Making tryouts easier on girls and teams.....

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With everyone holding tryouts around the same time, doesn't that hamper opportunities not only for the players, but also teams? When I was playing ball there were single team tryouts, but I would also be invited to a bureau tryout where all teams would have scouts. With all that being said why is there not something like that for travel ball? It seems like it would be a very good opportunity not only for girls that may not make the team they tryout for the first time, but it would give teams another avenue to possibly find that piece that could not make it to their personal tryout.

I realize that is why they can setup individual tryouts but I feel this may save girls and teams a lot of time and give them both the exposure they need. Any thoughts on this?

 

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@tw2010:

We started kicking this idea around on OFC last year (I haven't had my first cup of coffee and I'm too lazy to try to find the thread) and I think it is a very good idea to consider.

It is also, however, something that would take an incredible amount of effort and expenses to organize.

Done correctly, I think the expenses would absolutely require a "pay to tryout" fee or a "pay for travel team coaches to attend tryouts" fee. Those expenses would probably include: 1) field expenses for at least four fields (with adequate parking and bathroom facilities) to run tryouts at 12U, 14U, 16U, and 18U; 2) radar for bat speed, pitching speed, and running speed (maybe you could use one set of this radar equipment and run the different age groups through but I am expecting that at least two sets of radar would be required); 2) umpires to call balls and strikes on pitching; 3) preparation of a decent web site for pre-registration that would include a player resume that would in turn include references from prior coaches; 4) a corp of volunteers to do tryout intake, trash clean-up, and a myriad of other tasks that I am sure I'm forgetting; and 5) some kind of agreement among the travel coaches attending as to how offers would be made (on the spot with some time to to consider competing offers?; on the spot with a requirement of an immediate answer?; conditional offers based off of the player profile and resume?) Getting an agreement on that last issue about how travel coaches would use the tryout information might be a deal killer.

Again, I am sure my assessment of what would need to be done to hold what is essentially a combine falls far short of what would actually be needed (for instance I just realized that I haven't provided for tryout balls, pitching machines or a format of live pitching).

I would think this approach would require someone with the organizational skills and experience such as Kirt Whiteside's family with their "theqsport" organization or other organizations that have conducted college showcases.

I haven't even begun to contemplate whether such an approach to travel ball tryouts would violate any NCAA regulations (if there were no way to bar college coaches from just coming to watch).

And then there is the underlying question: how much and how early in a softball player's TB experience do we want to make this look more and more like a competition amongst players with native athletic abilities (plus private skills coaches) rather than an enterprise aiming at developing players?

I don't have any easy answers but I do agree that the "tryout season dilemma" currently existing for young ladies who want to play TB warrants the consideration of alternatives to team-based tryouts. If one concludes after considering the alternatives that it is up to each team to develop a record and reputation for ethical, values-based, successful teams, I don't think that conclusion would necessarily be wrong.

 

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We talk about doing this type of tryout almost 12 years ago. The biggest problem we ran into was
The expenses.

I would even do it out of my own pocket if I felt the coaches would make a true commitment.

By the way that was the other problem. The players were willing to give it a try but without
the Coaches steping to the plate. The players back out.

 

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Sounds good if you're a small organization, but the larger organizations have nothing to gain in a scenario such as you describe and that's where you'll fail. Larger organizations know that they'll draw quite a bit of talent just on their name and forcing the girls to make a choice of 2-3 teams early in the process works to their advantage.

 

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When a tryout occurs not only do you get a sense of the player but the player (and parent) gets a feel for the team (organization). If you tryout and five teams are there how will you get that? I know that by the time a player and parents have been in travel for several years they know the other teams, are used to seeing coaches in games and how things go but if you are in the younger ranks that is all an unknown to you.

There would also have to be some hardcore rules on how a player would be contacted and offers made. I can see how if a desirable set of players are there the positioning that would happen so that a team could get to the prospect to make contact.

 

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That would be the biggest factor that would keep me away, it would feel like my daughters were at a cattle call. Then when the coaches did call you wouldn't have a feel for who you and your daughter fits with, just saying.

 

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@flea909:

I hear you. Your comments about a "cattle call" far better captured my ambivalence about a combine tryout than I did. As I said, I am still caught between the dilemma of a player who only has one and maybe two weekends of tryouts (with sometimes an offer made that doesn't allow enough time to attend other tryouts) and the problems of a team trying to look out for its own interests, including the interests of players who have committed to return.