Coaches Need to Teach More than X's and O's

[justawatcher]

At nationals which is in aug that is summer not spring

Oh ok, so this friendly will be during nationals. Gotcha!

[justawatcher]

lets play two...knowledge for free...teams must start local, teams must win local, here in NTX ASA doesn't make, period end of story...if you slap ASA, VTD, USSSA or USFA label on it, doesn't matter <-this is real talk...you must win locally first. Anywhere, any city, any team...the rule of thumb is to win locally first, once you beat everyone locally you begin to travel to surrounding cities, once you beat surrounding teams you then travel farther and farther for tougher competition. No one up north is worried about VTD and could give two craps about houston or cali...period. Every coach who is worth a darn knows the rules...win locally first then win in other cities, states...etc. The ONLY problem that NTX has is most coaches aren't worth a darn, coaches spring up like weeds and then move on. So NTX doesn't compete well in nationals because they are NOT following the simplest of rules: win locally first, once you beat everyone locally you begin to travel to surrounding cities, once you beat surrounding teams you then travel farther and farther for tougher competition. Not because of ASA vs VTD...

I could not disagree with this more. Any coach who is worth a darn knows that winning locally means nothing. Unless of course a national championship is being held in your city.
Several teams mentioned in this post win a LOT locally and have no business traveling to qualifiers.

Pbj the god of all softball in NTX. Thanks for the free advise

If you look at Allen's VTD record, Rip's Record, Firecrackers VTD record before this year as you know they were playing up to get ready for ASA Nationals they did it the right way. Win local then travel.

Your Glory teams that you support so much do the same thing. Play local, win then dissappear/travel. That's how my daughters team did it last year.

I'm sure these teams will play all 14U next year leading up to Nationals due to high school ball and the pitching distance. 14U til now will be 40'. Then we will see how these teams fair again trying to win local.

Although I believe, winning local is a false sense of an accomplishment, fools gold if you will. Look at his year's VTD records. And Rhines although a great team, no disrespect to his team and young ladies but they have the best VTD record of all '98 teams but tell where were they when the out teams came in for qualifiers, sent home to prepare for the VTD world series.

Now Firecrackers, Allen, Rip, Fireballs had the worst VTD records this year in that order I believe but where were they in August? Didn't Firecrackers place 9th in the country? Seriously how many teams here can say they played at the Hall of Fame qualifier at Hall of Stadium? Rip, Allen and Firecrackers will never forget that feeling. And yes ride 9th place to the grave because that in itself was a great accompishment.

Ooouuutttt!!!!

Finally some one with some sense on this board. It's hilarious reading these posts about the "teams to beat" because they win very weak local tournaments. The truly elite teams, in any age group could care less about winning a VTD tournament. Thunderstix, Firestix, Rhine, etc.: GREAT LOCAL TEAMS. There is nothing wrong with that. Are we going to see them in Oklahoma City for HOF, San Antonio/Houston for ASA Qualifiers, Huntington Beach/Sioux Falls? Not likely. The parents and those kids obviously have no desire to play college ball, and are more focused on having fun and winning tournaments. Is there anything wrong with that? I say no, not at all. All of those teams have some great kids and great families. Even though there goals may be different, they should still be considered teams to play in something like this proposed event.

[chelsierage]

Who cares .Let everyone play just make it happen .

[TexasSoftball]

Justawatcher, If every team out there besides Firecrackers is not worth a crap, then why do you keep bringing them up?
Did you really "qualify" for OKC Hall of Fame as was originally said with the top teams getting the bid, or just handed a pass at the end because they needed more teams.
Quit talking bad about the teams playing local, since they really are not your concern or competition. And yes you do have to win local first, so how did you do in the ones you played in this year. Placed in 2 tournaments, ok, seems like you need to go back to local.
I am sure Cali would like to have you back, who gives a crap about Cali, not us locals..........

[justawatcher]

Quit talking bad about the teams playing local, since they really are not your concern or competition.

What did I say that was bad?

[longbat]

And Rhines although a great team, no disrespect to his team and young ladies but they have the best VTD record of all '98 teams but tell where were they when the out teams came in for qualifiers, sent home to prepare for the VTD world series.

Then why did you just do it?

[longbat]

Justawatcher, If every team out there besides Firecrackers is not worth a crap, then why do you keep bringing them up?
Did you really "qualify" for OKC Hall of Fame as was originally said with the top teams getting the bid, or just handed a pass at the end because they needed more teams.
Quit talking bad about the teams playing local, since they really are not your concern or competition. And yes you do have to win local first, so how did you do in the ones you played in this year. Placed in 2 tournaments, ok, seems like you need to go back to local.
I am sure Cali would like to have you back, who gives a crap about Cali, not us locals..........

Watcher is good at this...slamming and trashing coaches, kids and their parents. He's been working at it ever since the beginning of HB..and I think he's pretty much perfected the art of the keyboard 'drive by'...anonymously slandering anyone who might meet his fancy that day.

[pitcherzpop]

Watcher is good at this...slamming and trashing coaches, kids and their parents. He's been working at it ever since the beginning of HB..and I think he's pretty much perfected the art of the keyboard 'drive by'...anonymously slandering anyone who might meet his fancy that day.

he is also a liar. i heard him (in person) lying about recruiting etc. he was laughing because he made up a bunch of crap to keep his team together. i'll give him this, he truly is trying to learn but all those kids with him now will unfortunately suffer in the long run while he does.

[Vess Express]

Finally some one with some sense on this board. It's hilarious reading these posts about the "teams to beat" because they win very weak local tournaments. The truly elite teams, in any age group could care less about winning a VTD tournament. Thunderstix, Firestix, Rhine, etc.: GREAT LOCAL TEAMS. There is nothing wrong with that. Are we going to see them in Oklahoma City for HOF, San Antonio/Houston for ASA Qualifiers, Huntington Beach/Sioux Falls? Not likely. The parents and those kids obviously have no desire to play college ball, and are more focused on having fun and winning tournaments. Is there anything wrong with that? I say no, not at all. All of those teams have some great kids and great families. Even though there goals may be different, they should still be considered teams to play in something like this proposed event.[/quote]

Hilarious is right. You have no idea what those parents are thinking. Maybe they didn't think it was worth all the travel and money at 12U to be going to those places. Maybe they realized that just playing, working on their skills, and not burning them out was not a bad idea at 12U. There are many ways to get better at this age, that you don't seem to understand. However, you do seem to be very concerned about the name you have on one of your many team t-shirts.

chelsierage
Do not let them draw you out into a long argument. I don't think most of them even speak for their teams. I know who you are and we are planning on having a round robin in the spring. Hopefully, you all will come. We'll talk to you soon.

[lotsofmilesforball]

This is definitely a great thread and is showing we have some people who are really entrenched in what they think about their team, other teams, etc... and what it takes to be crowned "the best".

I prefer to think of winning as raising a daughter that understands the whole concept of fun, team, and working towards a goal of having all of her college education paid for through a combination of softball as well as academics. It would also be my hope that she doesn't grow up to be like many of the dads we see out there every weekend (and maybe here?) living vicariously through the exploits of their child thinking they're the main reason they excel on the field. At the end of the day all dads do is act as the shuttle driver, open up the wallet, and probably push their kid so hard to the point that they only play because they don't want to disappoint.

The results of any so-called "big friendly" would be great but the better part would be listening to the chest thumping and excuses after....