With the summer travel ball season wrapping up this month, it means that many club players will be transitioning to a new team for a myriad of reasons.
If this process may be happening to you as a player or an athlete’s parent, there’s a lot that goes into making this important decision and what the optimal new program will look like.
One parent who’s been through this is JD White*, a mom of three in the Midwest who was an athlete herself and has coached several youth sports teams in volleyball, basketball and softball.
She shares with us her thoughts on how to best check out potential opportunities and consider key factors to make the best decision for the young athlete’s future.
*Note: this is her pen name as her daughter players in a top club program and is still in the recruiting process so “JD” finds it best to write anonymously for now!
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What a great summer this has been!
With COVID restrictions lifted the softball world came back stronger and more competitive than ever!
Many of the national championship tournaments finished up last weekend with a few still finishing yet this week.
Sadly, that means Summer is coming to an end and Fall is fast approaching. Whether your daughter just finished her first season and you still have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into or you’ve been doing this crazy softball thing for a while, Fall in the softball world means change.
What kinds of change?
With new rosters being set, student-athletes are making college commits and sometimes organizational changes happen including some turnover of coaches within organizations, players leaving teams or entire teams get picked up by outside organizations.
In the younger age divisions, it’s common to see new teams popping up. This time of year, a lot can change in the landscape of a team or organization in a very short period of time.
Honestly, it can be tough to keep up!
One trend that has picked up in popularity is the number of national organizations adding new teams and expanding the boundaries of the organization to other cities and states.
This isn’t necessarily a new concept but the rate that it’s happening makes it almost impossible to stay up to date with how many teams an organization has, what age group and where they are located.
For example, you could play a Texas Glory team in a tournament and there’s a decent chance the team isn’t from the state of Texas. It used to be that the Glory (or the EC Bullets, Firecrackers, Bombers and dozens more) were one of the handful of nationwide organizations but now they are just one of many organizations that have teams throughout the US.
Often, the flagship National team from these organizations have players from all throughout the country and these players are expected to practice on their own and develop their skills.
Not all national teams operate this way but it is becoming more and more popular and common.
With the many decisions and new opportunities players have in the Fall, we thought this would be a good time to put a list of questions together that player and parents might want to consider when deciding the best fit for them when it comes to deciding a team/organization…
Ask yourselves the following when looking into new travel ball teams:
*** Scroll down to learn the 25 questions one parent found important in the family’s search for the right club team!
