Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="C Bomb, post: 4847935, member: 325"] Fortunately for my family, our softball journey for my sophomore started only in the 6th grade after my daughter broke her ulna and radius in her forearm near her wrist while tumbling (she rarely even attempts a cartwheel these days). Of course, she was way behind her peers when she started playing the sport, so to help her catch up, we started an accelerated schedule of lessons and camps for a multitude of skills (fielding, catching, agility/speed, strength, and most especially hitting), the goal being mainly to get her on a good travel team. Fortunately, we’ve finally caught on with a very competitive fully sponsored team here in eastern NC, greatly lessening our family’s financial burden. We’re still seeking out skills lessons and coaches to justify her roster spot on this prestigious team and maintain her level of performance. Being here in warmer weather NC and being in a large school means we have the ability to have regular off season workouts throughout the year in accordance with the state’s HS sports commission. We’ve found these extra reps help greatly for the other skills such as fielding, catching, and conditioning, but a good hitting coach is a necessity outside of normal workouts/practices. That said, I’ve told my daughter that I will never mandate a certain performance level to continue. My expectation is for her to do well in high school (her freshman year saw her hit extremely well for average and lead her team in many offensive categories while playing CF, SS, and fill in catcher on defense). My wife and I place athletics as a high priority for my family as we see the benefit of life lessons learned from dedication to a craft as important. Academics are the biggest priority by far and my daughter is well aware of this. Our HS team has sent numerous players to high level division 1 schools as well as lower divisions in recent years. These girls have had varying degrees of success, and to see the process play out has been eye opening, the main lesson is to get a quality education. We actually had a girl turn down a D-1 opportunity to go to a D-2 school to seek out an opportunity to ultimately become a nurse anesthesiologist. Tbh, softball scholarships are rarely great in amount and the exposure my daughter has seen regarding the collegiate softball recruiting experience across the divisions from the experiences of her travel and HS teammates has made my daughter place a premium on her current playing time as her own possible future playing opportunities may very well not materialize. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?