daboss
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Goals are good!
Coaches who pay attention to players goals and communicate both individual and team goals are preferred.
Coaches who don't communicate are trying to grow mushrooms in the dark.
And with this, welcome to school ball. lol.
Perhaps welcome to playing sports in general.
I feel like much has been said. I feel like I have much more to share but it's going to be redundant of what's already been shared. However, I will share my family's personal experience with high school ball using my daughter's experience.
As she approached high school age both of us were big fans of the varsity team. We knew a lot of the girls from travel ball. There was no reserve program at our school. We looked at the roster and knew there were only going to be 2 starting positions immediately open when Shelby would be a freshman trying out for the team. 3rd base and a backup pitcher primarily playing first base would graduate. Those 2-3 years leading up to Shelby's freshman year she worked on 3rd base and began taking pitching lessons. By her freshman year, she was a honed & travel ball seasoned 3rd baseman, and capable of throwing strikes with 70% accuracy. I categorized her as a backup pitcher. This with her hitting skills had her batting 5th in the varsity line up as a freshman. She remained in the line up and lettered all 4 years with league, county, and regional honors. She got this recognition after being nominated by opposing coaches, not her own. He didn't like her but couldn't ignore her talents to play her daily.
Point is; we had a plan. Yes, I was involved in the process but I left her to decide if this was what she wanted to do. 3rd base is referred to as the "Suicide Corner" for a reason and if she weren't comfortable playing there daily with girls 4 years older than her during an era when many high school teams resorted to small ball, I would have understood. Fact is, she embraced it and became one of the best 3rd basemen in the entire area. She could catch fly balls too..........
We didn't go into those 4 years of school ball to un-seat an upper class-man but we were fully aware that at any given time her defensive job could be tested. This was before the FLEX player option but to be honest, the only real reason she could have lost her playing time would possibly been her hitting. She struggled with experienced pitching as a freshman yet as hard as the coach tried he couldn't replace her with anyone else in his roster. Yes, he tried.
My final point is to believe you cannot be replaced is beyond naive. When coaches build a team from scratch the positions they should be seeking are; Pitcher, Catcher, 3rd Base, and 1st Base in that order. Some will argue but trust me these positions are golden in fastpitch softball. Except for pitchers, even these positions would need to be hitters. I laugh inside when I hear parents brag of their shortstop daughters because in the big picture, I rank that position 7th in importance when recruiting. This is not baseball.
2-time Olympic medalist Leah Obrien-Amico tells of her illustrious high school and travel ball career as a pitcher before being recruited by the great Mike Candrea at Arizona. As a freshman she found herself in the dugout with 8 other pitchers. Candrea recruited pitchers, then relied on them to play other positions while he sorted out the very best to be his bullpen. She soon learned that simply throwing 62-65 mph fastballs was only average in college and if she wanted to play in the line up she needed to hone her skills for another position. She was left-handed hitter with lightning speed so she went to the outfield where she settled in for the remaining years of her career, earning 2 gold medals along the way.
Off topic a little but word of advice; You want to play D1 college softball, learn to spin the ball around and up & down a telephone poll, run like a deer, consistently drive the ball over the fence, and be top of your class in grades. With all that you'll still need to earn your spot in the line up...........