What I don't understand about HS SB

[Bell_06]

I have asked this question many times and never received an answer that I could accept... so I'll toss it out to the folks who have an interest in baseball and softball.

Volleyball and Football began conditioning training during the summer school break. The skills training begins shortly after the conditioning. Appears that quite a bit of time goes into the preparation of these sports. But when it comes to other sports such as softball, the girls receive so much less. This 2004 season, UIL has set Feb 2, as the first day of practice. In our school that will mean that is the first day many of the girls have touched a ball or glove for the year. Feb 12, is the first scrimmage game, that is only 9 (nine) practice days if there is no rain-outs and one Saturday is included.

My question is why are these kids not given more time to prepare if for no other reason then safety. Take a 3rd basemen.. in softball she might be only 30' from the batter. Guess I need a math major here but if a pitcher is pitching say only 55 mph, and a 140 lbs girl is swinging hard, how fast would you say that ball could be moving? It takes more then 9 practices to built up the needed reflexes. Throwing a ball 150 feet without tearing yourself up takes some practice too. I'm not trying to take anything away from VB and FB but it just seems rather dangerous to send these kids onto a field so quickly after practice begins.

[Old No. 7]

I agree. It was that way 20 years ago but we still had "unorganized practices". Even if a person is dedicated enough to practice at home it's hard to be ready for that first game. It's hard to work on fundimentals in your back yard, in the winter time. Maybe one day it will change.

[jason]

i know in forney the kids are out there as soon as christmas break is over on their own just taking infield and hitting balls...especially the baseball team, they are unorganized of course, but they made 4 straight trips to state so they must be doin something right....

[Chupacabra]

Bell_06:
Volleyball and Football began conditioning training during the summer school break. The skills training begins shortly after the conditioning. Appears that quite a bit of time goes into the preparation of these sports. But when it comes to other sports such as softball, the girls receive so much less. This 2004 season, UIL has set Feb 2, as the first day of practice. In our school that will mean that is the first day many of the girls have touched a ball or glove for the year. Feb 12, is the first scrimmage game, that is only 9 (nine) practice days if there is no rain-outs and one Saturday is included.The summer conditioning programs cannot be sport specific. The coaches have to allow any student athlete to participate, and cannot group the students according to the sport(s) they play or utilize any sport specific equipment. So the softball girls can attend these workouts to begin their conditioning in august, even though the conditioning won't help them much come February if they don't continue to condition on their own during the time from August until February.

I won't argue that the summer conditioning programs definately help football and volleyball players more than those players participating in spring sports, but there isn't much we can do about moving the summer break, and I don't know if many people will agree to conditioning programs over the winter break to physically prepare spring sports participants.

It is true that football has about a week and a half more of practice than baseball before the first game, but football is arguably more difficult to devise a game plan and train a team.

Volleyball, however, has 4 days less than softball from the first practice until the first game.

I guess the best way to at least help the problem is for the softball girls to take the initiative and hold their own "practices" before the UIL will let a coach in there like Old No. 7 and jason are saying. Most of the serious softball players and involved with some form of club team anyway, but I'm sure you know much more about that than I.

<small>[ January 28, 2004, 08:45 PM: Message edited by: Chupacabra ]</small>

[sinton66]

I would venture a guess that if the girls feel strongly enough on this subject, they should talk with the AD. I'm sure he could come up with some pre-season conditioning for you.

[Bell_06]

sinton66:
I would venture a guess that if the girls feel strongly enough on this subject, they should talk with the AD. I'm sure he could come up with some pre-season conditioning for you.Like all high school sports, girls are there for different reasons... not many have the work ethics required to request additional conditioning, working on skills would be helpful. Not sure about other schools but here the girls are not permitted to work on 'softball' during their athletic period. All sport related training is strickly after school hours. During athletics they will are required to lift weights, max out for recording purposes etc. Last year a couple of the softball girls finally spoke up and challenged the fact that their arms were being killed during athletic and they were unable to perform at game time.

After reading Chupacabra's reply, I did go back and look up the practice schedule for volleyball....after the summer session of 'conditioning' there was scheduled (10) 2-a-day sessions.. these are full sessions each time, then one practice on Saturday, 2 full day scrimmage tournaments and all of that was before school even started.

Do any of the other 3A high school programs allow their softball players to actual work on softball skills during the school day athletics period?