Why do some pay all this $$$ for private lessons???

[Amy in AZ.]

I am trying to think of a pitching package deal to offer for Feb. Last year, I only gave 7 lessons in Feb. Currently, I charge $20 for 45 minutes or 6 lessons for $110.

Can you think of a slogan that I can use and get some kids in for a package of $10.00 lessons? I am thinking of something like "5 in Feb." and offer 5 lessons for $50.00. Or "$50.00 February" or something like that. I am not against offering one free lesson.

But, I wasn't a marketing major. I was PE. Do you have any ideas? I have t-shirts that I give away, too. Amy

 

[GOINGDEEP]

jofus13

We had a time with the old changeup. We picked up the rise, drop, screw , curve, slingshot, off speed, pretty easy. But that dang changeup drove me nuts. I guess I had forgotten that when I pitched baseball there were pitches that gave me trouble. ( maybe I forgot on purpose ) lol

We tried the knuckle ball change, flip, palmball, circle grip , backhand flip, you name we tried it. Now we stick with front flip and circle change. We will even throw a changeup slingshot. ( that's a pretty cool pitch )

First year coaching your own team is tuff. It will get better.

 

[jofus13]

Amy,

our pitching coach offers a deal where you basically pay for 5 lessons up front, but get 6 lessons. Actually, I believe it may be $200, so it's a little less than 5 lessons would cost. But, he doesn't really advertise it, it's just something he offers his ongoing students.

He's retired from his real job (teacher/coach, after retiring from the military (where he pitched)), and does lessons Tue-Frid from around 3 til 9:30 or so, plus all day Saturday, and has a full schedule of normal students plus a fairly large waiting list of people who take any open spots that come up due to cancelations.

Goingdeep, my DD pitches 3 changeups...maybe she should concentrate on one particular one, but they give 3 different "looks" and slightly different speeds, plus, sometimes one of them just seems to "take the day off", so it's been nice having options when that happens. Mainly, she needs to learn to trust the changeup more in games :|

And I appreciate the thought, but I'm not coaching her this year, I'm gonna sit on the side and watch (and try to keep my mouth shut). I think it will be better for her in the long run, plus I wasn't great at all of the administrative stuff (finding hotels, finding kids to fill in for vacations, etc.). I'm more comfortable coaching than managing....I may drop down and help coach my boy's little league baseball team, though

 

[mudbug]

First of all I scouted him, he didn't scout us. Told you before I looked for years to find the best school program. And every time I asked, this guy's name came up. I checked on how many he has helped move on to college. So why are you hating on this guy? Does it make you feel small that out there somewhere a coach actually cares about his players? You should be praising him because that's what ALL coaches should be doing. How many have you helped get to college?

Rounding his coaching years to 25, then round his 'about 100' kids to college to 80= 3 kids a year. That doesn't sound like a big number to me. Not from this area anyway.

You said "education is more important that playing for a two bit school", well what the heck? If he can help these kids get a FREE education off of their sports more power to him. Why would you knock this guy around for helping them get a 50-100k education. Most parents would kiss this guy's feet. Some of these kids may be glad to go to a lesser school just because their family may not have been able to afford it without the scholarship. So get off your high horse, cause I seriously doubt I will see your DD playing at Arizona, Texas Am, UF.

Now I see why your school ball sucks. You say "The impact a HS coach can have in 3 months or so , playing 25 games with limited practice time, against weaker competition , etc pales in comparison to year-round practices"..................... Try more like 6 months, and 50 regular season games ( even more during playoffs ). Limited practice? Try 3 hours 5 days a week. ( I bet your little travel team doesn't do that much practice a week ) Between HS and travel we are playing over 130 games a year.

It is just natural in this state. All the best "A" and gold players............also play HS ball. Maybe they care about representing their school and hometown, it's called pride. Once school is over we all scatter to our travel teams. And yes, all diff levels. Some may play "B" some "A" some 'gold'.

I think you and some on here have a diff agenda than me on college. Sure I want my DD to play in college ( and hopefully for free ) but I don't want her to play 1000 miles away. Do you? I want to be able to watch as many games as I can. I want to be in the stands cheering for my kid. If she wants to go to a big school far away because of a particular study that's another story. But I do not drill in her head that I will be ashamed if she doesn't get into the 'big 10' schools. But I feel like some of you might do that to yours.

Calm down, I dont hate the guy, dont even know him. What I was saying is that 100 kids from a single HS in 20 yrs was a bit hard to believe. Now that you have back-pedaled by 40%, it becomes a bit more possible though.

HS attendance districts are not very big, at all. You cannot choose where to go for public HS that I know of, and if its private it probably has to have an attendance district as well for athletic competition reasons, normally meaning that if someone from out of its district wants to go there they will have to give up the first year of eligibility after transferring in. These are normal High School Athletic association rules intended to prevent schools from unfairly recruiting players.

Often there is limitations on the amount of practice time allowed per day, and state high school athletic governing bodies usually prevent coaches from having any coaching contact with players outside of the official season of the sport, which is just usually just 3 months or so, but Im certainly interested in any place that has a 6 month long HS softball season! There are great HS coaches, but every good one I know of is also a travel ball coach, or used to be.

I didnt mean to knock D2 or D3 schools in general, many small schools have excellent academics, But there are a lot of junior colleges and local colleges that are pretty poor academics wise as well. I said many girls choose not to accept scholarships to small schools, or schools that they arent really interested in just so they can continue playing softball, and that is a fact.Why does that bother you so? Almost all 18Gold players will get some kind of scholarship offer somewhere, maybe half will accept them. At some point the education is more important. Everyone might love to play for a top D1 school, thats very exciting. Not so much to play for a small local school in D2, unless it offers the education they want too. Small schools dont have many degree programs that major universities do.

Yes, you are correct, if it is the only way to go to college they will be more apt to go to a small school or junior college, etc. Many elite travel ball girls are from families that will have other options though. The fact that they probably paid about $40,000-60,000 or more for their daughters to play travel ball from 12U on up basically shows that.

Though I dont need to share any personal info, my own daughters personal choice of field of study also limits her choices of where to go to college.

Normally, wherever you are, HS ball is nothing like the elite ball in the area. The good players arent concentrated enough in HS ball. Yes the same players also usually play HS ball, but the teams arent the same level as travel play. Travel players almost always "carry" their HS teams. And having 1/3 or even 1/2 a team is not the same thing as having a whole team of gifted girls, not even close. That is why a decent 16U travel team can likely beat almost every HS team in the state, except maybe 1 or 2 that might have the top pitcher in the state pitching for them by sheer luck. That pitcher of course is a travel ball product too, she has been pitching since she was 10.

 

[Dusty]

Calm down, I dont hate the guy, dont even know him. What I was saying is that 100 kids from a single HS in 20 yrs was a bit hard to believe. Now that you have back-pedaled by 40%, it becomes a bit more possible though.

Lol, I've got a feeling that if we all witnessed the reality vs. what GD has posted just on this thread there would be back-pedeling of up to 99%. Nothing personal GD, but based on what you've posted hereI think I'll keep paying $$$ for my dd's private coach. On top of that I'll probably buy Denny Tincher's video when it comes out.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

Lol, I've got a feeling that if we all witnessed the reality vs. what GD has posted just on this thread there would be back-pedeling of up to 99%. Nothing personal GD, but based on what you've posted hereI think I'll keep paying $$$ for my dd's private coach. On top of that I'll probably buy Denny Tincher's video when it comes out.

I did state 'over' 20 years, Guy that grew up here said this is his 24th year, so I missed my rounding by 1 year. I hope you can forgive that big mistake. I also stated he said 'close' to 100 kids. The coach is 60+ years old, so when he said '100' I was guessing low with 80. I do know for a fact the 4 years I have been watching he has sent 8 kids to play college ball. Seen his BIG smiling face in the paper at signing. You can check my original post for accuracy.

Keep paying all you want. I'd put my daughter pitching and hitting against yours any day.

 

[Cannonball]

Goindeep, do you have your daughter on YouTube? You can pm if you want on that response. Mine is. Type in Brianna Butler Softball Skills Video

I coached baseball in one of the top programs in the U.S. In fact, a couple of teams were ranked #1 in the U.S. We won 64 games in a row once and had a perfect season of 40-0 once. I've been blessed to say the least. We were fortunate to put a lot of kids in college and a few in professional ball. I once figured that 92% of my players went on to play in college. However a lot of them were D-III or JUCO. Still, they played in college. Of course I had some that played D-I as well and some of them have played anywhere from the Midwest to the Gulf Coach to the Atlantic Coast. That's pretty neat. You must be associated with an outstanding program.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

Goindeep, do you have your daughter on YouTube? You can pm if you want on that response. Mine is. Type in Brianna Butler Softball Skills Video

I coached baseball in one of the top programs in the U.S. In fact, a couple of teams were ranked #1 in the U.S. We won 64 games in a row once and had a perfect season of 40-0 once. I've been blessed to say the least. We were fortunate to put a lot of kids in college and a few in professional ball. I once figured that 92% of my players went on to play in college. However a lot of them were D-III or JUCO. Still, they played in college. Of course I had some that played D-I as well and some of them have played anywhere from the Midwest to the Gulf Coach to the Atlantic Coast. That's pretty neat. You must be associated with an outstanding program.

Nice video, we watched it this morning during breakfast. She has a great build for the game. How tall is she? Hard to tell but my guess 5'8-5'9? Did you shoot the video yourself? We have a professional here locally that does the 'scouting' videos. I guess that's one of the things I actually will pay for. Mine is just a freshmen, so I will probably wait a another year before doing the video.

64 games in a row is dang tuff. Most we ever have was 36 games our first year 12u ball.

 

[MTR]

Depends again where you live and what division ball you play. Sure a single A school usually is nothing to write home about. We play 4 AAAA ball. Big difference. You better not stick a jack leg pitcher out there. They will pound him or her all night long.

Yes, it depends on where you live, but a label on a conference or league doesn't mean much of anything, either. What you call 4AAAA ball (isn't that a redundancy) may be the same as Div 3 or C ball in another area.

There is no realistic method of properly rating schools that do not compete in the same program through comparing schedules and results. Like the USAToday polls and ratings, it is pure presumption and carries zero credibility. Even college ratings and rankings are subjective which is why they settle it on the field.

 

[MTR]

To answer the question in the subject line:

CARROT

That is why people pay. They are chasing the almighty carrot, the same one used to lure a stubborn mule into moving forward.

People end up tripping over a dime to pick up a nickle.

Never made any sense to me.