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skysooner · 08-22-2003, 10:11 AM

FastShark,

There was a little bit more to the story. In my hometown, there is the YMCA league and a local private league. The YMCA is the most non-competitive and the most fun, but they are very unorganized. When we signed my oldest at age 5 up for t-ball, he got a team but no coach. We cancelled and waited for 6 months till the next season. We got him into t-ball on a team with the other organization where most of the kids had been playing together for a couple of years. My son has some learning disabilities that make it very difficult for him to function in a loud setting. He actually overcame it and really improved in catching and hitting the ball. No, he wasn't the best player on the team, but he wasn't the worst either. The coach's son amazingly always played in the infield while being one of the worst players on the team. At the end of the season, the coach asked us if we wanted our son to continue on with this team since they were sticking together for the machine pitch part of the game. This team would have out-of-town weekend tournaments once a month. We weren't sure our son could make the transition, but he told us to take him to the batting cage to check it out. We took him there, and after about an hour he got the hang of hitting the ball off of a machine. We felt good about it and decided to let him play (he is 6, almost 7 now). When I called the coach back to tell him that our son was going to play, he gave me some bs about not wanting our son to get hurt and the level of play was very competitive and that he only had to play him one inning a game and that it wouldn't be fair to him to always be in right field. WTF? I cut him off then and there and said we would never have our son playing for that organization again. We ended up putting our youngest in this same organization, because we know the transition point for him is about 2 years away and he might actually learn something. It was just mind-boggling for me to see that kids are playing t-ball at age 3. I didn't play organized sports until I was 7 at least (and that was the earliest they would accept us). We played on our local field against local teams. It didn't take us out of town on the weekends. I guess I just find it appalling that there is this much intensity on winning at such a young age (to the detriment of our children). I would much rather spend time with them one-on-one than expose them to that. I don't know if we are making a mistake with my youngest, but I fully intend to be a coach on this team to make sure I can watch closely on how he is doing.

08-22-2003, 10:11 AM	#7 (permalink)
skysooner Registered User Location: Oklahoma	FastShark, There was a little bit more to the story. In my hometown, there is the YMCA league and a local private league. The YMCA is the most non-competitive and the most fun, but they are very unorganized. When we signed my oldest at age 5 up for t-ball, he got a team but no coach. We cancelled and waited for 6 months till the next season. We got him into t-ball on a team with the other organization where most of the kids had been playing together for a couple of years. My son has some learning disabilities that make it very difficult for him to function in a loud setting. He actually overcame it and really improved in catching and hitting the ball. No, he wasn't the best player on the team, but he wasn't the worst either. The coach's son amazingly always played in the infield while being one of the worst players on the team. At the end of the season, the coach asked us if we wanted our son to continue on with this team since they were sticking together for the machine pitch part of the game. This team would have out-of-town weekend tournaments once a month. We weren't sure our son could make the transition, but he told us to take him to the batting cage to check it out. We took him there, and after about an hour he got the hang of hitting the ball off of a machine. We felt good about it and decided to let him play (he is 6, almost 7 now). When I called the coach back to tell him that our son was going to play, he gave me some bs about not wanting our son to get hurt and the level of play was very competitive and that he only had to play him one inning a game and that it wouldn't be fair to him to always be in right field. WTF? I cut him off then and there and said we would never have our son playing for that organization again. We ended up putting our youngest in this same organization, because we know the transition point for him is about 2 years away and he might actually learn something. It was just mind-boggling for me to see that kids are playing t-ball at age 3. I didn't play organized sports until I was 7 at least (and that was the earliest they would accept us). We played on our local field against local teams. It didn't take us out of town on the weekends. I guess I just find it appalling that there is this much intensity on winning at such a young age (to the detriment of our children). I would much rather spend time with them one-on-one than expose them to that. I don't know if we are making a mistake with my youngest, but I fully intend to be a coach on this team to make sure I can watch closely on how he is doing.