Travel Ball - Where Anything Goes

With no national governing body, are organizations and their coaches allowed to do just about anything?

There are several familiar softball organizations that host an array of events and tournaments throughout the year; each with their own playing rules, participation rules and requirements. Many of these you’ve heard of or have experienced first hand like:

Triple Crown https://www.triplecrownfastpitch.com/ 

USSSA https://www.usssa.com/fastpitch

National Softball Association (NSA) https://playnsa.com/

Premier Girls Fastpitch (PGF) http://www.premiergirlsfastpitch.com/home.php?1698341195 

ASA Softball, now USA SOFTBALL https://www.usasoftball.com/?redirectPath=%2FUSA-Softball

Each tournament decides which rule book they are following as there are slight changes to each. Some will even cherry pick rules and say “USA BOOK RULES WITH MODIFICATONS”.

It’s not the playing rules that coaches, parents, club directors have issues following - it’s the unwritten, and certainly unregulated, Code of Ethics that are being overlooked, ungoverned and unsanctioned. Even the NCAA who gets blamed for being the wild west of NIL deals and the trendy transfer portal, has compiled 16 Principles for Conduct including Control, Sportsmanship and Recruiting that are monitored by institutional Compliance offices.

https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2016/7/6/the-16-principles-for-conduct-of-intercollegiate-athletics.aspx 

Let’s say, for example, there is a random parent that wants to start their own travel ball team for whatever reason. Perhaps Suzy didn’t make the cut at tryouts or she’s not getting enough playing time as her friends. What or who will stop this parent? Outside of applying for insurance, EIN #, holding a tryout, picking a fierce but not deadly animal mascot and descriptive but not specific “level” ; Gold, Premier, National, Blue, Elite, etc, what else is there?

And it’s not the saturation of thousand’s of travel ball softball teams that ultimately becomes the issue but the behavior of those leading the teams that is questionable.

Too often, certain travel ball coaches have been known to “poach” a player from another team. This happens at tournaments, in parking lots, behind closed doors, and even through crafty online marketing campaigns. If seen, or fallen victim too, where does this unethical practice get reported? You can say it’s up to the player or parent to say ‘no thank you’ but there are some pretty convincing used car salesmen out there that will do anything to benefit their team, we mean egos.

This type of unregulated jumping from team to team at any point throughout the year only conditions players headed for college to believe and think it’s OKAY to use the transfer portal if things don’t work out; especially after just one year.

The portal and changing teams is not always the answer.

But really, we have several questions surrounding certain practices of travel ball organizations:

• Should the NFCA step in and create an Ethics Committee?

• Can anyone, with no set qualifications or standards, create a travel ball organization or team?

• Can any team decide to host a tournament? Is it ok they call it a “College Showcase” of no colleges attend?

• Who is enforcing participation rules at tournaments or showcases?

• Should there be penalties for guest players? What about poaching players?

• How do parents know who to trust when selecting a team or organization?

• Who is monitoring travel ball coach’s social media?

• How can parents do their due diligence when selecting a coach and team? Many coaches will undermine other teams and organization to better themselves

In a recent article by @HittingVault and Alexa Peterson, she describes What to Look for in Travel Ball Softball Team. Many points are clear and undeniable including the time commitment, cost, and expectations. She stated to look for Character Development and Chemistry, however. Indeed important and critical components of your daughter’s experience, but how do you measure that?

Her #1 item to look for in a travel ball team is Coaching. We could not agree more but would add these list of questions to ask or consider when choosing a team:

1. What is the team’s practice to game to practice ratio?

2. Can you verify through former or current players or parents any questionable claims? ie, “guaranteed maximum college exposure”, “quality experiences”, “outstanding player development.”

3. If the coach is teaching words like Commitment and Discipline, is ok for them to try and pull players from other teams?

4. What is the team’s philosophy on Success? Wins? Being recruited? Everyone plays?

5. What qualifies that team to be a “Gold” team or “Elite”?

Should someone, (cough cough) @NFCAorg start to highlight some of the trends in college athletics that include lower program graduation rates, coaches silently resigning and players with a lack of resiliency to be a part of the process before jumping into the transfer portal, there could be a line drawn from the unregulated world of travel ball; where anything goes.

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