I agree giving back at the rec level is very valuable. Building a solid rec league in each community is only going to grow the sport.
The past 3 seasons I have went and coached tball and coach pitch 6u and it is so MUCH FUN! teaching the basic fundamentals of the game and just teaching them to have fun and love the game has been awesome. Like Dan said above, we all donate alot of time and its tough sometimes to give back to the local rec leagues. But most of these kids started in their local rec league so i encourage my kids to help those younger teams when they have time. Umpire or get with a team and give back.
Building back recreational leagues will be a challenge.
In a lot of areas communities have repurposed the fields or, the fields were taken over by organizations for other sports or tournament play.
As far as organizations helping on the recreational front. The REDS donate a ton of money to maintain 60+ fields around greater Cincinnati so boys and girls have a safe field to play on. Transportation to get inner city kids to the academy, spring, summer fall and winter programs for all ages some at no or low cost, top notch instruction and college planning and while it has helped keep kids playing it has not increased the numbers much in softball.
The problem is even at no cost to play, softball is struggling to attract players and get coaches. Baseball is still doing ok but it too is down on the recreational level.
I think as others have posted there may be some issues with community members pulling away from local recreational to form or start local travel teams that tend to end up getting placed in events they cannot compete in but IMO that is a small percentage overall contributing to the decline of a recreational league. The ladies just are not playing.
Field utilization has to start within the community at the primary level (elementary) to try to get some more interest from the recreational organization leadership. This is another area that has taken a hit with finance issues and commitment to the purpose of the organizations.
This has to start in January with information kids can take home from school and be placed on social media and school pages.
Our local school district at one time would add to news letters reminders about recreational sports sign ups now they struggle to communicate what's going on at the schools.
Another area hurting recreational ball is cost...softball is expensive compared to other sports for girls, expensive to maintain fields etc. Softball also requires more thought and repetition and is harder to learn than other popular sports.
Its sad to dive by some of the best facilities in the state that Colerain has and, see them not used. At one time this huge rivalries between other township organizations (we had 5 at one time), catholic leagues, and neighboring areas. Now just the catholic leagues are the only ones with full schedules and they have numbers issues as well.
Colerain Township has a total of 12 baseball fields at 4 parks available to rent.
www.colerain.org
