This is going to be long , I apologize in advance. I’ve been coaching for 11 years. Starting with little league tee ball all the up to 16u now. Been in the travel ball circuit for 4 years. Now one thing that has stuck with me since my son moved from LL to travel. I made a post on a Facebook group stating I was looking for a team for my son. I stressed the importance of not wanting to try out. But to work out with the team for a few practices to get a feel. I’d hate to try out and make the team then realize 2 weeks in this isn’t the right team for us.

During our process we worked out with about 8 teams. I knew half of them weren’t for us within the first 1 hour of the first practice. Unorganized, uninspiring practices. I could tell who the coaches kids were right away. We were asked to drop in and play for a couple teams Wednesday night games. I didn’t like the constant yelling and overload of information coming from the dugout every single pitch.

Just like a coach gets a better idea of a player from seeing them a few times through many reps. Also practice play isn’t always the same as game play. As a parent it’s the same thing. Coaches can mind their p’s and q’s for a couple of practices to lure you in. But over the course of a couple of weeks, and a game or two. Those glaring flaws in coaches will expose themselves. Also what are the parents like? Bad parents will make a travel experience horrible and unbearable. A couple of parents I’ve talked to say that’s too long to make a decision, they don’t have time for that. Well if you are looking into sinking that kind of money into something and trust them with your child, why wouldn’t you spend the time?

Since I joined the staff of our team we went from doing both ways to only longer form or try outs. We have had less turn over. We have had less issues with parents, and with the boys. I can’t even tell you how many times we something came up with one of the boys 3 weeks into working out with us. That made us rethink bringing them onboard.