Tryouts, tryouts, tryouts

'Tis the season for sotball tryouts.

There's this neat site called HeyBucket where people post about everything and anything. There are also times when topics can get heated! And while entertaining, it's sad that some parents operate in such a fashion to intimidate other parents, put kids down and basically be an @$$.

Before Fall season starts up, many teams and girls are making changes. In southern California, many girls move to travel ball after a successful first-year 12u season in rec. Coming from a smaller group of 10u travel teams, it's amazing how many MORE 12u travel teams there are in SoCal! Just look at how many topics are in the "Looking for players board!

Line after line of this team looking for this and that and we're great and we're better than all the rest when really... they are all the same. What makes an organization better than another? Is it because they've got hotshots and heads of PGF "running" the organization and "mentoring" their teams? Let's be real. Bruce Richardson and Tony Rico are not coming to every practice. They are not going to "mentor" your team in the true sense that mentoring is. Extending a successful organization name out to others is profitable. The teams pay $ to use the name and claim to be a part of an organization. The $ rolls up to the top and funds the main 18u team, and puts $ in the big dog's pockets. Many organizations even pay their coaches! 

And that's fine and dandy and all, if you like that kind of thing. 

I'd love to see some statistics on how many travel teams a girl goes through in the span of her softball career. I'd like to see the stats on how many travel coaches are paid. How many players are flown in from other cities/state to play for a travel team (granted this is more popular in 16u and 18u, it's absolutely mind boggling for 10u and 12u). I'd like to see the win/loss ration of teams that pay their coaches to teams with volunteer coaches.

Until then we do the best we can "for our girls". After all, it is them that are playing. It is the girls that we sacrifice our Saturdays and Sundays for.