Showcase article in the newspaper

Those in the Triangle area may have seen this article in the Raleigh newspaper:

http://www.newsobserver.com/674/story/1019347.html

..........."urged parents to focus on the long-term goal of securing a college scholarship for their sons rather than getting caught up in the emotion of winning games and trophies in high school"..........

a little troubling; HS coaches, I guess you guys then have to steer their young minds back to the TEAM concept. But I know it's hopefully a win-win situation in the end.

 

The Eternal Flame of Hope

Everyone wants a skolley to play college ball and some are willing to pay more than the skolley will be worth.

 

As the kids get older it's not hard to see that the overall focus in baseball has turned from "team" to "I". Not saying it's that way everywhere.

 

I found this article to be a sad indictment in the "Era of Showcase Baseball". The focus of the article was skewed towards one organization's thoughts and mission...certainly not one shared by all.

It was careless and reckless for one to make this statement:

"urged parents to focus on the long-term goal of securing a college scholarship for their sons rather than getting caught up in the emotion of winning games and trophies in high school"

It promotes selfishness as well as other negative by products of this thought. If one wants to see an example of what that attitude will do, let me share with you a part of a PM I received from a softball coach this morning. Keep in mind softball is dominated by Showcase/Travel teams and HS softball can be an afterthought at some schools.

"it started last year with the group of freshman and now this year, the crowd is even worse. bad attitudes towards anyone in authority. now i'm not hardnosed, i dont yell at anyone, i dont go to extremes in any way, but i've been cussed out three times this year from players and i let them go. coach and i even got cussed out by players from another team this year, a first for us. it would seem that the kids are emulating their parents more and more. i even had to give a speech about denial, acceptance and maturity this year, something i havent had to talk about in 8 years. its in every school in our system now, i've talked to all the other coaches and kids are becoming uncoachable at a fast rate. we started with 32 girls and we're down to 24 for both teams....i'm just counting the games and my jv team is playin hard and together, as the problems we face are on the varsity right now. parents...parents are the big problem right now, parents who stand behind the back stop and yell at kids, umps, coaches, etc, its got so bad that we have our vice priniciples at every game, home and away. everyone thinks their kid is an all star, even if they make four errors in four attempts... this happened this year..parent blamed the field for bad hops????

 

That article makes me puke! I will never, ever make up the money that I and my family have personally spent on travel ball, coaching travel ball, Nationals (and yes we won one) for the last 6 years etc. If my son is lucky, maybe he will get some aid to play baseball. I will never however trade the memories, pictures and videotapes that I have.

If you son is good enough and you market your son to the colleges that FIT HIS SKILL LEVEL you will possibly get some aid to play baseball in college or might be asked to walk on and make the team.

I wonder how many more baseball facilities will open up this year promising to promote your son to get him the maximum exposure to showcase his talents because they realize the market is huge for them with parents willing to cough up thousands of dollars per year to get a 500.00-3500.00 grant in aid per year.

Do the math folks! Now I'm not knocking a couple of organizations out there who do it right (Andy, Panthers, Hurricanes), but how many more showcase teams can we possibly take.

Academics is where the money is and baseball is a PRIVILEGE to participate in period at the collegiate level. Jeez this stuff makes me puke!!! Whatever happened to playing for fun, talking smack with your buddies before the game and just the community feel of a local game.

 

Here's one of the problems:

 

This is so sad

Taken from the article:
Answer: In the next room, the coaches braced the parents for the realities of playing at the next level, the business of baseball...

"Your son is a product, and you're his agent," Grumet said. "You're behind the scenes marketing your son." (I bet College coaches hate this)

 

This is an example of what I call careless and reckless. What a terrible and misguided thing to say.

Most parents do not know the talent level of their son. Most parents don't have the personal contacts to call up a college coach and ask what interest they have in their son. Most parents don't know what questions to ask, nor what is permissable to discuss.

Marketing your son? It's like hiring a car salesman to fix your plumbing.

 

You make every day better!

Braves,
You make every day better. Even though these are truly disturbing posts you manage to make me chuckle.

"Your son is a product, and you're his agent," Xxxxxx said. "You're behind the scenes marketing your son."

WOW!!!!

PS) Like my new Avatar? I even like watching the grounds crew!

See you at the park.

AGYK.

 

Parents did not invent showcase. They just ran with it. I'm a parent and agree that parents can be a pain at times. But parents did not invent showcase. There are still a lot of positives in showcase.

I agree with Putmeincoach in that I will never recover all the money i have spent on 2 boys in travel ball. But we did not do it to get a scholarship (who is thinking about scholarships at 12 years old). My boys did it for many reasons. 1st, it has been fun, on and off the field. We have some good memories and some not so good but overall they had fun. Increased competition and both boys skills have improved. It would not have happened if they had stayed in just Rec ball in our area.

It's not all about getting a scholarship. Some kids just want to be the best they can be while having fun.

To Braves point, which is a great post, it didn't start with the kids that were freshmen last year but it did explode with that age group. My son is of that age and that is a very large group that was serious in various levels of travel ball. Many view showcase as an extension of youth travel ball. Not saying that's right or wrong. Just how many perceive it.

I've been on this board for about 18 months now. I've learned by listening I can learn a lot more here than by talking. There is a wealth of knowledge here and I am most appreciative. There have been many threads on the future of showcase and youth travel ball and I feel I can add something. I've been saying for 18 months to expect rapid growth in showcase. A large crop of AAU/travel kids is aging in to high school and parents are going to expect more showcase opportunities. If they don't find them they will start their own teams. As long as a parent is willing to write a check there will be more teams.