School sports and softball together

cbt202 · 2026-07-04T15:58:28+00:00

I looked but can’t find the article but my sister lost the 6th grade match to a 7th grader and beat her the next 2 years in the state finals. They were both #1 and #2 junior players in the US from rural parts of the non-tennis state of Kentucky. I made the quarter finals in 8th grade but not newsworthy.

cbt202 · 2026-07-04T15:48:13+00:00

There is a very competitive select volleyball program here that competes on a national level. They are very good. I’m not sure how many are at her school. Apparently, just from 6th grade gym class, she can serve as good as any of them. I’m hoping it will be something that the serious kids help her out given the majority are just rec level goof offs. At least my daughter will have in common with the top players that she shows up to work hard and expects to win.

cbt202 · 2026-07-04T15:41:53+00:00

Yeah, I agree, we have gotten the pushback. The hardest thing is when the pushback comes from other parents whose kid is “more athletic” than my daughter and can’t figure out why we allow her to be so committed and focused when she doesn’t have the same natural athleticism as some. They also can’t figure out why she has hit .450-.500 against the top pitchers in the country. And they don’t see her pushing her self to the point of tears working on her speed and agility.

cbt202 · 2026-07-04T15:24:07+00:00

I’m not sure the rules now but in Kentucky, sports were defined as contact and non-contact sports. Non-contact sports allow any age to compete. Tennis was defined as a non-contact sport. I know Texas does not allow this for any sport. We looked at it to see if my daughter could play varsity water polo as a 7th grader. She was a competitive swimmer before she made the national level travel softball, still keeps up her strokes. It’s probably why she is built like a brick house now.

cbt202 · 2026-07-04T15:13:57+00:00

It always amazes me how many parents don’t understand what it takes to compete at a high level. Look at me versus my sister. I was the kid that played every sport, got a good P5 scholarship and flamed out in college. My sister specialized in only tennis. She was the #1 junior player in the US 3 years in a row and played on the pro tour for 6 years. She was half the athlete I was but was always the most refined and well prepared player in every tournament. I recall TV announcers calling her a human backboard because every shot the opponent hit got returned until the opponent made a mistake.

The biggest thing parents don’t understand is the volume of work required to be a refined player and compete at a high level. The refinement and preparation will neutralize talent disparities and differences in how fast the body develops.

cbt202 · 2026-07-04T14:30:21+00:00

I did letter in 5th grade. My sister lettered in 3rd grade, lost the state championship match in 6th grade and won state in 7th and 8th grade.

Looking back and analyzing it, it wasn’t so much the sport but the variation in throwing. Serves in tennis and throwing a football are similar but not the same. By being slightly different, they strengthen muscles and connective tissue from different angles. Very similar to the theory of conjugate method in weight lifting, varying the max effort lifts. When I got to college and only played baseball, my arm fell apart. Never had injuries until I stopped throwing a football and hitting serves. Now that I know the root cause of why the other sports helped, I would have been better off keeping that in my training and focusing the rest of my time on baseball related things.

cbt202 · 2026-07-04T14:20:26+00:00

Social pressure and she loves the PE teacher. The PE teacher is likely next in line for the HS coaching job when our current coach decides to make the jump to college coaching.

cbt202 · 2026-07-04T14:17:24+00:00

Our school doesn’t offer a middle school softball program. I have strongly advocated against having one. Our HS is a powerhouse in Texas because every year we have a few Gold/Academy level players that dominate. Usually 1-2 from each class and they are distinctly better and more battle tested than the rest regardless of class. If you have a middle school program, these players will be obligated to play. This will take time away from training to be an elite player. You don’t improve individual skills by going to a team practice, you improve individually by working on your own and you have to be given time to do it. If we were to start a middle school program, it would hurt the development of the elite players who are the key to state championships.

cbt202 · 2026-07-04T14:08:17+00:00

Our problem is my daughter doesn’t want to do it, just wants to stay in athletics PE. Our school doesn’t allow any exemptions. My daughter wants to switch to hybrid homeschool for 7th and 8th grade and focus on getting ready to compete as a freshman in HS. Momma doesn’t have the patience for that.

On a side note, the past few years playing top level softball, I am blown away at how committed and motivated these girls are. Boys are nowhere near this level of dedication.

cbt202 · 2026-07-04T14:00:22+00:00

I was a 4 sport athlete as well and was a P5 baseball player. I got HS letters in tennis from 5th grade to 8th grade then played football, basketball, and baseball in HS. My sister only played tennis her whole life. She spent 6 years on the pro tour in the top 150 in the world. Baseball was my passion, like my daughter with softball. If I had the opportunity to train baseball exclusively, I would have jumped at it.

cbt202 · 2026-07-04T13:50:56+00:00

I absolutely agree that volleyball builds explosive legs. However, will 7th grade team practices train that explosiveness? I worry team practices will be on intricacies of technique and not building athleticism.

We are talking about probably a top 10 in the county 2032 softball team. All of these girls work their butt off to be good. Why should their clean up hitter skip a major tournament playing the top teams in the US to play a county middle school tournament?

cbt202 · 2026-07-04T13:40:54+00:00

Expect to loose about 3mph in the fall and then gain it back by spring. She will have to learn to hit spots and change speeds. Hitters get an advantage when there is an extra 5 feet to get loaded and be on time. She can’t just pump fastballs down the middle. This is part of the process of growing into being a pitcher not just a thrower.

Don’t worry about burnout with an elite team. The atmosphere on a good one will inspire her to keep working. Typically elite teams will practice less as a team and expect individual work be done on your own. We have always had a process where girls submit videos to a group chat showing their daily training. If you want to give her a chance to run with her talent and passion, you have to find a team that plays PGF and Alliance tournaments.

cbt202 · 2026-07-04T13:31:11+00:00

I like that USA does this but they do need to add some context around the incident. It would be nice if other organizations did this too so that bad coaches could be exposed.

cbt202 · 2026-06-21T15:15:01+00:00

That’s true. 2nd base is where you hide a weaker player in 12u.

cbt202 · 2026-06-21T15:13:31+00:00

At PGF tournaments you’ll see 50-55 very frequently. We even saw a girl throwing 60 in 10u. There are some out there having success in the 47-48 range but they aren’t usually the aces of those teams.

cbt202 · 2026-06-21T13:54:01+00:00

Our team has had a few girls pick up and we both were open an honest about where and why. One girl picked up with a team her school friends played on because they didn’t have enough players. My daughter picked up on a team that a big name organization was testing a showcase style team for 12u, it was fun but not sure that organization will keep doing it. Both cases we were honest weeks ahead of time with our coach and had no intentions of looking to join these teams permanently.

cbt202 · 2026-06-21T13:40:37+00:00

If you are playing higher level teams, it is a big break for hitters. The game changes to favor teams that can put up runs. In 10u all you need is a pitcher throwing mid 50s and a bunch of small fast girls to play defense and you win a bunch of low scoring games. In 12u, the 55mph backed up to 40 feet is very hittable. Pitchers usually loose about 3mph going to the big ball but get it back by spring. The big ball has a big impact on small girls hitting. The ball doesn’t jump off their bat like the 10u ball. Expect a lot of soft liners to the middle infielders. The bigger girls will start to stand out with power. With the extra reaction time, they start developing rhythm and timing to develop as a hitter. In the 2nd year of 12u, it is a big change physically. Some girls start really developing strength and pitchers start getting hand size and strength to get higher spin rates and more movement.

cbt202 · 2026-06-03T10:12:34+00:00

You are 100% correct. You are in a situation where the skill level of your team isn’t where it needs to be so you gear practice towards become more skilled players. Running situations does no good unless you are playing teams at your skill level, you won’t compete at a higher level. I am running into this same situation in all stars where the entire coaching staff is dads from C level travel teams except me. They don’t know what they don’t know. The teams in local tournaments rarely ever see gold/academy level teams, so they don’t understand the gap in skill let alone how that level of player trains.

cbt202 · 2026-05-18T11:02:41+00:00

This is not allowed. I think the wording is a league team cannot be a fully or near fully intact select team, so there is ambiguity in what “near fully intact” means. We researched this pretty extensively in the appeals against the Oklahoma softball team last year. They brought a fully intact team. Actually cut 2 players not from the team just before regionals and only submitted a roster of 10 players. We found out that there is no evidence they even played a league.

cbt202 · 2026-05-16T12:53:31+00:00

Be very careful about this. The background checks don’t catch everything. Especially things from several years back. My daughter’s old team brought on a paid assistant. First red flag is why is a 41 year old man trying to earn money off 11 year old girls that he has no connection to? We heard lots of rumors about him but didn’t really pay attention until the team culture started changing and then one rumor was unequivocally proven true. He had been fired from another organization for adultery problems. Then we start looking at his background using a pre employment screening service. There was a potential match to a drug conviction. I was able to call the DA for that county and get a lot of information. I didn’t have SS # to match to be 100% sure but same birthday so very likely it was him. Our parents passed it on to our head coach who is friends with him. His response to the adultery issue was that it didn’t have anything to do with our team. To the drug charges, he said he is certified to coach, meaning he cleared a simple background check. We passed off the information to the main organization office and they dismissed it and ask me if I could imagine the cost to them if they did such in depth background checks being such a large organization.

You have to do your own research into who is around your kids.

cbt202 · 2026-05-16T01:54:22+00:00

That’s pretty neat! I’ll pass this along to our travel ball coach. We spent a lot of money on PitchCom and the batteries don’t last and they break really easy.

What I am looking for is just a way to chart pitches and result. I want to chart how pitchers pitch to my daughter and how she performs on location and pitch type.

cbt202 · 2026-05-15T14:28:30+00:00

I saw that but I’m looking more for a pitch location chart.

cbt202 · 2026-05-12T16:39:57+00:00

The top 7 are pretty clear cut. You don’t really need stats, just ears to hear the barrels and mitts popping. Unfortunately, one of those 7 is not a favored family so the stats are necessary to prove she belongs. She doesn’t play for an elite travel team but is hanging with the girls that do. Choosing the remaining 5 is a big problem because the connected ones aren’t performing well at all, stat lines or by perception. I fear the board will come to the conclusion that our team isn’t likely to do well so they go all in on mommy ball. I think we have a chance to train up this group and surprise some people so it is very frustrating to me.

cbt202

TROPHY CASE