A for-real tryout tonight

[dittoz]

Well, she survived the tryout last night and it was with what is one of the top 2 teams in the area. She came home with stitch marks in her knee, a mildly pulled groin, a raw finger tip from throwing and pitching so much and best of all, an invite to come back tonight for a second look and to play in a scrimmage game.

The funny thing? She was doing stuff that in my wildest dreams I never thought she was capable of! Literally brought tears to my eyes to see her slide into a backhander at F6, pop-up spin and throw to 1st. Running down high n' deep flies in center... She was slapping from the left side, bunting and driving the ball as hard as I've ever seen her from the right and when it was done, she was almost laughing at the pain she was in.

When she played for me, the stitches on her knee alone would have had her rolling around dragging her leg and unable to stand. Tears, drama, theatrics...

Kids... !

[Bucket Mom]

So.......how'd she do? Did you find a team?

[FPdaddy]

Hey Dittoz,

What'd I tell ya?

This move will be the best decision you've made regarding her future.

My kids became different ball players once they were out from under the safety net of playing for dad.

What's really nice is that the effect lasts for a long time and bleeds over into other activities. My DD went to a club volleyball tryout on a whim and made the team with ZERO volleyball experience. In less than a season she is now the team's #1 setter and starts every game. My son is the youngest lacrosse player on his team by two years. I attribute a lot of their success to the decision I made to quit coaching.

Keith

[DonnieS]

Our situation is a little different, my 2 girls are 17 and 14 and are involved in multiple sports and wont hear of me trying to specialise them, though the oldest has trimmed down to softball, track and volleyball. They also have church responsibilities. I would not expect coaches on organization teams to totally work around their schedules - so I elected to keep coaching and keep working to keep a good group of kids around them. Both girls have played for other coaches and have done fine with them - we could get to a point where they say 'adios pop' and head to another dugout. But then what would I do with these pitching machines.

Edited to add: The only travel or club sport the girls do is softball. The track, vball, and basketball are all school sports except for some mickey mouse league stuff they do - city parks and rec stuff - where they play like wednesdays, and then camps. But even with camps, we give them choices, do you want to do vball camp or softball camp, of course the answer is both but if they have to make choices, its been softball. This year is great because vball camp starts the day after the Aggie softball camp ends.

[FPdaddy]

Donnie,

Good point! My kids also play multiple sports. I just try to be very upfront with the coaches about their other commitments. For instance, my DD is in the middle of club vball season so that is our first priotity right now even though sball is cranking up. Her sball coach understands that AS SOON as vball is over she will committ 100% to sball. This is not to say she is awol in sball right now, it's just #2 when a conflict exists.

Keith

[Kat]

Donnie,

Good point! My kids also play multiple sports. I just try to be very upfront with the coaches about their other commitments. For instance, my DD is in the middle of club vball season so that is our first priotity right now even though sball is cranking up. Her sball coach understands that AS SOON as vball is over she will committ 100% to sball. This is not to say she is awol in sball right now, it's just #2 when a conflict exists.

Keith

Our softball coach (travel) is pretty good about my dd's other sports, but the basketball coach and the vb (club coach) are not as comfortable about her other sports. This year I told the basketball coach (school) she had her for June but that was it. Travel basketball has her for part of July. Softball coach has a pretty light schedule this year so she will miss only one softball tourney in between basketball. She had to choose to not play vb (club) this year. The pressure was intense for her to join her old team but she choose basketball as her #1 sport and the vb coach just couldn't deal with it (which I understand, very competitive team) We miss vb (club) alot its a very close relationship with both girls, coach and the other parents but there comes a time you have to choose. She will still continue playing school volleyball. She is 15, and a sophmore in high school. She is very busy this summer....

[FPdaddy]

Kat,

We will have to choose as well...but my DD is only in 6th grade, so I refuse to make her choose YET!

Keith

[Kat]

Kat,

We will have to choose as well...but my DD is only in 6th grade, so I refuse to make her choose YET!

Keith

Oh definately put it off as long as you can. Someone once told me by sophmore year she would have to make the decision and they were right. Trying to wear that many hats club wise was taking its toll. There were days she literally had 6 hours of practice. Such as school softball for 3 hours (2:30-5:30) then 1.5 hours of basketball 5:30-7:00 then straight to club volleyball (7:30-10:00) 2.5 hours all of this on a school night, then she would stay up until like 1:00 am doing homework. She has always strived to get A's in her classes and has always been able to do it. But that year she got an A- in one class for one rbueport and she was really upset, because she may get 4.0 for the rest of her school work but will never be able to get back to her cumalative grade to 4.0 she can get to a 3.9875 I believe if she continues to get A's for the rest of the time. With honors courses that she takes the amount of homework is absurd!!! So as much as I miss club volleyball and that very successful team. I don't miss seeing her struggle with it all.

[dittoz]

Well, we're moving in to a new chapter...

As I posted earlier, she went out to the tryout/workout and did fantastic. At 4'6 and 65 lbs, she has to do fantastic just to be average in a 12u world of girls that outweigh her by sometimes triple and we just couldn't be more proud. She came away with a lot of dings but also an invite to play this past weekend in the ASA qualifier.

Saturday, she played a few different positions, hit the ball hard, made a real nice over-the-shoulder catch against her old team and even survived a moderately scary moment when she was playing 2B and one of those triple-her-sized girls tried to shake the ball loose in a questionable collision at first base in the last game of the day. The bigger girl wound up going down and stayed down while my DD trotted on into the dugout with the 3rd out. My previous DD (the one who suddenly disappeared last week) would have been holding something, looking at me and crying, hoping for sympathy.

Following Saturday's pool play, the coaches called her over and asked her how she felt she did. Blood on her knee, stitch marks in two different places, a nice new bruise from her former teammate's errant pitch to the leg and what does she say? She looks at him, shrugs her shoulders and says "Okay I guess..." He told her everything he'd seen in a gentle and calm manner, the goods along with the things that need some work and summarized it with "we'd love to have you come play for us!"

So, the days of coaching my kids seem to have concluded rather abruptly. I'm still assisting with her old team as much as I can since I don't want to leave them empty handed, but I'll be winding it down and best of all my DD made the team !

[black&blue]

Congrats to your DD. She sounds like a tough cookie!! I know it's different in California, but around here, every time someone goes to another team, it's a huge deal. The parents are always p-o'd and say nasty things...it's usually a big mess. I look at it like quitting or changing jobs. You are moving on and shouldn't burn bridges but parents and coaches around here always do. Was your old team upset? And to play against her old team on a try-out basis? In these parts, that would have been the scandal of the century!!