Some of the justifications I've heard for allowing the step back in high school:
- How many pitchers at the high school level have a realistic expectation of ever pitching in a college game? Certainly, it has to be less than 5%. Why force pitchers to use a "college" delivery, when the main goal of high school softball is learning, recreation, participation and school spirit, not preparing college athletes?
- The step back allows the vast majority of high school pitchers who are not among the elite to use a delivery that is advantageous to them. The step back can help a pitcher gain momentum and velocity on the pitch.
- Pitchers are not forced to use the step back- it is optional. If a pitcher has some realistic college aspirations, or pitches in certain travel ball associations that do not allow the step back, she is free to not use it. That way, there is noting to "unlearn".
You have to go back about 25 years, but the step back used to be allowed in ALL softball associations. In the early 1980's, ASA rewrote their pitching rules to prohibit it, based on the perception that the game of fastpitch was becoming too pitching dominated. High school softball simply never changed the rule, not feeling that this was an issue in their game.
Some sanctioning bodies adopted the new ASA rules, others kept the old rule allowing pitchers to step back. ASA still allows the step back in male fastpitch, based on the input of male participants who wanted to keep it and lobbied the rules committee.
Now, an entire generation of participants has come up under the newer rule and it is generally accepted as the norm. High school, which still allows the step, is regarded as the "odd man out", when in reality it is those organizations that require both feet on the rubber that broke with the old traditions.
