Should she give up school ball?

[Towny9]

This is exactly what is wrong with sports in the modern age. Everyone is out for themselves first, team last.
Thinking that it is ok to miss a team practice for an individual practice is putting yourself (your daughter) above the team. You can try to justify it any way you like but it is very individualistic. Schedule your lessons on your own time, team practice is just that, for the team. By allowing one or more girls to miss for individual reasons you are putting them above the team and that sends the wrong message. School ball season isn't long enough to justify that missing a few lessons is going to send you daughter down the path of despair. I imagine they throw bullpens everyday and they are pitching in games. She is not going to magically forget how to pitch because she missed a few lessons.

To each their own but if you commit to the team, be on the team.

This is a much better way of saying what I was trying to say. I totally agree.

 

[Dabears17]

A school pitching coach would be reason to quit.

Interesting. You can't generalize. My DD's team has a pitcher who can only pitched limited innings because her travel ball "organizational" pitching coach messed her arm and mechanics up trying to teach her the screwball.

One of the HS AC's has been to three Fastpitch Foundations clinics and is working on his Fastpitch Foundations certification.

 

[bmakj]

I guess in our area it is very different. lucky if you have HS HC who knows a little about the game and a loose grasp of the rules, certainly no one on staff who can really teach hitting or pitching. they basically select players, run drills in practice, select lineups and (mis)manage games. and I am glad they are out there doing that, as it makes HS ball possible.

and getting a slot with instructors around here can be dicey. you cannot be too choosy, you take what times they have, and weekends are pretty much a no go (most instructors also coach at least one TB team). it took us 6 months to find a regular slot with DD's instructor, and we are extremely grateful that her instructor is now (after seeing her for three years) willing to work with us during season to schedule around her games. and DD is night and day hitting wise seeing her instructor regularly and not, so yes, missing a week can set someone.

I think of it like this. If I said to my boss there is a seminar I want to attend to improve my professional skills/knowledge, not only would they give me the time off, they would pay me for that time, and pay for the seminar to boot. they certainly would not penalize me.

IF they can get the same level of instruction at team practice, I guess it makes sense to not allow it, but I think you will find in most HS (and I think this is ast majority), that simply is not going to happen. different level programs are going to need different standards.

 

[jdint]

Our middle school coaches, and our travel coaches for that matter, want our pitchers to attend pitching practice, even if it interferes with team practice. Both teams are heavily reliant on pitching strength to win games, and neither team offers any kind of pitching instruction at all. I would argue our middle school doesn't offer any instruction on much of anything.

Maybe your DD's can take a couple of months off lessons and stay just as effective, mine can't. I don't really feel like missing part of one team middle school practice a week is being "individualistic" or going to crash team moral. Especially when what you are doing is, hopefully, going to benefit the team.

 

[_MIA_]

Life was easier (and cheaper) when there was no such thing as private lessons

 

[Cannonball]

You coach a middle school team and get all that help?

I just started umpiring middle school games and I’ve found that only a few girls on each team play travel, and some girls never played at all. And half those coaches never coached before ( with one female coach never played softball), do if I was a coach who had players seeing hitting and pitching coaches, I’d be good with that, more time to help the girls who really need it.

I coach high school softball.

 

[Cannonball]

And what if you didn't have your own pitching coach? Would the pitchers just sit there and hope that they learned how to do it by watching the clouds go by? Of course not. I'm sure you would let them work with a coach who would help them improve (and improve the team in the process) on a regular basis.

I guess I'm weird. I coached my dd when she pitched in HS. She went 29-1 with a perfect game and a couple of no hitters. She didn't get recruited to pitch in college so I stopped pitching her in HS. My other pitchers went to private coaches on Sundays. They never missed practice. I was my teams hitting coach long before I took the coaching position. Most of them started with me when they played with my dd on a TB team. I was free so it made sense to the parents to use me as their dd's pitching coach.

 

[Cannonball]

4 coaches? For a high school? That's incredibly rare. Hard to compare those practices to a typical middle school practice.

Again I don't know where I gave the impression that I was middle school BUT they have 3 coaches at the middle school who are all the HS staff. I don't do the middle school. I'm the one left out. If some of you will recall, I made a post long ago about the difference between building a program and having a team. This is a huge part of that. I am now retired so I volunteer. The pitching coach volunteers. Coaches need to recognize volunteers in their community who coach for the love of the game.

 

[_MIA_]

Again I don't know where I gave the impression that I was middle school BUT they have 3 coaches at the middle school who are all the HS staff. I don't do the middle school. I'm the one left out. If some of you will recall, I made a post long ago about the difference between building a program and having a team. This is a huge part of that. I am now retired so I volunteer. The pitching coach volunteers. Coaches need to recognize volunteers in their community who coach for the love of the game.

DD's future MS (she is entering 6th grade in the Fall) and HS both have openings for head softball coach if you want to move to OK Oh, and despite being in Norman, OK, this will be like the 4th or 5th coach in both over the last 10 years to give you an idea of what sort of program they have...nowhere but up for you I'll even offer to shag balls for free as an incentive....

 

[bmakj]

DD's future MS (she is entering 6th grade in the Fall) and HS both have openings for head softball coach if you want to move to OK Oh, and despite being in Norman, OK, this will be like the 4th or 5th coach in both over the last 10 years to give you an idea of what sort of program they have...nowhere but up for you I'll even offer to shag balls for free as an incentive....

and also provide instruction on proper throwing technique for water bottles?