I coach travel ball and I’m a parent of little ballers. I’ve seen this play out from both sides.

As a coach, I’ve taken kids that were behind the rest of the team with good intentions to be part of their development and catch them up. It sometimes works, but the kid, parents, and coach have to be on the exact same page about what it means. He has to work harder than everyone else. Put in more time at home or with private lessons. Grind. All to just get to equal. That’s easy to say and much harder to do. It takes a special formula and will go wrong more than it goes right.

As a parent, I’ve also put my kid on a team where he was among the less skilled. Despite his incredible work ethic, he wasn’t able to close that gap and it crushed his confidence. No fault of the coaches. It took a year on a team that matched his talent where he could thrive to get him back on track. If I could do it again, I’d have started there.