Welcome
to the new home for WGHS JV 2013 season. One advantage to this site over last
year's: you can sign up for notifications of new posts via e-mail or follow in
other ways. Like last year, each game will feature a summary and box score. If parents take
pictures of games, we'll find a way to post them , as well. To get a larger
view of the box score or pictures, just double-click. Comments should also be
easier to add this year, as well.
And now a
word or ten on tryouts. Once again the WGHS coaching staff is facing tough
decisions as the 2013 tryouts begin Monday. We expect 30+ girls to compete for
JV and varsity positions. In addition, we know that we have a strong class of
8th graders in the pipeline for next year.
If a
candidate does not come home at least tired, if not exhausted from tryouts, she
might want to ask herself if she gave everything to the process.
Some of
what's here repeats what Coach Gibson has already communicated, but this makes
it official from me for the JV, as well.
Girls
are not always the best judges of their own ability. There are numerous factors
that go into who gets to wear the Webster colors. If a candidate is only trying
to make the Top 14, she's putting herself in jeopardy of not being on the team.
Satisfaction with being better than her assessment of the Bottom 5 is a sure ticket to being
cut. One dimensional players also have a limited future with Webster softball.
Every candidate's goal should be to rank in the Top 5 all-around players on the
team.
Parents
can't want that goal for their players, players must want it for themselves. If a girl is trying out to please her parents or to
pad her future college application, that's an ineffective motivation. Our
players are here because they love to play softball and want to represent
their school. A poor or half-hearted
attitude will sabotage any skill advantage a player might have. Attitude
alone won't win a spot, but it can absolutely lose one. I've cut numerous girls from the 38 teams I've
coached who seemingly had better skills because they didn't demonstrate a
team-first attitude.
Speaking
of that, however, you might be interested in an article I wrote for my personal
blog, Worst Part of
Coaching.
Although
I've made a lot of girls cry over the years (not always for bad reasons),
that's never been a goal. But each girl needs to understand that she's part of
something bigger than herself, a team, and that even on the JV level, decisions
are seldom about her, but always about the team. Good luck to all the
candidates and here's hoping our decisions are even harder than we anticipate.
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