madwhit wrote:What is scary is if they don't agree with the coach they just run out and start a new "travel team". I can promise you that none of them have ever played WOMENS FASTPITCH SOFTBALL. (well I assume that..LOL). However, when you can stand in front of these young ladies and tell them what they have to do to make it to the next level because you have been there and done that you now have credibility. Not everyone can say that. I wish I saw more women coaching in travel ball but some can be intimidated by that irrate, loud, and harsh male coach that can sometimes forget he has impressionable young ladies watching.
Your post really takes me back. Back to when DD was just starting in travel ball, on a team made up of other first time travel players, playing NSA B, just trying to truly learn the game at the next level. They were helped by a young woman who had played travel and college softball at a large D1. I wish I could say that this team went on to glory, they didn't win many games, but they learned and had fun. Unfortunately, certain dads thought they could do better. Those dads destroyed the team, and it folded in the middle of its second season.
But my daughter learned about the fundamentals of the game, which she needed at the time, from someone who had been there and done that, AND was a good coach. DD later played one year with a well-known travel team in this state, coached by dads, and learned zero, never improving her skills. We still refer to that year as a "wasted year."
In the past few years she has been coached by men who do not have a DD on the team, but love and know the sport, have years of softball coaching experience, and enjoy helping young ladies learn and improve, and earn a college scholarship. She has learned a lot from these men (and in the case of one team, a former college softball player was on the coaching staff) and has advanced her skills. And those teams have been and are successful on the field.
So it's really not about gender, but about experience, which can come from different sources. I think it is safe to say that there are former college softball players who would not and do not make a good travel team coach. Not everyone who plays a game can coach. Just playing the game does not make a good coach. There are so many other qualities that are necessary. There are, I'm sure, dads who coach travel teams and do so very well. We know who they are. And they have, hopefully, worked to improve their own coaching methods over the years.
Yes, this is a minefield topic, full of examples for both camps. But results (of all kinds, which I put more importance on skills advancement than wins) trump gender and playing field experience.
