by hit4power » Mon Jul 13, 2015 10:47 am
I can echo a lot of what is in some of the prior posts. With the benefit of hindsight (which is code for saying I was stubborn for a long time) I can clearly see now that my DD was always going to be a struggle to be recognized by any program above small D1. When the larger programs were in peak recruiting she was still a small kid with a good bat but "not enough" power and "not enough" speed to make up for the lack of power. No interest. At the end of her junior year, she finally was a bigger, stronger kid, and started to get some looks from smaller programs, but what really drove interest was a 2100 SAT and top grades. Academics will open a lot of doors as has been said out here often.
I would tell the 10U/12U crowd one more thing using two examples: First, my kid couldn't even make it as a starter on her 12U rec league All Star team. From that point on, she just out worked everyone else. She will play her 4th and final year of college ball next spring and, if she stays healthy, will leave having had a great career. Second, I would tell the story of the senior pitcher who just graduated off my kid's college team. She was a swimmer until age 14 when she decided to play softball. She wanted to pitch but lived in the boonies with no pitching coaches around. She and her dad figured out the basics by reading books and watching videos. Never played on anything more than a local summer team. Her HS didn't even have SB as a sport. Wasn't till she got to college that she got regular pitching lessons. As you'd expect, freshman year was tough, but after that she just exploded into an all conference/all region pitcher. She leaves with a handful of records, team captain, Academic All American, 2 NCAA appearances, etc etc. Oh, and I doubt she ever hit 62mph unless she had a pretty good tail wind. How'd she get recruited? Top grades/test scores, an obvious passion for the game, a hunger to compete and improve, and a nearly unhittable curve ball. Did she play D1 - of course not - don't think she was ever at an exposure tournament of any note other than maybe Pennsbury. Did she have a great softball career - absolutely.
The point I'm making is that every path to college is different. Almost every kid will hit a bump in the road or two along the way. What happens at 10U/12U isn't that important except for letting your kid have fun and stoking her passion for the game. If your kid develops that passion, is willing to push herself above and beyond (sometimes with a little nudging), then everything else will sort itself out. Enjoy the ride!
