Make Sure to Read All of My Confessions of a Travel Softball Coach
Year One
When Aubree was four or five, we signed her up for the local rec league. As she was our only child, we had already spent time with her in the back yard hitting the ball off of the tee. My memory is fuzzy and it wasn't as easy to catalog things then as they are now, but I recall her having a good eye for the ball. But, not having seen the ability of the other kids, I didn't have anything to compare to and since she was my kid, I firmly believed she was a prodigy. This was around 2010-2011, and about the time I started competitively fishing, which you know happens on Saturdays. I was also fishing multiple times a week and if it was football season, well, we were going to be in front of the TV all day, come hell or high water.
Since I was fishing every Saturday I could, I didn't want to coach because I didn't want to shortchange the kids. My dad was an awesome coach, so my experience was if my dad could do it, so could every other dad in the world. "She would be fine with some other dad, they didn't need me." We all seek the path of least resistance, so handing her off to other parents was easy and painless. My wife couldn't do much because she had just had our second child.
That first year was everything I hoped it would be. Aubree was under the tutelage of Coach Jeff. Coach Jeff was extremely competitive, but in the right way. He believed in player development and fairness, especially at that early age. I don't recall the exact situation, so I am speculating here, but I believe Aubree was added to an existing team from the previous year. This could be because she was a new player or could have been because she tried out and just wasn't good enough to be drafted by the other teams. Coach Jeff had an older daughter who was already playing ball, perhaps even travel ball. More importantly, he had two twin daughters that were easily the best two players in the entire league of 8 or more teams.
Still, Coach Jeff rotated players. I don't recall what practices were like and honestly, at that stage in my life, I was still immature (more so even than now, believe it or not) and I had convinced myself that Aubree didn't need me to coach, which could be because I was selfish and wanted to use that time for me, but also may have been me being naive or may just have been because Jeff was doing a great job. They won games. In fact, they won them all during the regular season and it wasn't even close. By then, a few things were painfully obvious. First, like her parents, she didn't have the physical gifts in terms of height and power. But where I had been a speedy kid that could outrun anything, she had her mom's speed. In other words, a little arm, a little bat, and a lack of speed to make up for any of it. But she paid attention and she always knew what to do, within reason. So instead of practicing extra with her, I decided to wait until the off season.
After the season, Coach Jeff asked if we would like to be a part of the All-Star team and we politely refused because Aubree just wasn't that good and we didn't want to take up a spot for a better player that he might overlook.
This was the first tactical error we truly made, other than me not coaching all along. Before Coach Jeff ever asked if we would let Aubree play, he already had a plan in mind and that included the knowledge of Aubree's talent. Perhaps if I had known his plan, I might have acted differently, but I didn't know better. His plan, like essentially all other serious coaches' plan, was to build a local All-Star team, compete in local All-Star tournaments before turning that team into a travel ball team.
The talent of the players wasn't nearly as important as selecting the right families, those that were dedicated to the sport. These were five and six year old kids and while some were obviously better than others, practice would likely cure any player's woes and make them a competent player and he planned on practicing enough to coach her up. She had the attitude and the parents he wanted and he understood that the development was on him and he accepted that.
I had no experience to draw from because my childhood experience was that there was practices MAYBE twice a week, a season, a county tournament, All-Star tournament, and then you moved on to the next sport. So the whole idea of not playing soccer (the next sport) wasn't considered and so Aubree, who was obviously not ready for bigger ball in our opinion, could keep playing ON SATURDAYS during football season AND practice MULTIPLE times a week wasn't on my agenda.
In retrospect, I knew deep down inside that I was procrastinating with getting Aubree better. I'd make it up to her before next season. I can say that despite being naive, I did have one belief that experience has taught me was correct and one that I have preached to Aubree during her darkest days on the diamond: Every player's relative skill versus everyone else is a graph and that graph isn't a straight line. It has peaks and valleys. The goal wasn't to be the best at eight, but at eighteen, when it mattered the most. You will read this many more times from me.
Growing up, I had personally seen the best players in the county, year after year, quit grinding because they were the best and they knew it. I played baseball with the same guys every single year from five to fifteen. At different times, different players rose to the top of being the best while I stayed in the middle of the pack. By eight grade, literally zero of those guys....who once won a county championship....even made the high school team. I was the only player from my middle school to even make the high school baseball team, and because of that, I quit baseball forever, which I still consider a grave mistake for me.
And so, the first season was in the books and it was a good one. Everyone likes winning and while I couldn't identify with it, in terms of experience, it was exciting to see Aubree experience it. We moved on to soccer season.
Lesson's Learned:
- If you are worried about your player's development, it starts and ends with you. That means practice as often as you think of it. If you feel guilty or anxiety about your player, go play ball.
- If you worry about having a good coach, go coach.
- The more games and practices you can have, the better. Play All-Star. Play Travel Ball (at this point, many of you think this is hyperbole, but just bear with me)
- Sometimes coaches aren't looking for talent. They are looking for coach-ability and attitude, and in both the player AND the parents.
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