Make Sure to Read All of My Confessions of a Travel Softball Coach
There were a few tournaments left in the year for her team, but there were frays in the relationship between the coaches and our family. This is the reality of travel softball and one that is a norm. My experience is that many of these aren't legitimate. That is, parents and coaches just aren't on the same page, for whatever reason. Travel ball parents, by and large, demand a lot and aren't willing to compromise. Coaches, by and large, all start in the same place: rec ball. They are prone to make tactical mistakes as well as mistakes off the field.
Players are in constant movement because of this, but also because of the ebb and flow to the game. Better players seek better teams or more playing time. That vacancy frees up spots for players who are looking for a new team. Rarely do teams form where all the players are on the same level and stick together. This movement doesn't just happen at the end of the season, but far from it. It happens constantly.
So even when we were having a lot of tension with the coach, others had either had their own issues and left, or found another team. Now, it should be mentioned that grass isn't greener on the other side and if you are constantly not getting along with your team, or the team isn't giving you what you want, it may be YOU. By the mid-point of the season, several prominent players had moved on. Eventually, we had to do the same.
Of course, our issue now was that nobody was recruiting Aubree and few teams needed a player at this stage of the year. We tried out a few times and eventually found a team. This led to a new experience for us. First, we now had to travel 30 minutes for practices, which at the time seemed a lot. Aubree was not on the level of the players on this team, to begin with, but the coach took a chance on her anyway.
Practices were hitting heavy, but the in-fielding was very challenging and Aubree was being challenged in ways she hadn't been challenged before. Of course, it hurt me a little that I wasn't needed on this coaching staff, either. This team was very competitive and they won a lot of games playing very good competition. I began to see what concentrating on hitting first will do for a team. It covers up defense that may not be perfect, and this defense was far from it. They were certainly capable, but unlike our previous team, they didn't have to play perfect to win, which took a ton of stress off of the team.
Being on this team came at a heavy cost. Aubree didn't play much. It was more of the same, really. She had a limited arm and couldn't really catch flys in the outfield. So, it was second base or right field. She was working really hard on her hitting, especially slapping, but it just wasn't there yet. Like the other team, there was an entrenched starter on second.
This was when I decided to be more proactive with her, and it only took five years to break down and get over my laziness. First, we had to get her throwing hard. The physics said she didn't have a long arm nor a lot of mass, so she would always be limited there. But, I had done nothing to fix what I could fix: her form. Her mechanics were very bad and she would not use her lower body. Also, there was a disconnect between going through the motion and doing so with effort. In other words, she just didn't know how to throw hard and push herself. I had been yelling at her for years about it, but other than showing her how I threw, I never MADE her throw right.
At the end of every throw, she should be on her left foot with her nose over her left foot, right fingers on her left pocket, facing behind her. We also emphasized that a flat throw that bounces is better than a sailing throw. This eventually fixed her release point, which was above her head, initially, with her face looking up and it made her snap her wrist instead of pushing the ball. We spent a few afternoons in the front yard working. Wouldn't you know it, a little bit of concentrated effort, as well as implementing actual discipline instead of yelling, and she began throwing with authority.
Aubree was very frustrated with sitting, and we were too. Still, we saw that this was travel ball and playing time isn't given, it's earned. And in cases like Aubree, you have to go above and beyond sometimes. You can't just be the ninth best player and expect to be on the field. Sometimes you have to make yourself so indispensable that the coach can't take you off the field. She didn't complain, at least to the coaches and she didn't have a bad attitude. We didn't either although we certainly complained to each other.
The state tournament was a rough experience for us. The team just didn't show up to play and despite having the talent to compete, they simply fell flat. There were already some whispers that the team would be disbanding, which I think had something to do with the struggles. As I would learn a year later, recruiting for the next season starts at State and that sometimes trumps play on the field. Furthermore, I began to learn that girls are simply different than boys. Typically, you have to settle boys down for games, not get them up. Short of forbidding boys to swim the day of a tournament, there isn't much that will make them come out flat. Girls are just....different. But, I hadn't really discovered that yet because I wasn't coaching, so stay tuned.
Sure enough, the team didn't make and we found ourselves looking for another team. It almost cost us a season because sometimes coaches will try and try to form a team by holding spots for elite players that they may nor may not get and next thing you know, its time to play and they don't have enough players. Converse, if you wait on a team to form and it doesn't you can find yourself without a team, especially if you are just a middle of the road player. Aubree was finally ready to start slapping and, believe it or not, there were teams wanting her to come play.
I promised myself that this was it. If she was practicing 3 times a week, so was I. And I would push her harder than any kid out there. I would never elevate her higher than another player or treat her special. In fact, I would make her earn her spot far beyond what she had to by giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, except her. That's been my life and it worked. She's my kid, so if it was good enough for her, it was good enough for me.
The question was, who needed a sub-par player and an inexperienced coach?
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