Changing Org.'s WHY?

Catcher '08

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That time of year! Why are you changing organizations as a player?
 
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flygirlsdad

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Whole team or player? Player changing to seek better coaching.
 

finfan365

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Drama among a few players and parents was the reason we started looking at other options, just to see what is out there. She just wants to play, compete, and have fun, and I just want to sit quietly(mostly) and watch. Even then, she was unsure about leaving or sticking it out, but it seems like there may only be her and a couple of players left if she returns. At 16u I'm concerned about finding enough quality players to field a competitive team. Even more so, with new teams popping up almost daily.
 

Justamom

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Wow I feel like my kiddo has been on so many teams. The fact is she only left one. Mix of coaches and parents breaking up teams.
Year one
1st team folded after fall ball. Coach was trying to entice a pitcher and pissed off the other players. They all quit. We were new to the travel world and had no idea what was happening. lol
2nd team folded day before first practice. Parents/coaches fighting. No idea what about since we never met anyone else. One of the coaches invited kiddo to another try out.
3rd team was the try out the previous coach asked her to attend. Wonderful experience but team was older so kiddo stayed down while team moved up.
Year two
Stayed with organization but went to team that was her age. Parents got coach's husband kicked out of dug out so coach quit. Everyone left except one and he took the coaching gig. (I liked the coach so this stunk).
Year three
Went to a new team. Daddy ball at it's worst. Team folded when head coach quit at end of season.
Year four
Best year ever! Wonderful kids, families, and coach. Coach retired due to his daughter quitting.
Year five
Went with half players from year four to a new team. Worst experience ever. Only team my daughter left.
Year five, six and seven
Team daughter had subbed with regularly. Up and down experience. Good families.
Final year- Team folded due to covid. Found new team, awesome experience. Only leaving due to aging out. Though girls talked about doing some 23U.
 
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crazysoftballmom

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We are staying with our org, but we did jump ship from our previous org after the 2019 season and came to the one we are with now.

Basically, the 2018-2019 team was thrown together after tryouts; they had no coach, but then someone whose daughter didn't make any other team took on this team as coach. Totally inept. The whole coaching staff quit after the first tournament because parents were upset with the lack of actual coaching. The parents had to figure out who the new coaches would be so we could finish out the season. We got slaughtered at every game/tournament to the point my daughter wanted to quit softball altogether. Oh, when the old coach turned over the books/bank info money was missing. The org did not support us at all. They kind of just threw up their hands and let us figure it out. I could go on for days, but this is why we left.

Daughter went to tryouts for the team she's on currently (our home team) and is very happy.
 

PaulP

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I’d like to know if anyone jumped ship to a more prestigious 16u team with the primary goal of gaining greater exposure to college coaches, and how much they think, in the end, it made a difference.
 

tjsmize3

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I’d like to know if anyone jumped ship to a more prestigious 16u team with the primary goal of gaining greater exposure to college coaches, and how much they think, in the end, it made a difference.
I'm guessing that if you used words like "more prestigious" and "jumped ship" you already realize you are soliciting negative responses.
Most people who leave one org to play on another team do so because the schedule is more in line with their recruiting goals and their new team helps them increase their visibility to the coaches of higher level programs. Most DO NOT leave out of vanity as you suggest in moving to a "more prestigious" team.
I'm curious if you think that families that elected to move to another org this past year are going to report much of a difference when almost across the board the higher visibility tournaments such as PGF Nationals, IDT, TCS Fireworks/Sparkler, etc.. were cancelled. And for the events that did find a way to play, there could be ZERO D1 college coach presence?
Most unrecruited 2021s and especially the 2022s are the hardest hit by college recruiting changes and are struggling to figure out exactly what their college softball options will be (if any). I truly feel sorry for this group as I have never seen anything like this happen before to an entire recruiting class. I would question if any of them would be in the mood to respond honestly to a question in which it is presumed they are a team jumper and their motivation is not genuine.
 

Justamom

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I’d like to know if anyone jumped ship to a more prestigious 16u team with the primary goal of gaining greater exposure to college coaches, and how much they think, in the end, it made a difference.

My daughter went from B level to A level back to B level. It was greater competition but really had nothing to do with her exposure. Attending camps did that. Maybe being on the top elite A level helps but the average A level didn't seem to have an impact.
 

IRdad09

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We are changing Org's this year. My DD is leaving an elite A program and going to probably a low level A program. That is not a negative at all. Old Org is all about what have you done for me right this second and did we win a trophy. New Org cares more about development, we are moving up to 11u, in my opinion that is what it should be at an early age. A benefit is we will be playing a much tougher schedule with our new Org as the goal is to challenge the girls as much as possible.
 

Catcher '08

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Good responses so far. But has anyone left a team because of coaching, bad teammates, terrible parents and so forth?
 

Justamom

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Good responses so far. But has anyone left a team because of coaching, bad teammates, terrible parents and so forth?
Yes and no.
Coaching- Year 3 Daddy ball. Coach quit at end. I think he knew he wasn't a head coach. Year 5- Coach was rude and demeaning. Only team we quit. Year's 5,6, 7- coach didn't coach. Was planning on leaving for a team with coaching due to daughter playing in college but coach quit.
Bad teammate- Year 3 bullied. Bully apologized at end of season. Coach quit but we wouldn't have come back anyway.
Terrible parents- broke up a team with lots of talent because two of them thought their kid was short stop. Third parent was undercover inciting and took coaching over when coach quit. He didn't make either kid a short stop. lol Team broke up.

So we had those reasons to quit but really only quit one team. The team normally folded or coach quit.
 

PaulP

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Wasn’t looking for negative comments. Maybe ‘prestigious” wasn’t the best choice of words. The organizations that have better name recognition with college coaches have earned it. Just wonder if playing in four out of state tournaments, rather than one or two, or hardware from winning tournaments, has made a meaningful difference. It’s a tough choice for a family to make, if they have an opportunity to play on a good “A” team.

And for those girls that are not having fun - either because poor coaching, uneven commitments from the teammates, horrible record, or unnecessary drama - then run (don’t walk) to a better team at the end of the season.
 

JMT

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I’d like to know if anyone jumped ship to a more prestigious 16u team with the primary goal of gaining greater exposure to college coaches, and how much they think, in the end, it made a difference.

My DD did exactly that, but left her original team only because most girls were aging out. Had a choice between a "showcase" team and a team where she knew a few players from previous years and chose the "showcase" team. Ended up being a poor choice...very "clickish" and never fully accepted my daughter to the team. IMO, team was not assembled well and rated themselves to be much better than they actually were. My $0.02 is have your DD choose where she feels she will be the happiest, not just for the "I play on a showcase team..." If you are good enough and aspire to play in college, the college coaches will find you wherever you play.
 

Cougerfan

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Good responses so far. But has anyone left a team because of coaching, bad teammates, terrible parents and so forth?
Hi catcher, my dd has decided to switch org this season exactly because of teammates and other parents. Let me tell you my dd is a very respected player in ohio and has been asked to play for many of the big organizations but choose to play with a lower a team as a favor to her pitching coach who is the head coach. My daughter is 14 and was pushed up to 18u where she had an 1.66 era. The girls did not talked to her and many times just ignore her when she tried to get involved in the conversation. The parents were even worse they would opening insult players when the team would lose. Usually my daughter would get the brunt of it. This girl is not an average player. The recruiting service Softball factory has named her in the top 30 players of high school age in the Great Lakes Region for 2020, also the same organization name her as a preseason high school all American. So after being treated like an outsider she decided to play with one of the big clubs. Surprisingly the parents, the coaches, and and other players were shocked She moved on to another team. Let this be a warning to other teams that players are free to move on.
 

OhPhat

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My 14u dd changed teams and organization this year after 2 seasons with a solid high B/low A team. We all loved the players, parents and coaches from the prior which made the decision very hard, and I am thankful for the opportunity she had to develop while playing there. Some of the players including my dd had significantly improved over time, and opportunities with elite teams presented themselves. My dd wants to play in college and moving to this elite team and org gives her a much better opportunity for exposure which is why she made the decision to leave. I will say that the parents and players to date on her new team have been great which has made the move much easier.
 
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Stedman00

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Hi catcher, my dd has decided to switch org this season exactly because of teammates and other parents. Let me tell you my dd is a very respected player in ohio and has been asked to play for many of the big organizations but choose to play with a lower a team as a favor to her pitching coach who is the head coach. My daughter is 14 and was pushed up to 18u where she had an 1.66 era. The girls did not talked to her and many times just ignore her when she tried to get involved in the conversation. The parents were even worse they would opening insult players when the team would lose. Usually my daughter would get the brunt of it. This girl is not an average player. The recruiting service Softball factory has named her in the top 30 players of high school age in the Great Lakes Region for 2020, also the same organization name her as a preseason high school all American. So after being treated like an outsider she decided to play with one of the big clubs. Surprisingly the parents, the coaches, and and other players were shocked She moved on to another team. Let this be a warning to other teams that players are free to move on.


If she left the team / Org that I think she left, I think you might now realize why they are not as huge of a presence as they could be. You're welcome to DM me versus public forum if you wish.

And if I'm wrong, it wouldn't be the first time.
 

ljvh03

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That time of year! Why are you changing organizations as a player?
My daughter changed organizations this year for three reasons.

1) The coaches talked about all the ways they help develop their players and help them with recruiting to get her to join the team and then didn't follow through. This was a 16U team and practices were not well run and very little coaching occurred. Her rec league 12U coach ran better practices. It was discouraging to drive 1 1/2 hours one way to stand around in the outfield and catch a few fly balls and take one turn with the pitching machine. He never had them work on specific plays in practice, like run downs for example, put liked to yell at them for messing up during a game.

2) The coach made really negative comments to the players and about the players. He would be in the doorway of the dugout and yell across the field at players who made an error while they walked to the dugout at the end of an inning for all to hear and while in the dugout, he would make negative comments to his assistant coach about players on the field in front of the players on the bench.

3) The coach, after not working to develop players during practices, gave up on some of his players and began recruiting new ones before the end of the summer season. He brought in subs that he was considering offering a position to for 21-22 for the last 3 tournaments and then played them over the existing team members. At one of those tournaments, he had 3 existing players sitting the bench almost every inning the entire weekend while the subs played.
 

That_Softball_Guy

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Good responses so far. But has anyone left a team because of coaching, bad teammates, terrible parents and so forth?

A little bit of all of it , that being said it’s hard to find a program where things will be peachy for the entire season. Up until this year we’ve been part of City/Park District owned teams where 75% of the team is made up of what your zip code is regardless of ability and while I’m sure there’s some programs that do well with it, most of the time it’s hard to put together a decent team when 75% of said team is pre-made based on your zip code because it’s hard to find that much talent in said zip-code.

I have liked some of her coaches the past 5 years, but at the same time they’ve mostly been “daddy ball” coaches who preach “development”, but really what they do is stick their kid and their pals kids where they want to play even if the score is 15-1 and the more deserving kids end up playing positions that make no sense. Some drama with some of the players and it goes back to the “daddy ball” where they’re playing a certain position only because daddy is there, but the second they get pulled to another position they start crying . Some of these parents will get in your face if you don’t meet their demands and feel that their child should get to play a certain position until they get it right even if the score is 15-1 and other parents are paying boatloads of money to watch said garbage.

This year we went with a non city/park district owned team and it’s been much better. Coaches are better, parents are better and so far no complaining. It’s a lot more fun when you’re competing for 11-12 spots versus 3-4 spots and can actually put together a team you can put out on the field and enjoy.
 

2024 Catcher

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To play at the highest competition hoping for a national team. Most importantly with coaches and teammates who are 100% committed to the team.
 
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