The Good, Bad and Ugly of the Draft

Last night was the draft for the in-town softball league.  In theory, it's supposed to allow for relatively even teams.  It doesn't always work out that way.  The biggest obstacle is the seeding of the coaches' kids.  The age director does that, with minimal input from the coaches.  Overall, it's probably balances out, so no one complains too much, but looking at individual rankings could drive you nuts.  The teams with more 3rd grade parents as coaches were penalized by having their girls ranked higher than they should be.  This eliminated some of their early round picks and they ended up with a skewed roster (when looking at number of 3rd vs 4th grade players).  My team ended up right on balance based on the relative numbers (5 3rd graders and 7 4th graders), but my team has four coaches and we are split between 3rd and 4th graders (2 & 3, respectively).  One team (age director) has 11 4th graders and 1 3rd (The undisputed top 3rd grader).

As the draft snakes through the order (1-6, 6-1, 1-6, etc), we had pick number 6 & 7.  I intended to take the best player available and my girls best friend (she's probably the 8-12th best, so not a stretch).  I didn't get a chance to select her as she was taken by the 4th pick as that coach tried to select kids that his daughter knew from school.  I can't blame his reasoning, since it was the similar to my thinking, but he definitely left stronger players on the table.  He offered to trade if I was willing to give up S for her (half-jokingly).

The end of the draft is always tough.  The girls that have been skipped over become a game of picking the least amount of trouble.  Six of the last 7 girls were 4th graders.  A combination of weak skills or prior experience with them kept them on the board until there was nothing left.  The final player probably would have ranked in the top 12-15 if she had shown up for the tryout.  But that is the key issue with her.  She misses practices and games regularly and when she's there, she can't focus on the game.  She absorbs at least half the time of a coach.  This puts more work on all the other coaches.  If she's attentive, that team just picked up the steal of the draft.

Games start next week.

Softball "tryouts"

Sunday was softball "tryouts".  Essentially, it's a minimally helpful review of each kid's skills, prior to the draft.  Inside a gym, each kid fields three balls hit nearly directly toward them and throws it to a coach at "1st base" (about the distance from a pulled-in shortstop).  They then catch three balls tossed up, again right at them and make the throw.  Finally, they take 5-10 swings at a coach pitched ball.  I watched the girls' attitude more than anything.  Did they show confidence? Did they run from station to station or walk like they were heading toward punishment?

Overall, I think the girls did better than I expected.  That may be due to the lower numbers.  Participation at the 3rd/4th grade (10U) is down 25% from last year.  It seems that the loss is mainly from the weaker players not continuing.  Only a small handful of average/good players did not return (focusing on other sports).

Even though they are automatically on their parent's team, each coach's kid is asked to tryout out to make seeding easier for the draft.  If your kid is good, you lose an early pick, etc.  Some parents are probably advising their kids to purposely look bad.  I know that last year, S asked me if she should miss on purpose.  I figure that everyone already knows the level of play my girls are capable of, so they might as well try to shine.  It's hard for the girls to actually do fake the ability when they are in the moment, so there's no reason to put doubt in their heads.  Some coaches simply don't bring their girls to the tryout.  That would be an automatic upgrade if I was in charge.  Either everyone participates or no one.

K couldn't participate due to a possible broken bone in her hand from a scooter accident on Friday.  Ortho appt happening right now.  Could mean missing all/most of lacrosse and softball this year.  I'm sure I'll still have to give up a high pick for her, since the people running the draft are very competitive.  Whatever.

S was one of a handful of girls to put on a show at the tryout.  She did bobble one grounder, but her throws were hard, she showed good technique catching the pop-flys (I had them challenge her a little vs simply tossing them right at her) and she had a number of solid hits.  She hit one to the far wall of the gym on the fly, which was a rare event.  She was the 2nd of three consecutive kids who were a class above the rest.  It was fun to watch.  The kids waiting in line were high-fiving them as they finished.  It was definitely her favorite moment of the day.

Draft on Tuesday night.  Stay tuned.

Basketball Summary (in-town)

We had a very successful in-town basketball season this year.  We play in a 3rd/4th grade league, 4 on 4, cross court.  As our (way too small) t-shirts were Orange and we had just returned from Disney before the start of the season, we called ourselves the Tiggers. 

With some effective drafting, I had my 5 3rd graders from last years team all together again as 4th graders.  We also had 3 3rd graders, one of whom had never played a sport before.  This group of girls really played well together.  The 4th graders showed some great leadership by going out of their way to get the ball to our 3rd graders as much as possible.  We had the luxury of typically playing with a lead, but this willingness to share the ball helped in tight games as well.  Our new player turned out to be a secret weapon at the low post.  Other teams would discount her and she would be left open.  She was a very accurate (for this league) shooter and would make them regret the lapse very often.

Some other highlights of the season include:

We lost only one game, to an undefeated team, but were the closest that any team had come to beating them.  For the in-town program, all kids play as equally as possible each game.  The team we lost to had two of its weaker players not show up (well, one showed up, but then refused to play).  That allowed them to take advantage of mismatches when my lesser experienced players were in.  For the 1st couple shifts (with my best 4th graders matched against theirs), we were ahead.  It definitely put a scare into them.

One of our 3rd graders hurt her foot (non-basketball injury) and wasn't able to practice or play for a week.  She still came to the game (on her birthday) and was there to support us during one of the most exciting games of the year (more on that later).  You don't always get 'in-town' players with that sort of team loyalty.  Heck, you don't always get travel players, HS or College athletes with that sort of loyalty.  She learned that from some good parents and I thanked them for it.  That was just one small piece of why she earned the "Tigger" award for the season.  Boundless energy and spirit.

Sometimes, one player can dominate a game.  This is even more evident in 4 on 4.  In one close game, we score early, but it was a matchup of two very strong groups and we had only a two point lead.  At half time, the lead was just 4.  The 2nd half started slowly and the lead was cut to two.  At the next shif, each team had in their best player, who tended to cancel each other out.  The rest of the matchups favored us and we extended the lead to six.  Due to the number of players each team had, their best player stayed in for the next shift as we had an unbalance lineup (one strong player, one good, two weaker).  Their player quickly realized the advantage and they scored eight unanswered points to take a two point lead.  As we made the shift to the final matchup (last 4.5 minutes, running time), their best player came out, just as we went with four 4th graders, including our top two players.  I was feeling pretty good about our chances as we quickly tied the score.  They responded soon after and we were down again.  It took just one trip down the court to tie it up again.  After what seemed like an eternity of sloppy play from both sides, we finally broke through and got the go ahead basket with about a minute left.  Our girls started to celebrate a little and their smallest player took the inbounds pass the whole court for an easy layup.  Tied again.  We came down and got off a shot, but missed.  Down to 30 seconds now as they bring the ball up the court.  The crowd is into the game even more than the players and coaches.  S picks off a pass and races down the court all alone.  High-speed layups are a problem for her in-town, as we use a 9ft hoop and she has become used to the regulation 10ft hoops of travel games.  I'm sure I yelled something about taking it easy, but I don't know for sure.  She took an easy shot and put it off the backboard and in for a two point lead.  The crowd erupted.  The girls started jumping up and down and I started screaming "DEFENSE!".  We turned around and put pressure on the ball and eventually threw up a pass/shot that went right to S.  She dribbled around for a few seconds and then tossed the ball toward the hoop as time expired.  She had scored 6 of our last 8 points.  An uneventful game when S was matched up with their best, turned into a wild slugfest when they each got to go alone.  I have to commend the other coach for following the rules and not trying to leave in his best player.  It was her turn to sit and he put her on the bench.  These girls are all friends and play together on the travel team.  At the practice that afternoon, everyone talked about how exciting the game was and how well they played.  Virtually no discussion about who won, other than to congratulate S on the winning shot.

Let's hope the Spring time sports give us something as exciting!

Spring Sports

We are preparing for the Spring season now.  After a very successful basketball season (both in-town and travel for both girls), we are now venturing into new lands.  For the first time in six years, we won't be doing soccer.  At U10, they start travel soccer and that creates a lot of conflicts with other sports, family, school work and instrument lessons.  I asked the girls what they most wanted to do and S chose softball (in-town and pre-season practices for summer league) and K chose in-town softball and lacrosse.

Lacrosse is new for us, so I'm spending the time in the stands.  This will be their first sport since 1st grade gymnastics that I haven't coached.  I'll still be coaching both of them in Softball.  Tryouts/evaluations for softball are this Sunday with the draft on Tuesday.  Just want to get as many kids as possible that are "hard effort" types.  I can teach them the game, but it's frustrating to have kids that don't really want to be there.  Softball combines grade 3 and grade 4, so my girls will be bigger and stronger than many of their teammates.  Let's see if they step up with some leadership this season as well.  S will be a 1st round pick (she was as a 3rd grader as well) and she likes to shine at clinics and tryouts.  K plays for fun and to be around friends, but she made a mental change during basketball and started to care about performance as well.  I'm hoping that carries over to the Spring.

Youth Sports focus

It's been awhile since I've posted, but I'm back with a new focus.  The main topic will be youth sports, since I've spent much more of my life on that during the past few years, than I have on my running.  I'm still running a little and trying to increase mileage, but I work on youth coaching/youth sports with much more dedication.