travel teams and youth sports in general

[R.P.McMurphy]

@jsc1953

I think you have it exactly backwards. The difference between Little League and travel teams, is that Little League has mandatory play rules: everybody who comes to the field gets into the game. No exceptions. (Not everybody plays the same amount, but everyone is guaranteed at least 1 at bat and 2 innings on defense.)

So if you’re looking for fun, competition, good times with your friends and relatively low cost to the parents – you’re looking for Little League.

30 years as a LL coach and umpire.

I don’t think I have it backwards. I don’t doubt that you are doing a good job as coach and are doing your best to run a league that is good for the kids.

My experience goes way back but it was mostly watching the best players play and and the rest just wearing uniforms. 1 at bat isn’t enough. 10 at bats, which will happen at the sandlot, is more like it. The coaches concentrated their coaching on the starters and the scrubs, who needed the most instruction, were left to their own devices. Kids whose parents coached got obvious favoritism.

Let the kids have fun and parents, stay the hell away. Kids have an innate sense of fairness so let them work out their differences. Give the kids some bats, balls, gloves and a catcher’s mask and let them spend the day having fun. Let them put some of those empty fields to good use.

[The_Stainless_Steel_Rat]

@Monty

I am personally against youth sports leagues as they are currently run in the United States. They are not school or youth clubs; they are training grounds for the professional leagues. That is why too many parents and coaches get so invested in the “win at all costs” mentality. I’ll probably get flamed for this, but here goes anyway: American youth sports leagues currently do not teach what they purport to teach; rather, they are just another form of child abuse.

I do have to disagree with you, but not (I think) flame you (YMMV).

I’m associated with the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO) as a coach and referee, who stand by the following six philosophies:

Everyone Plays®
Balanced Teams
Open Registration
Positive Coaching
Good Sportsmanship

Player Development

And in general they do an excellent job with it (it’s pretty much an all-volunteer force, I get exactly $0 for my work) and all the kids in our region (1500 or so) must play 3/4 of every game before anyone plays 100%.

That said, the last (and most recently added) philosophy is leading to AYSO “Extra” teams, which stay together year round and play in tournaments against club-level squads, which make adherence to the first five philosophies a bit tougher. I’m still working with kids who just want to play, but if the 'travel League" syndrome starts rearing it’s head, I’ll be out of there.

But right now AYSO is trying (and succeeding) in bringing soccer as a fun game to people.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@jsc1953

I think you have it exactly backwards. The difference between Little League and travel teams, is that Little League has mandatory play rules: everybody who comes to the field gets into the game. No exceptions. (Not everybody plays the same amount, but everyone is guaranteed at least 1 at bat and 2 innings on defense.)

So if you’re looking for fun, competition, good times with your friends and relatively low cost to the parents – you’re looking for Little League.

30 years as a LL coach and umpire.

I have to agree here. I think Little League is great for the sport. I have parents who had no idea what a shortstop was suddenly talking about how well the Nationals are doing. I have 7 year olds who have no talent for the sport learn to enjoy the sport because they get as much playtime as anyone else and frankly most teams distribute the defensive positions evenly between players during the regular season.

This changes a bit later when players are assigned positions and the weaker players start to drop out. But their little league experience stays with them.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@R.P.McMurphy

I don’t think I have it backwards. I don’t doubt that you are doing a good job as coach and are doing your best to run a league that is good for the kids.

My experience goes way back but it was mostly watching the best players play and and the rest just wearing uniforms. 1 at bat isn’t enough. 10 at bats, which will happen at the sandlot, is more like it. The coaches concentrated their coaching on the starters and the scrubs, who needed the most instruction, were left to their own devices. Kids whose parents coached got obvious favoritism.

Let the kids have fun and parents, stay the hell away. Kids have an innate sense of fairness so let them work out their differences. Give the kids some bats, balls, gloves and a catcher’s mask and let them spend the day having fun. Let them put some of those empty fields to good use.

What age level are you talking about?

The sandlot is not very kind to the scrubs. Scrubs don’t get a lot of playtime in the sandlot. They get picked last (and grudgingly) in front of everyone. They get relegated to right field. They are last in the lineup and their teammates audibly groan when they take the plate. Their teammates tell them they suck because no one is there to teach them about teamwork or sportsmanship. Organized sports is almost the only avenue for scrubs to get much playtime at all.

In our league, the T-Ball, machine pitch, coach pitch teams all have pretty strict player participation requirements that mean that everyone has a spot in the batting order and everyone plays at least 2 infield innings per game. Noone rides the bench twice until everyone has been benched for at least 1 inning. Everyone must use a continuous batting order so at the end of the game, no player will have more than 1 extra at bat compared to any other player.

At these early levels the best players don’t really need much coaching, just their share of swings at bat and their share of fielding and a tip here and there to slowly develop their skills so they will be ready when they get drafted the next season. The worst players will not benefit much from coaching unless a disproportionate amount of coaching time is spent on them. You just need to have them take a lot of swings and field a lot of grounders during practice until they turn that corner and they start batting .300 or better. IME, the best use of coaching time is spent on the .300 to .600 hitters and the fielders who CAN make plays but do not do so consistently.

The way games work at these lower levels, pretty much everything is a single (doubles are pretty rare) so you need 3 hits to fill up the bases before you can score your first run. You can’t focus all your attention on the best 4 or 5 players and leave 4 or 5 holes in your lineup. You will never string together enough hits to score more than 2 or 3 runs in a 6 inning game. You HAVE to work on the weaker players if you want to win any games. It does you little good to have 4 hitters bat .900 and 8 players batting .200. You are going to score 2 runs all game at best.

At higher levels (where you have to get drafted, with no guarantee you will EVER get drafted), there are no scrubs and your coaching time frequently best spent on shoring up your weakest players so you don’t have any automatic outs in your lineup and you can only hide one or two weak fielders on your defense without opening up huge holes in your defense.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Monty

My three brothers and I all bailed out of the military base sports league when the coaches and other parents decided that “winning is the only fun” and then blatantly disregarded the keague rules requiring every team member to play. Yes, we had our parents’ full support in leaving for that reason.

I am personally against youth sports leagues as they are currently run in the United States. They are not school or youth clubs; they are training grounds for the professional leagues. That is why too many parents and coaches get so invested in the “win at all costs” mentality. I’ll probably get flamed for this, but here goes anyway: American youth sports leagues currently do not teach what they purport to teach; rather, they are just another form of child abuse.

I don’t think it is common for a little league not to follow or police their own rules.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Lamar_Mundane

It sounds like some of us have different definitions of “travel” teams. What a lot of people are describing are known here as “Club” teams, i.e. private clubs with coaches who have varying levels of qualifications and is more organized than Little League or Rec league teams. The latter teams are run by unpaid volunteers, some good, some just a kids mom or dad. They draw from a small area and play very locally. This is where all eight year old’s should be.

Club teams draw from a larger area and have (largely) more qualified coaching. They enter into a pyramid structure where a team generally starts at the bottom where most teams are and move up in a promotion/relegation system. Win your league (top three actually) and move up a level where there are fewer and better teams. The very top of the pyramid are the travel teams. The best players want to play for them and try out every year. Nobody’s spot is guaranteed. It is very cutthroat and you can spend thousands of dollars to watch your kid sit on the bench all year. In my average sized state of 5.5 M people there are around ten of these teams, or the best 150 players in the state. They travel to tournaments all over the country and this is where the big expenses come in. These kids might go to one tournament at U14 and U15 but if you’re still on the team at U16, get out the checkbook.

My opinion is there is nothing wrong with 11 year old’s getting better coaching and better competition. Younger than that seems to be a waste of time.

I still don’t get why anyone under HS age needs club training for baseball or basketball or softball. There are plenty of qualified coaches that volunteer for rec teams. If your kid is good, the clubs will come to you.

P.S. Kids really get attached to their teammates and if some stud moves in from CA or TX someone is going to get cut. I’ve witnessed this and it breaks your heart. Kids can take months to recover from it, if at all. Most just quit the sport rather than move down to a lesser team.

Maybe I am using the wrong terminology. Maybe what I am referring to is club teams but most of these “club teams” have an “A” that travels. Their 9 year old teams may not travel much but they are now recruiting 8 year olds for their “club team” I have one kid who was a mediocre player from a southern state and is an absolute star here. The travel team tried to recruit them and the parents literally laughed at them, pointing out that their older son who is a more talented athlete couldn’t get colleges to even notice him never mind offer him scholarships.