- Jun 22, 2008
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It isn't the making of money......well, it is by convincing parents to chase the carrot.
I always thought that a "travel ball lite" (TBL) program would be a great thing. Somewhere in commitment between "rec all-stars" and "full-blown travel ball", where the TBL team would only play maybe 8 - 10 tournaments (40 to 50 games a year?) and still allow time for other sports, activities. Does a limited softball program like this exist?
We set our organization to be what I consider TB-Lite but the goal was to be value added and strip away much that was fluff IMO. We had one uniform (with shorts and pants). Practiced indoors throughout the winter and participated in local Dome leagues. Brought in local college coaches to do clinics. Limited travel in the summer to one or two out of state trips and Nationals. Made sure we played top local competition at all times and avoided trophy hunting.
We ended up winning about 3/4's of our games and never finishing lower than 5th in a major tournament over a two year period. Basically we hovered around as about the 3rd best team in the state for two years while spending about 1/3 the money that the other top 10 teams did. In the end we were a victim of our own success, every kid on the squad with college potential was lured away to clubs that travel more and get more exposure because that is what the parents and players want.
They don't want to hear that the way to get into college is to #1 make yourself the best player you can be, #2 Identify the colleges you really want to go to and contact them, attend camps and clinics there, then attend college showcases that those coaches will attend and let them know when they can see you. If your at a showcase and your a pitcher and you throw 70 mph, you will get noticed by coaches you have never talked to before. If your not a standout pitcher, or god forbid you play another position, your chances of being noticed by a coach you haven't previously contacted are miniscule IMO but there is no limit to the parents willing to spend $2000 on a family trip to Colorado over 4th of July Weekend so that their DD can play 2nd base and be ignored while the college coaches in the stands obsess over every pitcher they can watch that week.
I talked to two of our teams last year about college recruiting, ( btw I made profile sheets for every kid and for 90% I had to pull the information from them usually by asking for it about a dozen times or going around them and finding it on their HS websites) out of 24 kids I had three that could bring themselves to give me a short list of schools they were interested in. One was set on Univ of Texas because she had family history there. I encouraged her to attend a winter camp there, wrote her a letter of recommendation, made sure she was pre-sold prior to going down there, and followed up after the camp. She actually made it onto the watch list there and I ended up getting phone calls from Connie Clark asking for schedules on where she could be seen. Newsflash, in about 90% of the cases, that's how it works. You identify a school, you show interest in them, if your up to snuff they show interest in you. Why would a college coach spend time evaluating players that don't want to attend their college when they have laundry lists full of kids that have shown them (by attending camps and clinics) that they are serious about attending that school.
This a free country and people can choose to spend their money however they want. If you want to spend 5-10K a year chasing a college scholarship because you have the money to spend and it's more about the prestige than it is about the money, god bless you. But I see families with limited finances paying for what I consider frivolous trips hoping their daughter will get seen when they don't even ask their kid to do basic things (like write the coaches at the colleges she's interested in a letter expressing her interest and asking when their might be a camp or clinic she can attend and btw her is my schedule of where I will be playing in case you want to come see me.) About a month ago a team from the Twin Cities flew out to CA to play in a fall showcase. The entire tournament ended up being rained out except for some Friday scrimmages. There are good colleges in this state that run around $6K a year for tuition. That weekend had to cost $1K (airfare, hotel etc..) to play two scrimmages. What kills me is that I think there are parents that look at that situation and say "Wow, cool, I want my daughter to get the chance to do that too." I must just be a tightwad because it almost makes me physically ill thinking about spending that much money and not even getting to play ball or get the kids seen. I don't blame the guys that set it up, they can't control the weather, and clearly this is what people want.
Thanks for sharing your experience, great insight into the reality of travel ball. For my DDs situation, we are just looking into how she can play fastpitch at a higher level (10U travel ball?) without having to commit to the sport 100% throughout the year. She has many other interests and I don't want to put her in a situation where she cannot pursure those other activities that she loves to do. I thought a travel ball lite program might be something that we and other families would be interested in to possibly achieve "the best of both worlds".
Regarding TBL, I like the idea of playng primarily in the summer. How much practice do you do in the Fall? Because of the weather in SoCal you can play pretty much year-round but for TBL you could limit play to Summer and a few tourney's in fall and have the rest of the year for other activities such as spring soccer, basketball, etc.. I think parents and players would be receptive to this limited schedue if it afforded them time for other pursuits?
I think the excessive starting costs are a good thing. The last thing you need is to have parents be "surprised" about how expensive it is and quit halfway through the season. If you hit them hard at the start you thin the herd.
SoCalSoftballDad - Easy solution. Move to Illinois. Brians org has at least 3 - 4 10u teams of varying commitment levels. My org has 2 10u teams. One of them would have to be a good fit your family. Oh, it's 7 degrees and 3 inches of snow out there now. You are OK with that right? Seriously. The best advice I can think of is figure out what you would consider as a perfect team and start talking to coaches in your area. In our area fastpitch is a pretty small community and everyone knows everyone. Get the word out with some coaches about what you are looking for and more than likely someone will point you in the right direction.