV, however, would resemble rec league. The JV team would be all travel players, so it would be like a mediocre travel team, but the competition would not be. JV in some ways is worse than middle school ball. At least in middle school, you're seeing the best 8th graders in the area. But in JV, the best 9th and 10th graders are generally all playing varsity.

As a side note, this is the only school in the 8-team league where she might not make varsity. It's an unusual situation.

 

[flipper14]

It's really an interesting situation and I've been in one somewhat similar, but different as well. Several years ago I took a job coaching at a private high school with about 600 kids (3A in Illinois, which is the second largest class because private schools have an escalator). We played in a poor league and moved to a better league in my second season. The league was interesting in that a number of teams in the new league had DI commits and signees. While not a great league because the schools are relatively small, there were a number of kids in the league that went on to a number of mid-majors like Valparaiso, Loyola of Chicago, Northern Illinois, and even Indiana. Yet, because many of the schools in the league are pretty small you'd have two or three legit A-level travel players playing with some kids who only play softball during the season (don't even play rec). My first season we had three starters who had never played in an organized softball game playing varsity softball. In non-league play we faced kids who are now at DePaul and several other DI majors.

After in-school recruiting all winter our first season we had eight players show up on the first day of practice at all levels (we added three more in the three weeks leading up to the season). Yes, eight, only two of whom had played B-level travel. Some of the teams in our league had entire rosters that played travel, and several teams had 3 or 4 kids that played A-travel. I was NOT a good coach but I really pushed the kids that first spring, probably too hard in hindsight, but we finished 12-17 (we didn't beat anyone good but were moderately competitive) after they had only won four games the year prior.

Because we had had some success in our first year, the second year we coached we went from having 11 kids on the roster to 30-plus (split between varsity and frosh/soph. teams). What an absolute blessing and curse. We only had two pitchers in the program and both were among are top 3 or 4 players on varsity. We were forced to pitch a wonderful young lady at the JV level who simply wasn't a pitcher and the games were gross. We would have easily lost to 10U travel teams. The girls were only competitive in one game but, fortunately, I had a fantastic JV coach who was young, had played at a solid DIII program, and the girls adored her. The result was that after watching some varsity games (even though we were far from great) most of the JV players quickly understand it would be highly unlikely that they would ever contribute at the varsity level and most of them did not try out the next season, although most said they had a blast playing. There were, of course, several exceptions who worked like crazy and earned some playing time on varsity as upperclassmen.

Then things really got interesting our third year as we had a freshman come to the school who had played with one of the top 14U teams in Illinois (she later went on to play for one of the top travel teams in the country (PGF 16 national champs) and will likely start at SS for a solid mid-major this spring as a freshman). She was incredible for our program. Early in the winter when we were all stuck in the fieldhouse this girl worked so hard to make everyone else around her better. She'd work with the younger kids, show me drills to make me a better coach, and just had a fabulous attitude. She'd literally play with and against kids going to UCLA, Oklahoma, and Florida, all fall and then start winter conditioning with us playing with kids who had literally never thrown a softball before. I thought that took incredible patience on her part. I was impressed from day one.

In her first game as a freshman (obviously playing varsity) she acted a little big for her britches in some of her mannerisms. From what I heard, her dad got into her pretty good on the way home after her first varsity game and she and I had a one-way talk as well. From that point forward for the rest of her career she was an incredible teammate and player.

All that to say, this girl meant a tremendous amount to our program. She made everyone around her better. The entire time I coached her I remember her getting frustrated one time with her teammates. It was her third or fourth game of her freshman year. We were playing against a team with a catcher who had signed with Valparaiso and a solid DII pitcher. We, on the other hand, had a freshman catcher who had never played in an organized softball game who, in the season opener, didn't even know that she was supposed to throw the ball down to second in between innings.

It was the fourth inning and our really gifted young lady got to third base for the second time in the game and she asked me, "Will anyone else on the team ever get a hit." The next girl in the lineup laid down a perfect squeeze and the girl who followed her (a junior girl who had never played softball before her freshman season) followed with the first of her two home runs on the day. Only four games into the season we beat a team with a DII pitcher and DI catcher, playing with a freshman catcher who had never played softball before. We only won 10 games that season but it was really the start to the program being quite competitive now, certainly not state championship caliber but can effectively compete with about 70 percent of the schools our size in the state.

All that to say, I hope your daughter plays softball and even if it is JV. She can still have a VERY significant impact on others. I've seen it up close where a girl gave everything she had to improve her teammates and program while playing with much worse talent than your daughter will be playing with. This girl is now playing DI softball.

That young lady made a long-lasting impact on our program. I hope your daughter does as well. It sounds like she has the right attitude to do so.

 

[canyonjoe]

I don't know what this issue is, but when I was in High School it was pretty rare when the best baseball or softball players didn't come out for the teams. You might have a couple who chose to do track to help with another sport, but we always had 30-40 kids tryout of for JV and for Varsity. DD is going to go to a school with over 1800 kids and I've heard it's hard to find kids to play.

 

[flipper14]

I don't know what this issue is, but when I was in High School it was pretty rare when the best baseball or softball players didn't come out for the teams. You might have a couple who chose to do track to help with another sport, but we always had 30-40 kids tryout of for JV and for Varsity. DD is going to go to a school with over 1800 kids and I've heard it's hard to find kids to play.

I honestly think a lot of it has to do with sport specialization, as well as kids having jobs. Taking the latter out of the equation, 10-20 years ago you saw many more multi-sport athletes. These athletes could have success playing volleyball, basketball, and then softball because their athleticism could carry them to a good level of success. With specialization and travel/club sports, you have to be a pretty darn good player to make a softball roster at most high schools with 1,800 kids. I think that's a big factor.

 

[Coachmom]

My DD played JV as freshman and sophomore under similar circumstances as yours.
As a top pitcher she carried the JV team and we won a lot of games. She had a great time, developed leadership skills and she did learn something from the experience.
Not sure this helps but to me if your DD decides to tryout for softball she should do so with the understanding that she may be playing JV and be okay with it. Don't waste everyones time if she has no intention of carrying it through because it's not varsity, because you really have no say in the matter once you tryout. (unless you can pick the team you want to tryout for) but at our local high schools you don't get the choice. You tryout because you love softball and want to play and represent your school, doesn't matter JV or Varsity.

 

[CoogansBluff]

My DD played JV as freshman and sophomore under similar circumstances as yours.
As a top pitcher she carried the JV team and we won a lot of games. She had a great time, developed leadership skills and she did learn something from the experience.
Not sure this helps but to me if your DD decides to tryout for softball she should do so with the understanding that she may be playing JV and be okay with it. Don't waste everyones time if she has no intention of carrying it through because it's not varsity, because you really have no say in the matter once you tryout. (unless you can pick the team you want to tryout for) but at our local high schools you don't get the choice. You tryout because you love softball and want to play and represent your school, doesn't matter JV or Varsity.

Good points. And I think my daughter likely will take that path and enjoy JV for what it is. She played middle school the past two seasons in similar circumstances. Really enjoyed it.

But also consider that one of the things that must've made it fun and rewarding for your DD is the fact that she was working toward being a top pitcher on varsity one day, and all the work and leadership she demonstrated would pay off beyond just those two JV seasons. For mine, there is no payoff beyond that one single JV season because she will be at a different school next year.