default
Member
OH! I think there needs to be an OUTCAST smackdown after that comment...!!!
You guys are funny! DD wanted to do cheerleading last year and I about did my own smackdown on her!!
You guys are funny! DD wanted to do cheerleading last year and I about did my own smackdown on her!!
default
Member
My DD chose to not play her senior year in HS. It did not affect her at all in her college recruiting. It probably depends on the college coach, but the ones we spoke to did not have a problem with it. She was getting a much better workout and practice on her own. Plus she was going to one of the best hitting instructors in the world--something she would not have been able to do as easily if she played hs ball.
default
Member
ttt
default
Member
I agree wholeheartedly....College coaches are interested in finding people who can be good teammates and can deal with adversity. They don't want people who just run of when the going gets tough...
default
Member
May not be an issue if you can get AD to sign off on the transfer.
default
Member
Your DD is making a huge mistake by not playing HS softball if in fact she wants to go to play in college, especially given the reason she's not playing. If her aspirations is to play D3, that's more political than HS ball. If she is miserable playing HS ball then it will be 10 fold playing D3. The only difference is that she won't be able to come home and vent every day.
default
Member
Stanford didnt care.
Shelbyville News (http://shelbynews.com/articles/2010/05/08/sports/doc4be4dba5936fa956351056.txt)
Triton Central senior Danielle Miller admits she could have had more of a social life during her four years of high school.
But Miller was smart enough to see the big picture ? that academics were her priority and that softball, the sport in which she excelled, could be a gateway to opportunities she might not normally have achieved.
Like, for instance, the opportunity to go to Stanford.
Miller signed this winter to play softball for the Cardinal, despite never playing the game for Triton Central.
Miller said several college coaches told her that it wouldn?t really benefit her to play high school softball, especially since she was already playing with travel teams and working out on her own.
Her father, David Miller, said Danielle would be a great high school pitcher, but ?she wouldn?t be a major college pitcher by any means.?
?And we knew if she played high school ball, they would want her as a pitcher. ... If we really want to focus and try to get to another level, we need to focus (on catching).?
Father and daughter point out that Triton Central has been nothing but supportive of her plan to not play high school softball.
Change for the better
Danielle Miller was a pitcher from age 8 to 14, until the coach of her travel team at the time, Gerry Glasco of the Southern Force, told her she wouldn?t be able to pitch at the level of college she wanted to play at. After a season spent playing first and third base, Glasco encouraged her to try out behind the plate.
?He looked at me and said, ?You have the body type and the throwing style to be a catcher. Have you ever thought about it?? We had never even considered it,? Danielle said.
?He said, ?Just try it out for the fall and summer, we?ll see how it goes.? We started taking lessons up at Champions Edge (in Indianapolis), working out on our own. I just fell in love with the position.?
The Millers had an inkling before the position change that Danielle might have the chance to play in college. She was at a camp at Notre Dame when her play drew the eye of some college scouts.
?They came up to her and asked her what 18-and-under team she was on, so they could follow her schedule that summer,? David Miller said.
?She?s like, ?I?m in sixth grade.??
A natural righthander, Danielle learned how to bat lefthanded at the urging of hitting instructor Joe Creek from Champions Edge.
?I was pretty fast then,? said Danielle, who was nine when Creek approached David about the idea of turning Danielle into a lefthanded hitter.
?He asked him, ?Have you ever thought about switching her?? Well, he had no idea what switching was,? Danielle said.
David interjects with a laugh, ?Switch her to what? I had no idea.?
After Creek told her all the advantages of hitting lefthanded, Danielle proclaimed that night that she never wanted to bat righthanded again.
There were some struggles at the plate at first, of course. David told the story of the mother of another player coming up to him at a game and asking if the lefthanded approach was an experiment.
??I?d never put my kid through that in a thousand years,?? David said the woman told him. ??It?s terrible what you?re doing to your child.?
?About three years later, that same woman came up to me, ?I want to apologize. I said I never would have done that, we just did it,?? David said.
Sought-after recruit
The combination of Danielle?s lefthanded power hitting and righthanded catching helped her draw plenty of college interest. She received hundreds of letters and e-mails over the last couple of years, and she visited eight schools: Northwestern, Michigan, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Missouri, Georgia, UCLA and Stanford.
She knew where she wanted to go once she stepped foot on Stanford?s campus.
?The combination of the academics they offered with the top-10, top-15 softball program they offered, and the whole atmosphere there, with everyone being so focused on academics yet it not being a super-serious campus,? Danielle said. ?The student life on the campus and how they balance everything was exactly what I was looking for in a university.?
She plans to major in human biology, with plans to go to medical school for either pediatrics or neurology. Coincidentally, about 70 percent of the softball team has been in the human biology program.
?So she?s going somewhere where a lot of her peers will be doing the same thing,? David said.
She knows she?ll need those peers to make the transition from Indiana to California, and being far from home. It?s almost unheard of for a player from the Midwest to go play ball for a Pac-10 school; in fact, the Millers believe that Danielle will be the first softball player from Indiana to play in the Pac-10.
But her experience as a travel player and the support from her family should help smooth her transition.
?She came to us and said, ?If I play in the Pac-10, you won?t get to see me play much,?? David said. ?And I told her, ?I?ve got to see you play since you were five or six years old, so it?s your time now. We did everything we could do to help raise you, now it?s time to go where you feel is best for you.? We never swayed her one way or the other.?
Passion for the game
That attitude of ?it?s your decision? stems somewhat from Dad?s admitted lack of knowledge of sports. He played some in high school, but he knew she would need the expertise of others to succeed.
?I think it definitely benefited me because we went to numerous instructors, taking in various perspectives on parts of the game. We could filter through that, what would benefit me the best,? Danielle said. ?I knew it was always my choice, and my prerogative if I wanted to practice or not.
?There have been some points where I thought it would have been better to have a little more of a social life. But I was always picturing the bigger picture, what would be the best benefit to me. And I?ve loved softball all my life, it?s just something that when I play I feel at home. It?s always been a passion for me.?
That passion for the game helped Danielle deal with some tough times for the family. In January 2008, Marie Miller, Danielle?s mom, was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time in 10 years. Her mastectomy came just before Danielle went to Denver, Colo., for a softball tournament.
?It was definitely a heavy issue on the family, but softball definitely helped,? Danielle said. ?Not only playing the game and being in a place I loved, but being around people that I knew could understand what I was going through.?
Later in 2008, David was laid off from his job. He got a new job working for a military contractor in Lexington, Ky., which kept him away from the family except for weekends, and later worked in Bloomfield, Ind., before finding a job in Indianapolis.
Meanwhile, Marie?s recovering from the cancer, although she deals with a lot of joint pain that doctors think might be fibromyalgia.
Still, ?She has a super positive attitude,? David said of his wife.
The same could be said of their daughter.
?We?ve sat her down and said, ?Look, you?re missing out on a lot of life.? She spends 4-5 hours a night every night with academics and softball. She may have one or two days off a week. But she said she?s fine,? David said.
?There?s been nights when we?ve been down in the basement (hitting), she?ll be sweating, and she?s like, ?Man, I could hit for hours. I love doing this.?
?I think it?s therapy, I think she likes getting away from everything.?
Shelbyville News (http://shelbynews.com/articles/2010/05/08/sports/doc4be4dba5936fa956351056.txt)
Triton Central senior Danielle Miller admits she could have had more of a social life during her four years of high school.
But Miller was smart enough to see the big picture ? that academics were her priority and that softball, the sport in which she excelled, could be a gateway to opportunities she might not normally have achieved.
Like, for instance, the opportunity to go to Stanford.
Miller signed this winter to play softball for the Cardinal, despite never playing the game for Triton Central.
Miller said several college coaches told her that it wouldn?t really benefit her to play high school softball, especially since she was already playing with travel teams and working out on her own.
Her father, David Miller, said Danielle would be a great high school pitcher, but ?she wouldn?t be a major college pitcher by any means.?
?And we knew if she played high school ball, they would want her as a pitcher. ... If we really want to focus and try to get to another level, we need to focus (on catching).?
Father and daughter point out that Triton Central has been nothing but supportive of her plan to not play high school softball.
Change for the better
Danielle Miller was a pitcher from age 8 to 14, until the coach of her travel team at the time, Gerry Glasco of the Southern Force, told her she wouldn?t be able to pitch at the level of college she wanted to play at. After a season spent playing first and third base, Glasco encouraged her to try out behind the plate.
?He looked at me and said, ?You have the body type and the throwing style to be a catcher. Have you ever thought about it?? We had never even considered it,? Danielle said.
?He said, ?Just try it out for the fall and summer, we?ll see how it goes.? We started taking lessons up at Champions Edge (in Indianapolis), working out on our own. I just fell in love with the position.?
The Millers had an inkling before the position change that Danielle might have the chance to play in college. She was at a camp at Notre Dame when her play drew the eye of some college scouts.
?They came up to her and asked her what 18-and-under team she was on, so they could follow her schedule that summer,? David Miller said.
?She?s like, ?I?m in sixth grade.??
A natural righthander, Danielle learned how to bat lefthanded at the urging of hitting instructor Joe Creek from Champions Edge.
?I was pretty fast then,? said Danielle, who was nine when Creek approached David about the idea of turning Danielle into a lefthanded hitter.
?He asked him, ?Have you ever thought about switching her?? Well, he had no idea what switching was,? Danielle said.
David interjects with a laugh, ?Switch her to what? I had no idea.?
After Creek told her all the advantages of hitting lefthanded, Danielle proclaimed that night that she never wanted to bat righthanded again.
There were some struggles at the plate at first, of course. David told the story of the mother of another player coming up to him at a game and asking if the lefthanded approach was an experiment.
??I?d never put my kid through that in a thousand years,?? David said the woman told him. ??It?s terrible what you?re doing to your child.?
?About three years later, that same woman came up to me, ?I want to apologize. I said I never would have done that, we just did it,?? David said.
Sought-after recruit
The combination of Danielle?s lefthanded power hitting and righthanded catching helped her draw plenty of college interest. She received hundreds of letters and e-mails over the last couple of years, and she visited eight schools: Northwestern, Michigan, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Missouri, Georgia, UCLA and Stanford.
She knew where she wanted to go once she stepped foot on Stanford?s campus.
?The combination of the academics they offered with the top-10, top-15 softball program they offered, and the whole atmosphere there, with everyone being so focused on academics yet it not being a super-serious campus,? Danielle said. ?The student life on the campus and how they balance everything was exactly what I was looking for in a university.?
She plans to major in human biology, with plans to go to medical school for either pediatrics or neurology. Coincidentally, about 70 percent of the softball team has been in the human biology program.
?So she?s going somewhere where a lot of her peers will be doing the same thing,? David said.
She knows she?ll need those peers to make the transition from Indiana to California, and being far from home. It?s almost unheard of for a player from the Midwest to go play ball for a Pac-10 school; in fact, the Millers believe that Danielle will be the first softball player from Indiana to play in the Pac-10.
But her experience as a travel player and the support from her family should help smooth her transition.
?She came to us and said, ?If I play in the Pac-10, you won?t get to see me play much,?? David said. ?And I told her, ?I?ve got to see you play since you were five or six years old, so it?s your time now. We did everything we could do to help raise you, now it?s time to go where you feel is best for you.? We never swayed her one way or the other.?
Passion for the game
That attitude of ?it?s your decision? stems somewhat from Dad?s admitted lack of knowledge of sports. He played some in high school, but he knew she would need the expertise of others to succeed.
?I think it definitely benefited me because we went to numerous instructors, taking in various perspectives on parts of the game. We could filter through that, what would benefit me the best,? Danielle said. ?I knew it was always my choice, and my prerogative if I wanted to practice or not.
?There have been some points where I thought it would have been better to have a little more of a social life. But I was always picturing the bigger picture, what would be the best benefit to me. And I?ve loved softball all my life, it?s just something that when I play I feel at home. It?s always been a passion for me.?
That passion for the game helped Danielle deal with some tough times for the family. In January 2008, Marie Miller, Danielle?s mom, was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time in 10 years. Her mastectomy came just before Danielle went to Denver, Colo., for a softball tournament.
?It was definitely a heavy issue on the family, but softball definitely helped,? Danielle said. ?Not only playing the game and being in a place I loved, but being around people that I knew could understand what I was going through.?
Later in 2008, David was laid off from his job. He got a new job working for a military contractor in Lexington, Ky., which kept him away from the family except for weekends, and later worked in Bloomfield, Ind., before finding a job in Indianapolis.
Meanwhile, Marie?s recovering from the cancer, although she deals with a lot of joint pain that doctors think might be fibromyalgia.
Still, ?She has a super positive attitude,? David said of his wife.
The same could be said of their daughter.
?We?ve sat her down and said, ?Look, you?re missing out on a lot of life.? She spends 4-5 hours a night every night with academics and softball. She may have one or two days off a week. But she said she?s fine,? David said.
?There?s been nights when we?ve been down in the basement (hitting), she?ll be sweating, and she?s like, ?Man, I could hit for hours. I love doing this.?
?I think it?s therapy, I think she likes getting away from everything.?
default
Member
SftballRules, you are correct. My daughter had many opportunities to commit beginning the fall of her junior year, but she believed that when she walked on campus that she would know "the right school." We visited over 20 schools--mostly the fall of her senior year, and sometimes there were three school visits in one weekend. She had her top three, but none just seemed right to her.
We continued visiting colleges when the weather was good in the spring, and some of the coaches that had made offers to her were awesome in that they told her they would wait for her decision until she was sure--this made it easier for her to be sure she picked the right school. One finally gave her a deadline, and she told him she wasn't ready--he told her to take as long as she wanted because she was worth the wait.
I never thought she would find "the right school", so we made a deal that we would visit three final schools, and then she would need to make her decision. These visits were during spring break. At this point she made the decision to not play HS ball her senior season. It was sad for us---but it was very much the right decision.
You may have read me recommending berecruited.com in other posts--as a note, all three of these schools recruited my daughter from that site. The first school, an NAIA in West Virginia, became her new #1 school. The second one was a DII in Washington DC, and the third one was in North Carolina.
She immediately fell in love with the school in NC--the last school we visited. All three of the school coaches agreed that she would be better off working on her own to improve her skills--especially the school she chose.
She was recruited to be a relief pitcher at the school in NC, and she would not have pitched in HS. This worked out well too as she ended up being the top pitcher on her team with the most innings pitched instead of the relief pitcher. She worked hard almost every day during the spring and summer with her dad and her hitting and pitching coaches. She was also fortunate to have an indoor facility available to her for practice. With all the rainy spring days, this ended up being a big blessing--we will always be grateful to the indoor facility for their support and generosity.
I hope this answered your question.
We continued visiting colleges when the weather was good in the spring, and some of the coaches that had made offers to her were awesome in that they told her they would wait for her decision until she was sure--this made it easier for her to be sure she picked the right school. One finally gave her a deadline, and she told him she wasn't ready--he told her to take as long as she wanted because she was worth the wait.
I never thought she would find "the right school", so we made a deal that we would visit three final schools, and then she would need to make her decision. These visits were during spring break. At this point she made the decision to not play HS ball her senior season. It was sad for us---but it was very much the right decision.
You may have read me recommending berecruited.com in other posts--as a note, all three of these schools recruited my daughter from that site. The first school, an NAIA in West Virginia, became her new #1 school. The second one was a DII in Washington DC, and the third one was in North Carolina.
She immediately fell in love with the school in NC--the last school we visited. All three of the school coaches agreed that she would be better off working on her own to improve her skills--especially the school she chose.
She was recruited to be a relief pitcher at the school in NC, and she would not have pitched in HS. This worked out well too as she ended up being the top pitcher on her team with the most innings pitched instead of the relief pitcher. She worked hard almost every day during the spring and summer with her dad and her hitting and pitching coaches. She was also fortunate to have an indoor facility available to her for practice. With all the rainy spring days, this ended up being a big blessing--we will always be grateful to the indoor facility for their support and generosity.
I hope this answered your question.
default
Member
Do you explain to coaches your reasons behind not playing HS ball if that' the way you choose? I've heard so many differing opinions on here and just trying to get more input. I'm not the original poster of this thread, but they sure read my mind when it was posted! I think that sometimes the "drama" that goes on on some teams steps over boundaries and each individual has to choose what's best for them and their families.
default
Member
Yes, we explained to the coaches why our daughter wasn't playing. There were several reasons, but the coaches knew why.
default
Member
ttt
