Setting the bar higher...

"My ultimate goal is to play Division I collegiate softball"

This is a typical and very admirable goal that many young softball players have as they are making their way through the travel ball circuit. And to Ohio's credit, I think we have recently helped produce more collegiate softball players on a national level than our state has any time in the last few decades.

But I wonder if by promoting and supporting this particular goal we are falling a little short. Why not help our players think bigger? Why not go a step further and truly replace "My goal is to play collegiate softball" with "My goal is to be an All American" or better yet "My goal is to help [College softball program] win the National Championship?"

The difference between "My goal is to play collegiate softball" and "My goal is to help win a Division I national championship" is profound, as profoundly different as hiking the Cuyahoga Valley vs. hiking the Grand Canyon.

By changing to this larger goal and committing to achieving it, we inherently have to change our approach to the game:

1. We go from a purely personal goal to a team-focused goal.
2. We raise the bar of our training to a MUCH higher level...consider that the vast majority of Division I softball players would never make a team like Oklahoma or Florida. To even be in the position to help a team win a Division I National Championship, we must first become one of the best softball players in the world.

I think many, many of those players who say that "My ultimate goal is to play Division I softball" are totally committed to achieving this goal and work very, very hard towards achieving it. Many DO achieve it, and that is awesome. But what more could they achieve if they had the same level of intense commitment but to a much larger goal...to a bar that is higher?

Being a bench player, being a starter, being an All American, Winning a National Championship are all successively more difficult and demanding variants of the "My ultimate goal is to play Division I softball" dream. And without understanding and committing to working through all that it takes to meet what is required of EACH of these variants, a player gets essentially stuck on the first step of a ten story flight of stairs.

I am amazed by Ohio's own Lilly, Mack, Alvelo, Piper, etc. - all of whom are playing at an unbelievably high level in college, and I am convinced they have performed so well not because they dreamed of being Division I collegiate softball players but because instead they dreamed of being the best softball players in the country, of being All Americans, of helping their teams win championships. And then they worked, and worked, and worked at it. They really are fantastic examples of girls who set the bar very high and have achieved amazing things.

Don't let your daughters or players sell themselves short: Let's encourage and empower our up and coming softball players to set the bar higher and to dream bigger.

It's a positive to set goals that are achievable. You cannot set a goal if you don't have a chance to achieve it. You can put that thought on the block, but attaining it is another story. Only 1% of all the girls you see at travel tournaments will play DI softball. 30-40% quit before their sophomore year of HS. Just think about that before you set your goals. Today, this week, this tournament, this season. No matter how hard your DD works on the field it still might not be enough to get that DI invite. Or you get the DI invite to their JV team with no money. Is she still going to have that goal or have you let the wind out?

D1 jv team? Never seen anyone with one of those. D3 jv yes, NAIA jv yes, but D1????

I very much believe in setting goals high, but I think it's important to keep them realistic as well, and it's OK if they change over time as realism sets in. I think it's no different in playing sports than it is in having a career in business or politics or anything else for that matter. My DD had a goal in junior high to one day play D1, and she maintained that dream through her sophomore year in high school when she won conference MVP. That summer though, she played on her first true travel team which qualified for and played in the ASA Nationals, where she got to see the difference between her talent and that of others throughout the country. While she never quit working hard, she adjusted her goals to "just" playing college softball.

She went to a D3 school and after her freshman year, she set a couple of new goals ... one was for her team to win a conference championship and advance to the NCAA's, and the other was to break her school's career wins record. Her team won the conference tourney her junior year and advanced to the NCAA regionals, and she broke the school career wins record in her senior season. While I was always encouraging and sometimes even pushing her to reach for the stars, I was always sure to support her and her new goals. To this day, I know she is as proud of what she accomplished on the ballfield as I am, and I think the fact that she adjusted her goals had a lot to do with those accomplishments.

Florida State University JV softball team lost Tuesday's home non-conference game against Liberty County.

They even have jerseys. It's crazy! It is hit and miss from State to state. They do exists and can recruit for them. I do not believe any DI schools in Ohio have JV squads. Finding info about JV squads is next to impossible. If you see 50 girls show up for practice you better believe they have a JV team to get those ladies on the field. They typically will play JC and DIII schools all non conference of course. Schools have also started recruiting for club teams. These club teams even have a national championship. This is all for another thread.

Sorry for crashing the subject OP

You do realize that the FSU JV team you reference is not Florida State University right?

https://www.fsus.school/Page/2895#calendar10047/20180305/month

This is a K-12 school ran "in conjunction with FSU."

Most of the bigger D1 schools have club softball teams, but they have nothing to do with the softball program. I work pretty closely with several programs and have never heard of a D1 jv team. Maybe there are some out there though.

No you maybe right. I'm probably wrong. It happens. I think my post was more towards achievable goals versus impossible goals. I'll do some more research and we can discuss team levels on another thread.

Hello, Xrayaries and Jeff. I think I agree with you on several of your points. Yes, setting goals for success is very different than achieving those goals. Achieving those goals takes dedication, perseverance, high quality guidance, some god given gifts and maybe even a little luck, And yes, it requires achieving smaller achievable goals along the way - After all, you can't get to the tenth flight of stairs without first going up the first flight of stairs. There is no disputing that. And yes, many girls quit softball all together before the age of 15 (there is much research on WHY this occurs but that is a whole other thread).

Let me clarify my original post: I wholeheartedly subscribe to the philosophy that shooting for the stars will get you to higher heights than shooting for the top of a hill. This philosophy bleeds into every part of my life. In fact, an example from today: I'm about fifteen pounds heavier than I normally am and have an unfortunate, chronic hip issue, but I am desperate to get back in shape. Mind you, I HATE running. Despise it. It takes all of my mental powers to continue running to my "finish line." I run a path at a nearby park and without failure, I run a much farther distance when I set my "finish line" at the far limit of where I can physically and mentally make it. When I set my "finish line" a reasonable distance, I may make it that far, but when I set the finish line well past that I almost always go way farther (despite rarely making it to that ultimate "finish line"). Today, I ran and made it to my upper limit finish line. It was a great distance further than I thought I could go. Tomorrow I may not run that far, but I will set my goal a slight distance further...If I fail, I hope to run further than I would if I set a very achievable distance.

Another way of saying it is "Strive for perfection, if you miss the mark hopefully you will still be very, very, very good."

• Strive to be an All American...Fail and maybe be an All Region...Fail and maybe be an All Conference
• Strive to win a National Championship...Fail and maybe make it to College World Series...Fail and maybe win your Conference

As for "impossible goals," bear in mind that "impossible goals" are achieved all the time: 18 players last year achieved the "impossible goal" of being a Division I All-American, over 21 players achieved the "impossible goal" of winning the Division I National Championship. This happens every year, year after year.

Finally, my ten-year old daughter is not into softball at all. Her passion is for computers, particularly computer programming. She is in the beginning stages of this journey and has dreams of working for Google. I can't say that it is anything more currently than a kid describing something she likes. But, if she does really commit to trying to be a programmer for Google, are you suggesting that I should not foster that vision and support that goal because it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY she will achieve it? (Fact - The goal to be a Google programmer is exponentially more difficult than it is to be on a Division I National Champion).

NOTE: I am not saying that the goal of being a Division I player is the end all be all. In fact, I would argue that if your goal is to be a Division II college player that is Great! But I would again say to instead make it "My goal is to be a Division II National Champion" or a "Division II All-American."

Any way, I am liking the discussion. A healthy give and take is why this forum exists.

This is a very interesting thread and I have enjoyed reading all the post. Personally, I don't believe that a goal is unrealistic goal or that a dream is to big. Although I do respect and understand where people are coming from in saying some goals are unrealistic. For me personally, I could not look at my daughter and say, you cant do that. I do believe that the will is so much more important than the skill. I often try to talk to my players about current athletes( who they may know) who have demonstrated this. Tom Brady, was the backup QB on his freshman HS FB team. They went 0-8, didn't score a TD and he never played a offensive play at QB. Tom Brady said I wasnt even good enough to be the starting QB on a 0-8 team. At UM he was the 7th man on the depth chart, the reports on him at the draft combine were not impressive. His comments, what do they know? Steph Curry: after his sophomore year of HS he was 5'-6" and weighed 125 lbs, he lacked strength and shot the ball from his hip, he had to rework his entire shot, his only D-1 opportunity was from VT where they said you can walk on. If both of them had the goal of playing professional sports when they were in HS people would have told them it can't happen, impossible. Its important for girls to understand that these great athletes weren't always the best of the best or the ones with the most talent. Strength of will is about the commitment to continue, its about the many recommitments that are necessary to sustain the journey when it gets tedious, difficult, painful or you face adversity. Something is only impossible until someone is crazy enough to sit down and figure out how to do it. The question I ask is how bad do you want it?

I think an area that is often over looked in goal setting and chasing your dream is the mental side of it. Understanding that the subconscious is so much more powerful than the conscious. Our conscious is a gatekeeper to the subconscious, it use reasoning and logic to come to a conclusion(Our conscious will tell a player, your not good enough to be a D1 athlete, and then back it up with reason and logic). The subconscious doesn't know right from wrong, it just does(like electricity,,,when you flip the switch electricity doesn't know if its powering a TV or killing someone,,,it just flows),....so training the subconscious with affirmations and visualization are extremely powerful tools.

Belief is another important aspect that I feel is over looked in pursuit of big goals/dreams. Often I think players let others influence there beliefs. Your beliefs are yours, they are what is true to you. Who is right and who is wrong when it comes to your beliefs? I believe Eminem is a great artists, my wife doesn't believe that he is. Who is right? Who is wrong? Who cares? Its my belief.

I want my daughters and players to understand they have a gift and that gift is the dream that is inside of them. You don't get to pick your dreams, they pick you. Do you have the courage to grab the dream that picked you? Or will you listen to the naysayers, the doubters, the haters and let it slip away.

When its all said and done I want my daughters/players to know, its better to have big goals/dreams and go all in than to stay small. Not obtaining those big goals/dreams doesn't mean you failed. Failure is when you stay small and don't go all in.

Love all of this discussion. Goals help kids move in a positive direction. It's not just the final destination that determines their success or self worth, it is the journey in how they worked to get where they wanted to go. The Ohio kids who are making an impact on a national level had both the talent and determination. It was an everyday passion for them, they did the work and then believed it could happen. They had a why, what, how, and then believed and trusted they could accomplish it. What got them there was they did not buy into self limitation, they trusted they had the ability. They kept working toward the goal when things got difficult and faced their challenges along the way. They did not buy into the negative but chose to keep moving forward toward fulfilling their dreams.

I agree not every kid can become an All American or win a national championship. Let's help them create a realistic vision of what they want and help them understand what it will take to achieve it. The disconnect is some kids do not understand the work involved in order to get where they want to be. After they start their journey they allow doubt or fear to take over. They need to be strong enough to delete the limiting beliefs. Brady and Curry made it cuz they kept working towards their vision. Its handling everything that takes place on the journey that allows people to accomplish their dreams. Its having a strong sense of self and confidence to know that if I keep working, the work will pay off. Being able to handle taking 3 steps forward and 1 step backward is what allows the great ones to be great.

Training both the conscious and the subconscious minds to deal with and delete the doubt, fear, and limiting beliefs is what can help kids keep moving toward their goals. It is about being aware that we, and the people around us, create our thoughts and beliefs. We can choose to listen to the negative self limiting beliefs or we can choose to have more positive productive ones that will move us in a better direction while knowing that we will have to face challenges and obstacles along the way. How we choose to deal with those challenges and our thoughts and beliefs will ultimately lead us to our next destination. The beauty of it is, we can always change directions or pick a new destination that can be just as rewarding while appreciating what we learned along the way.

GREAT POSTS BY ALL.

www.aspirehighersports.com.

Definitely a good and thought-provoking discussion with implications that extend way beyond our children's and players' performance on the softball field.

We are leaving out education. Setting the bar higher should also include making sure these players have an education and degree that will afford them a job after 4 years of college. I have heard over and over players talking about D1 ....."I'm playing D1 softball, that's all that matters. I'll figure out my major after I get there". I understand not everyone knows what they want to do and declare undecided but......Are we truly setting the bar higher by shoving the education these players are going to receive to the back burner?

coachjwb said:

I very much believe in setting goals high, but I think it's important to keep them realistic as well, and it's OK if they change over time as realism sets in. I think it's no different in playing sports than it is in having a career in business or politics or anything else for that matter. My DD had a goal in junior high to one day play D1, and she maintained that dream through her sophomore year in high school when she won conference MVP. That summer though, she played on her first true travel team which qualified for and played in the ASA Nationals, where she got to see the difference between her talent and that of others throughout the country. While she never quit working hard, she adjusted her goals to "just" playing college softball.

She went to a D3 school and after her freshman year, she set a couple of new goals ... one was for her team to win a conference championship and advance to the NCAA's, and the other was to break her school's career wins record. Her team won the conference tourney her junior year and advanced to the NCAA regionals, and she broke the school career wins record in her senior season. While I was always encouraging and sometimes even pushing her to reach for the stars, I was always sure to support her and her new goals. To this day, I know she is as proud of what she accomplished on the ballfield as I am, and I think the fact that she adjusted her goals had a lot to do with those accomplishments.

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I'm always curious of what the % is for travel ball players going D1. The only statistic I've seen, includes all girls that play High school softball. I think that one shows 1%. Do you have a stat for just Travel girls. Seems to me it would be much higher. Interested to know?

Since a lot of high school softball players play travel ball (especially as jrs and srs) I am not sure that the percentage would be much higher unless you include jv and freshmen players in the total player pool.

0203bbmom said:

Setting the bar higher should also include making sure these players have an education and degree that will afford them a job after 4 years of college. I have heard over and over players talking about D1 ....."I'm playing D1 softball, that's all that matters. I'll figure out my major after I get there". I understand not everyone knows what they want to do and declare undecided but......Are we truly setting the bar higher by shoving the education these players are going to receive to the back burner?

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Agreed education is one of the most important considerations for a young woman heading to college. However, I have been around Division 1 college softball for a while now and respectfully, I do not see what you are seeing. The vast majority of D1 softball players generally set their academic and career aspirations as high in those parts of their lives as they do for softball. Leaving out the discussion about academics when talking about setting high level softball goals does not imply the player or her family does not take that seriously. I would say that as a whole, most people who look back on their college experiences would say that a big part of who they are was a result of ALL of what college has to offer (i.e. academics, athletics, non-athletic activities, social life, spiritual life). I would argue based on what I have seen, college softball players might come to campus better prepared to navigate through ALL of that then most other groups of kids heading to school -- including those seeking ONLY academic pursuits. Maybe it doesn't get brought up with each softball discussion, but believe me, so many of these kids set a high bar in EVERYTHING they do. I love what Coach Tony wrote. It's so much easier to teach your kids to shoot for the stars and live with the results, then dealing with the results in later later life of chronic underachieving. Shoot for the best, be the best you can be, live with the outcome!!! Playing D1 softball is definitely not the end all be all, however, that is not to say that those who aspire to do it at its highest level must be lacking in other parts of their lives.

Johnnyfootball said:

Since a lot of high school softball players play travel ball (especially as jrs and srs) I am not sure that the percentage would be much higher unless you include jv and freshmen players in the total player pool.

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I don't agree that many high school players, are travel players. I would say more than 1/2 don't play travel at all. It would be interesting to see that stat. We are beginning our 7th year in High school softball. The most travel ball players we had was 6, currently we have 5, and it's been 2 or 3. Last year we made it to regional finals with 5. We made it to the regional final in 2013 with 3 travel players. Some teams are travel heavy, but most seem to have 5 or 6, and some have 2 or less. Just my experience, but I would say it's fairly typical. Remember, a typical varsity team has 12-15 players. I'm even seeing some travel ball players skip High school Ball all together. I believe the % is much lower than you assume.

At least my DD's high school, last year and year previous, EVERY player on JV and Varsity squads (15 players each, 30 total) played travel. Seriously every player. This year, Varsity is 100% travel again, JV has 8 that are travel.

Stedman00 said:

At least my DD's high school, last year and year previous, EVERY player on JV and Varsity squads (15 players each, 30 total) played travel. Seriously every player. This year, Varsity is 100% travel again, JV has 8 that are travel.

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I would say that's the exception, not the rule. We play at least 3 or 4 teams per year, that have 0 travel ball players. I would say the true % in USA is somewhere between 30-40%. Just a guess, but I bet I'm close. High school participation has been declining, while Travel Ball participation has been climbing. Seems like High school Participation would climb as well, if high school is mostly travel ball players.

Stedman what constitutes travel? Serious question. The only school I can think of in SWO that produces those kind of travel numbers is Lebanon and maybe some of the GMC schools that have massive enrollments.

Creek01 said:

Stedman what constitutes travel? Serious question. The only school I can think of in SWO that produces those kind of travel numbers is Lebanon and maybe some of the GMC schools that have massive enrollments.

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Mason will typically have over 90% if not closer to 100% that play Travel ball.
In the past few years, there would be enough girls walking the hallways that played Travel, but not school ball that could make a pretty good team.
I would say the 3rd string team would beat over 80% of the HS teams in SWO.........