Help me understand Please.

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We also ran into this problem with my sons jv team. They had pulled 2 freshman up to play varsity, but whenever the varsity team was not playing both kids played every inning of every JV game. One of the boys hardly ever got to play on the Varsity team, the other started every game and occasionally pitched. When he played for the JV team he usually pitched, the other played catcher while JV kids who had been at every practice and game sat the bench! Now if that Varsity Freshman pitcher was winning I could almost see keeping him in but we were losing our -----!! They weren't any better than any of the other kids, they had just needed bodies to fill the varsity roster! IMHO if these kids hardly got playing time on the varsity team, or played every inning, they accepted that role. I believe it is totally unfair to pull them to the JV team ever!

 

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I have issues with several of these posts. First of all, I am sure some of them come from disgruntled parents whose girls rode the bench when someone got "called down" from varsity. The second issue is that it is somehow "unfair" to either the girls or other JV teams if there are call downs. Personally, I have never considered having someone go down from our varsity team to JV team only to help JV win a game, because frankly JV is not about winning games ... its about developing future varsity players and to give other girls a chance to play. If I send someone down to JV, its either because JV needs a player that day or because the girl is riding the bench too much on varsity and needs to get some playing time, period. I have no doubt that some HS coaches have other intentions, but I could care less if they're doing that to beat our JV team ... I would think its kind of funny actually.

The touchier issue admittedly can be having regular JV starters relegated to the bench when these varsity players get called down, but I would just say that that's life. Any girl playing JV should realize that they are playing JV because there are girls the coaches consider more talented playing ahead of them on varsity ... and that sometimes this is going to happen and they should use that as motivation to keep working on their game and getting to the next level. I would agree that ideally the coaches should tell them before the season that this could happen sometimes. And you know what ... if some girls are doing phenomenally at the JV level, sometimes we bring them up to varsity and they play ahead of the varsity players there! These girls are in high school now and they and their parents need to start realizing that life is full of competition and that things aren't always "fair", at least the way fair was defined when they were little girls. I guess I can take sad's argument that those varsity players accepted that role and twist it a little and say that when the JV girls (boys in his case) accepted the role as a "junior" varisty player, that they knew there were other players (at least the coaches thought were) better than them and that they need to understand that they are already playing behind them. And by the way, with regards to accepting the role, do most schools really give the choice to some girls as to what team they are going to play on?? I guess the other choice is if we don't want to ever have girls called down from varsity that we just put less girls on varsity to begin with, and just cut more JV players??

 

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I currently do not have no DD playing at the high school level. My DD will be a freshman in the 07-08 school year. We traveled around to watch several schools play and this is what we witnessed. I completely understand the 3 or 4 bubble players moving up and down between jv and varsity, I do not understand pulling down 6 of your starters though. Although a coach may find it funny to have an opposing coach do this, the girls didn't find it too funny at the time.

 

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Shockwave ... I don't understand it either if that was truly the case, and it would bring in to question what kind of program they were running. But I have also heard JV coaches/girls complain about this happening even in my own school and I have had to refute it on more than one occasion ... in other words, they thought either a key player or a bunch of girls got called down to beat them and it just wasn't so ... it seems to be a popular thing to start rumors on. Regardless, I don't think we should expect the OHSAA to get involved in this nor do I want them to meddle in details like this.

 

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coachjwb- I to have heard coaches/girls complain about "ringors" being brought down to beat them, and I knew different. In this case, it was a school rivalry that the previous meeting resulted in a mercy rule. School didn't like it and at the rematch they pulled down majority of varsity team. I've not had deal with OHSAA so I don't know what a pain they are, but I do believe something should be in place to prevent situations like this, perhaps with the leagues AD's.

 

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Shock ... I have no doubt that it does happen and in leagues where winning JV games is a "big deal", I would agree that the AD's probably should address as nothing positive is going to result from this kind of behavior/sportsmanship. With that being said, I would hope that we could get to the point where coaches and parents understand that winning JV games should not be a big deal.

By the way, our school has gone down to Kentucky the last two spring breaks to play some good programs down there, and JV is done much differently. Most schools carry about 15-18 girls on their softball teams (and this can go all the way down to 7th graders). When the schools play each other, they first play the varsity game immediately followed by a 5 inning JV game. On that roster of say 16 girls, they might have 5 girls that play varsity only, 5 girls that play JV only, and the other 6 girls play in both games. So the catcher from the first game might be the pitcher for the JV game. We've played 5 different schools down there the last couple of years, and they all did it the same way, and 3 of the teams were ranked in the top 20 in Kentucky at the time we played them.

One other thing ... these are Division 1 and 2 size schools, and they play a high quality of softball. My understanding is that they don't have the 27/23 rule. They also don't have 4 different divisions like Ohio does ... there is only one division and only one state champ crowned at the end of the year.

The point is that our girls in Ohio are fortunate that most schools have separate JV teams for the most part, and that quite a few schools have either freshmen or JV B teams. If we went the way of Kentucky, I guess the issue of people complaining about varsity players being called down to stack JV teams would become a moot point! And coaches would only have to deal with 15 sets of parents instead of 30-50, and gym time in March for only one team vs. three! As for me, I am just glad that we give more girls a chance to play ball.

 

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?If I send someone down to JV, its either because JV needs a player that day or because the girl is riding the bench too much on varsity and needs to get some playing time, period. ?

I agree with this. If they are not getting playing time and are only a body on the bench if needed, then they should be sent down when they can to play. However, one of those kids started every game as a varsity player. He already had a ton of playing time. Now, do I think my kid is the best? I think my child is a good ball player who needs to "earn" their position on the team. coachjwb, you are right that this is not kid ball anymore. Every coach JV or Varsity, Rec or Travel, should field their best 9. If you want to be one of those 9, then prove you are the best.

I have no problem with kids playing down if they are not getting playing time.