Learning the Ropes of Youth Softball — Advice Welcome!

thePITman

thePITman

Well-known member
I’ve coached high school baseball for nearly 20 years and have been heavily involved with our players’ summer and travel teams, so I’m very familiar with that world. But now that my 7-year-old daughter has started playing softball — and after seeing photos and videos of some friends’ daughters in North Carolina on their 8U “district champion” team — I’m realizing just how little I know about the youth softball landscape.

I’m curious:
  • How many girls at this age play strictly travel vs local rec ball?
  • If your child plays travel, at what age did they start?
  • When do girls typically begin pitching to each other instead of having parents pitch?
I also want to acknowledge something important: I’m not just thinking about my own daughter. I really care about helping the girls in her grade develop together — building a strong foundation, strong friendships, and ultimately, a strong team by the time they reach high school. That said, I know rec ball has its limitations when it comes to competition and development.

So I’d love to hear from those of you who’ve been through this. What’s been your experience balancing travel opportunities with the value of developing a core group through rec?
 
 
Softball is different than baseball in that they play in 2 year increments (ie 8U, 10U, 12U, 14U, 16U, and 18U). There are two cutoff dates depending on organization. Most use birth years, some use September 1st.

My daughter played on a community travel team that formed through the rec league. We have a strong rec league and every age year usually has a travel team.

IMO, it is best to stay in the local rec league, especially for the first few years. You can find other parents/players in your community that are interested in playing more competitively and form a team that plays on the weekends and throughout the Summer. I would start looking right now which parents/kids are the most interested. I wouldn't worry about getting the best players only. That is something that changes over time. Getting the kids with the best attitudes is most important. Same with the parents. Also, your daughter having good friends on the team will keep her having fun.

One last thing, if you have a team that is one age group (ie 2017 birth year), expect to get beaten down when they are the young team in an age group and then having alot of success the following year when they are the older team (that finally goes away by 16u). There is a big difference in skill and size in girls softball when they are one year older.
 
My daughter started playing travel at 7 on an 8u team. It's been 10 years but 8u was coach pitch and above that (10u) was kid pitch.

10u the kids pitched from 35 feet. 12u they pitched at 40 feet. After that, they move back to 43 feet.

At 10u, they will use an 11inch ball. They will use a 12inch ball after that. Pitching is the hardest skill. to teach. Don't limit who can pitch early on. Encourage everyone. Softball pitching is like baseball pitching. Speed, accuracy, spins, and change of pace all matter. Don't let anyone tell you that they don't all matter. You will hear early on that speed doesn't matter. It does. By the time they get a little older, everyone can pitch fast because the slow pitchers fade away.

Speed for pitchers that I've seen as a marker:

10u - 40MPH
12u - 50MPH
14u - 54MPH
16u and up - 58MPH

These aren't exact and don't make you a good nor bad pitcher. You can be a little slower but you should be shooting for these marks especially as you end your even number year. The top pitchers will be above those marks.
 
Yappi is spot on with his commentary. I’ll add a few additional points.

I too took my daughter to travel ball at 8 and it’s the best this I could have done for her development. She has played at a high level and face stiff competition since she was 9. It hasn’t always been great but she has developed into a pretty good ball player.

You can have a sold rec program and have high school success, see Strasburg. They take their rec teams to travel tournaments throughout the summer. This is not the norm though. Almost all the teams that played in Akron this past weekend have travel ball pitchers and that makes a huge difference in high school ball. The teams that won have mostly travel ball players making the major contributions.

You can develop players at rec ball with a few committed parents as Yappi mentioned and then make a move to travel if she has the desire. There is a travel ball team for everyone and teams play at different levels, A, B, or C, A being the most competitive level.

If you move to travel it’ll likely bring other kids and parents from your team or area with you. That’s what happened in my case. My daughter was the first to go and soon 3-4 others followed.

There is no right or wrong answer. Some of it depends on the league and team you’re involved with. At some point they have to see good pitching to be able to consistently hit a a decent level. Like all sports the coaching you get matters and you have to find the right fit and coach.

My 2 cents, take or leave it. Happy to be a sounding board the journey for my daughter has been a great experience thus far.
 
If your daughter chooses to play travel ball, tryouts are usually at the end of July or beginning of August. There are other openings for teams throughout the year because of other players switching teams, teams that have unfilled positions (usually pitcher), teams that fold, and teams that are just starting up.

Plan on trying out in July as the other opportunities are hit and miss.

Also, don't go crazy on paying for travel ball at the younger ages. Just play on a team where your daughter gets good opportunities. No one got a college scholarship because they paid 1000s of dollars when they were 8.
 
We started travel at 12u, but really wished we would have started sooner, and not signed up for both rec and travel. The local league just doesn't have enough top to bottom to really push kids on a consistent basis. There are some very good players but few very good teams. I really didn't care for the 10u rules either but didn't realize it until we got into 12u. No dropped 3rd strike and no stealing home doesn't prepare the girls for tournaments or the step up to the next level.

Prioritize development for the future vs win now because rings or rec league championships don't get you anything at the high school level or beyond.
 
Thank you all for the thoughtful replies — I really appreciated the insights and perspective. They’ve helped shape how we’re approaching things, and it’s encouraging to see some of what you described already starting to take place.

Our daughter’s 8U rec season wrapped up last week with a fun game between the two teams from our community. Afterward, both teams went out for pizza and ice cream together — and while we were there, we learned that one of the parents/coaches from the other team is forming a team to play in a few tournaments this summer and a fall league as well. Someone must’ve mentioned that we were looking to do more, because she approached us and we had a great conversation.

I’ll be assisting as the main coach’s right hand on the team. I don’t know much about her yet — just that she played softball in high school, and her 8U team this year struggled quite a bit. I’ve also heard some mixed things about how she interacts with players and parents, but most of the parents seem to be okay with her, so I’m choosing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Our first practice is Monday, and I’m curious what she'll be teaching the girls and how much instructing and input she lets me give. As a longtime high school baseball coach myself, I'm reasonably knowledgeable and want to make sure the girls are being taught the right fundamentals, but also realizing there are differences and nuances between the two sports. I’m intrigued... and a little nervous. Haha!

Of the three summer tournaments, our daughter will only be able to play in one (we’ve got a packed vacation schedule), but we’re excited to do it. She’s made it clear that she loves softball/baseball and can’t get enough of it. She’s also interested in playing in the fall league — and so are we — but she also plays soccer, so we’ll do our best to make both work. We’re strong believers in kids playing multiple sports and not specializing too early, but if she eventually decides that softball is where her heart is, then we'll go all in at some point.

Looking ahead, we’ll probably leave next summer a little more open and see where things go. On our way home from the Smoky Mountains last night, we drove past a packed Berliner Sports Park near Columbus. She saw all the games and lights and fields and said, “I can’t wait to play in big softball tournaments like that someday.” Safe to say — she’s hooked.
 
thePITman said:
I’ve coached high school baseball for nearly 20 years and have been heavily involved with our players’ summer and travel teams, so I’m very familiar with that world. But now that my 7-year-old daughter has started playing softball — and after seeing photos and videos of some friends’ daughters in North Carolina on their 8U “district champion” team — I’m realizing just how little I know about the youth softball landscape.

I’m curious:
  • How many girls at this age play strictly travel vs local rec ball?
  • If your child plays travel, at what age did they start?
  • When do girls typically begin pitching to each other instead of having parents pitch?
I also want to acknowledge something important: I’m not just thinking about my own daughter. I really care about helping the girls in her grade develop together — building a strong foundation, strong friendships, and ultimately, a strong team by the time they reach high school. That said, I know rec ball has its limitations when it comes to competition and development.

So I’d love to hear from those of you who’ve been through this. What’s been your experience balancing travel opportunities with the value of developing a core group through rec?
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My condolences man. I don't envy you. Only hope is of she decides to not play.

May need to open an OF account to support the type of $$ ur gonna sink into this.
 
@Thavoice brings up a good point. Now is the time to start fundraising. At 8 years old, it is very easy to fundraise. Everyone is excited and hasn't drained all their fundraising resources yet. Plus, people like to help out the little ones when they are starting out.

Find out which parents are good fundraisers and let them run with it. Some people are very good at it and are not afraid to ask every business for some help. You will have some parents that just want to pay their part and skip the fundraising, let them do that too.

Super Bowl squares are always an easy sell. Keep half as profit and pay the other half out. Michigan/Ohio State is another good one.

There are at least two ways to handle fundraising, one is to raise the money as a group and everyone shares equally. The other is to credit each account for the fundraising dollars that they raise. I would suggest the group route to start with and as they age, switch to credit each account based on their effort. One fundraiser that I always liked was standing at the doors to the local Walmart. Players dress in their uniforms and ask for change. You can raise $1000-$2000 in one day if you cover both doors. Pepperoni rolls were always very popular but an area that has been saturated by pepperoni roll fundraisers might be tough to sell more.
 
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