Coaches poaching players

[JoeA1010]

I've always wondered, if it's ok to recruit at pretty much any time (after all, if a girl would rather be somewhere else, then she should be free to leave, right?), then it would have to be fine for girls to just switch teams during a tournament and for coaches to recruit right in the middle of tournaments? Fell into the loser's bracket? Heck with that, just bail to a team in the winner's bracket!

The whole poaching thing - or recruiting - is far more prevalent now than it was just five years ago around here. Make no mistake, it's not about the girls. It's about coaches wanting to win. Nothing wrong with wanting to win, but at least be honest about it.

 

[ApogeeDemon]

I agree Joe. I think things went downhill when every Dad that didn't have his daughter playing shortstop, started a new organization. Now any girl with talent is fought over by 100+ teams. Especially positions like pitcher/catcher. You are right, some coaches may truly want to help the girls, but its more about winning and bragging rights.

 

[Hilliarddad3]

What I always loved about coaching was seeing the difference every girl made from when I first got them to when they were done. If someone wants to poach them and they leave it's all good as you can't make it or take it personal. I love seeing the ones when they come back and if it was on good terms when they left then great welcome back. Move on life's too short. If you win heck yeah, if you lose oh well, what did the girls learn, what did I learn as a coach too?

 

[Pacerdad57]

It gets really bad for the girls.who have played hard, been to the practices and scrimmages, and been seeing playing time in pool & bracket play, not to mention paid their way, did the sales of whatever to raise money to help the team, then suddenly subs are brought in because we "might" need the help. Now three tofour girls who worked their butts off for the team sit while the subs play all the innings of every tourney. The sad part is that the end results(not a lot of wins) stays just the way it was all season, and now nothing but bad feelings on the team.
Play with the ones you "just had to have" on your team from tryouts. Build them up, get them the reps and just maybe you'll find you have a real team with chemistry when it's all said and done.