The other night as I was wrapping up from lessons I got into a conversation with my friend Dave Doerhoefer. In addition to being a private instructor, Dave is a long-time fastpitch softball coach with the Vernon Hills Stingers travel organization as well as Vernon Hills High School.

The question Dave asked was my feelings about the obsession many travel teams today seem to have with squeezing as many games as they possibly can into the brief summer season. It is not uncommon for travel teams – even those that only play a couple of months in the summer due to spring high school softball – to set a goal of playing 100+ games.

I’ve blogged about this before (actually back in 2012), and it only seems to have gotten worse. So much for me being an influencer.

Both Dave and I agree that teams that focus on playing a crazy amount of games are doing their players a disservice on several levels.

No time for practice

Probably the biggest issue is that if you’re scheduling 2-3 nights of games per week, plus playing tournaments every weekend, you’ve left little time for practice.

That’s a problem because games aren’t where you get better. That’s where you measure where your skills are currently. Practice is where you get better.

In practice you can field 100 ground balls or catch 100 fly balls, which allows you to really hone your skills. Especially if the coach is smart enough to make those balls just slightly outside your current level of competence and continues to raise the difficulty level as your skills improve.

In a game, you’re lucky if you get 7-10 touches on a batted ball. Most players will get far fewer, or perhaps not any, especially if you have dominant pitchers with good strikeout numbers playing in five inning games due to time limits.

Younger players playing in timed games, who are the ones that generally need the most repetitions, may only see three innings of play. It’s tough to get better when nothing happens.

Add the need to teach all the various situations and permutations a player needs to know to make the good, instant decisions required to play at a high or even decent level and the problem of not getting enough practice time grows exponentially.

Reducing the number of games to allow for more touches/repetitions and instruction time in practice will do more to grow a player’s skills and softball IQ than just throwing them out on the field and leaving it to random chance.

Keeping the excitement

When you play games practically every day what should be a happy diversion from normal life quickly turns into a job. And how happy are people with their jobs?

Research shows that while 65% of workers surveyed are happy with their jobs, only 20% are actually passionate about them. Translating that into teams, if you have a team of 12 players it means only 8 will actually be happy with the team, and just 3 will be passionate about it, if playing softball starts to feel like a job.

You never want playing to feel routine. You always want your players to be excited and ready to give their all – at least if you want to win.

Cutting back on the volume of games will help keep those you do play more special. It will also give the parents a little more time to keep those uniforms looking spiffy.

Reducing burnout

Burnout is a huge problem in today’s youth sports. In fact, research shows 40% to 50% of youth athletes report experiencing some level of burnout.

That doesn’t mean they stop playing necessarily. But they may not have the same level of enthusiasm for playing they once did, and that can lead them to dropping out of the sport entirely eventually.

We have to remember that while we may have big dreams and aspirations for these young athletes, they are still kids. A few may want to play all the time rather than pursuing other activities, but most need other stimuli to help them full enjoy their lives and reach their human (not just their softball) potential.

More general free time, or even more time spent in practices rather than game situations, can help them grow their social skills more effectively as well, which will also help prevent burnout.

Making time for multi-sport athletes

There is much talk about how college coaches love multi-sport athletes, and how being a multi-sport athlete is better for the youth athlete’s health. The cross-training of playing multiple sports can help prevent injuries, especially those caused by repetitive movements. It can also help prevent the burnout discussed above.

Yet it’s awfully tough to fit another sport into your schedule when your softball team is playing nearly every day as well as all weekend.

Of course, this isn’t just a fastpitch softball problem. EVERY sport seems to think they need their athletes playing an incredibly heavy schedule of games in order to compete, and they plan their years accordingly.

At some point nearly all athletes need to choose a sport to specialize in if they want to play at a higher level, i.e., college. But that doesn’t have to be prior to about 15 years old.

Younger teams that reduce their game schedules give their athletes the opportunity to pursue other sports, at least at some level, to help them fully develop their bodies and potentially reduce the chance of injury. In return, they get athletes who are better conditioned and mentally sharper, helping improve their performance on the softball field.

More is not always better

Yes, it’s easy to get caught up in the idea that more is better when it comes to scheduling games. But the reality is it’s not.

It’s time to bring some sanity back into the process. As you plan your 2024 game schedule, don’t get caught up in the “arms race” of which team in your area plays the most games.

Think strategically and prioritize quality of schedule (including the factors listed here) over raw quantity of games. I think you’ll find your results improve – and your athletes will have a better overall experience.

Scheduling photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com