college recruitment....the don'ts for parents

[WWolff]

There is a book by Malcolm Gladwell called Outliers. It discusses how when you are born can be an advantage. The book uses hockey in Canada as an example, where club hockey starts at like 4 years old. Playing for the best teams is super competitive. And just like our softball age cut, they use 12/31 as their age determination date.
The theory goes like this: The best hockey club in Canada, who we will call Lasers Hockey Club, wants the best players to form a 4-year old super team. Since a 4-year old kid born in January is a lot more mature than a 4-year old born in December, Lasers Hockey takes a bunch of kids born in the first 3 months of the year.
So Child A born in January makes the team and Child B born in December (if he even makes a team) is relegated to playing for a lessor organization, we will call... Outlaws Hockey. Child A is playing for the the best coaches and plays against the best competition so he gets a year of advanced development. Child B does not.
So the following year at tryouts Child A now has 2 advantages; 1) he is still older, and 2) he has more experience. So the same thing happens and Child A makes the Lasers and Child B goes to the Outlaws again. So the cycle goes on and on. Eventually the age gap is negligible, but the experience factor is always there.
There is an unusually high percentage of older Canadian kids (16 - 18 yr olds) in Canada's club hockey system were born in the Jan, Feb, or March. And there is also high percent of Canadian born NHL players who were born in the first 3 months of the year. There are exceptions, Mario Lemieux for example. But the book theorizes that an advantage in that competitive of an environment may never be able to be overcome.

The book is pretty a pretty good read and the theory is interesting.

Holy crap Steve I didn't realize you had such a good sense of humor. I fell out of my chair.

 

[lewam3]

Holy crap Steve I didn't realize you had such a good sense of humor. I fell out of my chair.

What do you mean, Warren? Steve's talking hockey. You are a softball icon.

 

[jd100]

I have never read Daniel Goleman. I will have to do that. I read David & Goliath though. It was also interesting. In that book, the theory about college, is that every college will have superstars and dropouts. Everyone at Harvard is a 4.0 high school student and got a 31 on the ACT yet they have the same drop out rate as most other colleges. Imagine that level of a student dropping out! So your goal is to be a big fish somewhere even if it is in a smaller pond. That increases your chance of success vs risking being a small fish at Harvard.

 

[FastBat]

Just to put some perspective on this topic, my daughter is a November birthday. She was able to play 12u for two years now, even some 14u, while her classmates were playing 10u. Her classmates, just this fall moved up to 12u. So, which sixth grader in the class has the advantage November or January birthday? Is it my daughter who has played 12u for nearly two years now, getting beat up on by bigger girls and never got her 10u dominating glory days? Or the January sixth graders who have played with the little girls and been considered studs? If the older October, November, and December birthdays can handle the discouragement, they clearly have an advantage. Every kid is different, but for my daughter, I now consider her the lucky one. Also, there are ways to help develop January, February, March birthdays by playing up and playing the best competition. But, the November and December birthdays are so much ahead of the January and younger in her sixth grade class right now, it's not comparable.


To put it another way, if my dd was a senior in HS right now, her entire travel softball team would be freshmen in college except for her and 2 others. I'm not sure how she would handle that? I, on the other hand, would be thankful, lol!

 

[brownsfan]

this may be slightly off topic but just something I have wondered. How does being one of the younger kids in your class affect recruiting? Especially when a lot of athletes a year older are in the same grade and many the same age are in a grade below? Does this give the younger kid a disadvantage?

Don't know if this had been answered yet or not. If we hadn't moved from SW Ohio to NE Ohio, I firmly believed it would have hindered her chances. We lived in SW Ohio, she was a 2017 grad based on their birthday cut-off. However, when we moved up to NE Ohio the cut-off dates were moved back two weeks thus placing my dd in the 2018 class.

However if the young lady in question who is younger works her tail off, it shouldn't matter.

 

[CARDS]

this may be slightly off topic but just something I have wondered. How does being one of the younger kids in your class affect recruiting? Especially when a lot of athletes a year older are in the same grade and many the same age are in a grade below? Does this give the younger kid a disadvantage?

The month a player was born in IMO is low on the list of advantages/disadvantages when it comes to recruiting or playing a sport...In no specific order: Attitude, Effort, Talent, Grad year and open spots / needs on a team are more of a deciding recruiting factor.

My DD was born on December 22nd the worst thing she faced with such a late birthday was presents for Christmas wrapped in Birthday paper and vice versa....Her experiences in sports (EX: Softball I.Q.) were far greater than the majority of her peers even though she was younger in some cases by several years So, I think early sports surroundings and family athleticism play a bigger part than age alone.
Over the years I have seen and could give a lot of examples where talent, attitude and effort superseded age but that would be another topic...

 

[Stretch]

There is a book by Malcolm Gladwell called Outliers. It discusses how when you are born can be an advantage. The book uses hockey in Canada as an example, where club hockey starts at like 4 years old. Playing for the best teams is super competitive. And just like our softball age cut, they use 12/31 as their age determination date.
The theory goes like this: The best hockey club in Canada, who we will call Lasers Hockey Club, wants the best players to form a 4-year old super team. Since a 4-year old kid born in January is a lot more mature than a 4-year old born in December, Lasers Hockey takes a bunch of kids born in the first 3 months of the year.
So Child A born in January makes the team and Child B born in December (if he even makes a team) is relegated to playing for a lessor organization, we will call... Outlaws Hockey. Child A is playing for the the best coaches and plays against the best competition so he gets a year of advanced development. Child B does not.
So the following year at tryouts Child A now has 2 advantages; 1) he is still older, and 2) he has more experience. So the same thing happens and Child A makes the Lasers and Child B goes to the Outlaws again. So the cycle goes on and on. Eventually the age gap is negligible, but the experience factor is always there.
There is an unusually high percentage of older Canadian kids (16 - 18 yr olds) in Canada's club hockey system were born in the Jan, Feb, or March. And there is also high percent of Canadian born NHL players who were born in the first 3 months of the year. There are exceptions, Mario Lemieux for example. But the book theorizes that an advantage in that competitive of an environment may never be able to be overcome.

The book is pretty a pretty good read and the theory is interesting.

The part of the story left out is that Child B from the Outlaws and Child C from the Maple Leaf Bandits go on to play in the PHL.

 

[FastBat]

The OP asked for some advice from former players who have gone through the entire process. I grew up in a town, where most of the girls started playing softball from about 7 years old or so and it was the "only sport in town" for youth, lacrosse wasn't offered in the early to mid-90's! Here's what graduating classes were like from when/where I played High School softball. This is from memory, as I think about my classmates/friends:

1992: 4 played D1 after graduation (4 grads total?)
1993: 2 played D1 after graduation (2 grads total)
1994: 2 played D1 after graduation, 1 played D2 after graduation (4 grads total?)
1995: 1 played D1 after graduation, 2 played D2 after graduation (5 grads total)
1996: 2 played D1 after graduation (5 grads total, 2 of the 5 had college scholarships for other reasons than softball)
1997: 1 played D1 after graduation, rest? (4 grads?)
1998: 1 played D1 after graduation, rest? (??grads??)

I graduated in 96 and my older sister graduated in 93, she played D1, I did not play after HS. We are obviously old school, so we can't get technical about advice. But, her and I talked about it and we decided that, if you want your dd to play softball beyond high school, what you really can do now is:

Support her and be her biggest fan. We both agreed, one of the most important things a parent can do is cart their child to all the tremendous amounts of practices, games, and assist her with getting on a competitive travel teams. Be the strong one when she's down and the shoulder to cry on, but also be tough, she could someday be playing for a coach that will hold her accountable for everything.

Make sure your child has the strong study skills needed for the academic rigors of college and playing sports, plus she needs to be getting solid grades, so be realistic.

In Middle School and younger, don't put any added pressure on your dd with their softball skills. My sister and I feel we got better the longer we played. It seems like we never peaked until our last years of playing, for my senior year of HS, for her senior year of college. Being the star of a team or not, as a 10u, 12u, 14u team doesn't guarantee anything.

Make sure your dd knows, if she doesn't play in college she isn't a failure. So, let her express her goals, but don't make a huge deal about playing beyond HS.

We both agree it takes talent, of course, but it also takes a lot of luck and just being in the right place, at the right time and doing something that puts you on the map, i.e. diving catch or big hit. It's no surprise the list of 6-7 years has so many players from one team/school, we were all playing together, in front of college coaches.

 

[wow]

The theory goes like this: The best hockey club in Canada, who we will call Lasers Hockey Club, wants the best players to form a 4-year old super team. Since a 4-year old kid born in January is a lot more mature than a 4-year old born in December, Lasers Hockey takes a bunch of kids born in the first 3 months of the year.
So Child A born in January makes the team and Child B born in December (if he even makes a team) is relegated to playing for a lessor organization, we will call... Outlaws Hockey. .

What???- You missed the point all together but I guess it was a chance to make a innuendo. OH softball was asking about a 04 playing on a 03 team, as an example, if it would impact recruiting. The concern was kids from different birth years competing for the same recruiting year. But I guess if you can change the narrative and make reference to what month of the year a kid was born as relevant then ok? But I guess if you can quote theory and titles of books it makes it all super duper educational!

 

[WalkOffHR]

I don't have any good advice for ya. Despite all my screw ups DD still ended up playing D1 college softball. All you can hope for is DD has a better head on her shoulders than most of us parents do and a whole heckuva lot of talent and desire.

 

[lewam3]

I don't have any good advice for ya. Despite all my screw ups DD still ended up playing D1 college softball. All you can hope for is DD has a better head on her shoulders than most of us parents do and a whole heckuva lot of talent and desire.

I'm sure every parent of a DD who is playing D1, D2 or D3 softball will universally agree that playing in college is without a doubt a quantum leap in time, commitment, and ability. There is very little time for frat parties, sororities, leisurely dining. There is very little opportunity for sleeping in, movie nights, or time for weekend getaways. You live in the library, bus, airports,
weight room, softball field. So, before you even start wondering about playing up, playing down, recruiting chances, etc., ask your DD what she hopes college will be like...

 

[bucketime]

this may be slightly off topic but just something I have wondered. How does being one of the younger kids in your class affect recruiting? Especially when a lot of athletes a year older are in the same grade and many the same age are in a grade below? Does this give the younger kid a disadvantage?

No it does not; My DD is a July birthday and did not affect her at all. This is her third year in college (playing softball) and as a sophomore she was still the youngest (except for one) on the team. She had no disadvantage in fact she made her verbal to a full athletic scholarship the summer before 9th grade and is still doing fine (except for knee surgery) but hey another year of paid college.