Select / Elite

As you so aptly made the point, its a twin edged sword. What we have here is a Harlequin doing a juggling act for the king! One day the king will like it and the next, its "OFF WITH HIS HEAD!:

As I've noted before, I wish there were better ways to "group" kids that made age the least important factor. Something like a 19U group and 13U group. That way if you happen to have some precocious kid, you put him with the big boys and let him go! Unfortunately we know that won't work any better than anything else that's been tried.

I've seen elite teams go from age groups, 14U, 15U, 16U, 18U to grouping by grades. That's something that happened on the team my son was on, and when it happened, it literally helped destroy my boy's chances to play.

He was young Junior (15) and although I believe he could have played on the older team, the judgement was that he wasn't big enough or threw hard enough for the big boys. But they wouldn't allow him to play on the lower team because of his grade. Of course there were other things going on, but it made a convenient excuse for not allowing him to play.

As I also noted in another post, the concept of it being difficult to make a HS team is one that's foreign to me. Evidently, you'd throw up if you saw the pitching, hitting and defensive skills of the players on our team. I can't explain it, but when a D1 school gets beat on a regular basis by D2 and even D3 schools, there is something drastically wrong.

Its not that these boys stink, but they definitely play at a level much below what they should. I can't blame the HS program for having freshman players below the curve, but once they've had their hands on them for 2, 3 or 4 years and the level of play goes down, an aroma begins to permeate the room.

Every year for the last 4 years, the freshman team has been the best team as far as how they've competed against their peers, but then its all down hill. This year there will be a new frosh and JV head coach, and last year was the 1st year for the V head coach and all I can do is pray that things change.

Oh, BTW, I "absolutely" love bagels and cream cheese! LOL