12 y/o and varsity

Your son does sound quite talented, but even for a small private school, I wouldn't expect him to get much PT at such a young age. It sounds to me like the coach may want to keep him around for a year or two until the time that he's more ready for the level of baseball, but I may be wrong. Now whether that's the coach looking out for himself or whether that's the best baseball situation for your son, that's not for me to decide from 600 miles away.

I believe I've seen a few discussions on this board about being on a roster and practicing with an older team (although not playing much) vs. getting lots of PT against more age appropriate competition, so I won't get into that. However, if that is the case, I would be sure to find him a quality summer program where he'll get plenty of game reps. But, if this decision truly was based on the best educational situation for your son, then that's the most important thing in my mind.

What position does your son play?

EH
Yes we did get him into a quality travel program for the summer while we were there. Amazingly we even had time to find a house.

All star
He pitches and plays 3B/OF

I can't tell from your post what grade your son will be in as he plays for the new school. But you might want to check your state's rules on years of eligibility if he will be in the 8th grade next year. Some states limit years of HS eligibility to four.

What 14U team did your son play for in NC? Also, the coach was sold on your son after 3 pitches?

This may not apply to your son's situation at all. However, if this is a private school, you might want to check to make sure that there were no recruiting violations.

If there were, it is usually the player that gets penalized.

Interesting point Rob. We'll be in Fl for only three years as part of my military assignment then it's back to NC or over to CA I'll have to find that out. Maybe someone else on here can answer that.

SoutherNo1 he Played 13U/14U for the Coastal Carolina Crushers. I said "I could tell he was sold" he completed an entire work out pitching, hitting, fielding etc. before the coach said anything to me.

Thanks P&C. Another thing I'll have to check but since were are moving to the area we should be able to look at whatever school we want I would think?

jimnev, good luck to your son. He sounds talented. Florida limits high school athletic participation to 4 consecutive years. Schools can recruit students for academic programs, not for athletics.

quote:

2.0 GENERAL DEFINITIONS
2.1 Athletic Recruiting. “Athletic recruiting” is any effort by a school employee, athletic department staff member, or representative of a school’s athletic interests to pressure, urge or entice a student to attend that school for the purpose of participating in interscholastic athletics.

quote:

1.7 Eligibility Effect of Violation. A student who is found to have been
athletically recruited or is found to have received an impermissible benefit will
be ineligible for interscholastic athletic competition for one or more years at the
school to which the student was athletically recruited or at which he/she received
the impermissible benefit, and may be declared ineligible for interscholastic athletic
competition at all member schools for one or more years.

I would seriously discourage participation in high school athletics before 9th grade, unless you want to watch from the stands senior year. I would run, not walk, away from any coach who recruits, if it is an FHSAA school. If they are caught, the school get penalized and the player is ineligible.

To be eligible, a player needs to be enrolled within 10 days of the beginning of the semester, among other things.

http://www.fhsaa.org/rules/handbook/0708_handbook.pdf

Congragulations to your son for that great opportunity. Honestly, he will have to be an extremely good hitter to play against 17/18 year olds. If not, then I agree with Emanski's Heroes that he definately will have to have time for developement.
This is because a 13 year old who regularly see's 65 miles an hour will see 80 to 85 miles an hour on a regular basis.

After further review and clarification from my wife we were actually looking at the school before baseball was a thought and she had contacted them. I guess that's why we make a good pair she does the education and I do the sports on occasion we agree but not often!

Way to go Mom! That should quash any recruiting violation questions.

I wouldn't do it.

I'm with Midlo on this one.
Players should play with there own age group in school ball.
Travel are summer maybe play up if talented enough.
EH

You can look at this in one of two ways

According to what Dad04 put your son will not be eligible to play at least his senior year and possibly junior year if he is in 7th grade. If you are going to stay in Florida then it is definately not worth it.

If you know you will be moving to California or back to North Carolina then you might want to do it but check with those state's eligibility requirements to make sure he isn't ineligible.

In Kentucky I can bring 7th and 8th graders up to my high school team and I do. The reason I do it is I want them in my system for as long as they can be. Our summer youth program is atrocious during league play but very good during All Star play - amazingly almost every kid on the all star team plays high school. Anyway I don't believe in 7th graders competing against 12th graders but I think practicing together is one of the best things for them. I am also pretty lucky that my older guys take the younger guys under their wings to help them. 7th, 8th and most 9th graders don't play varsity but they do have a JV and Freshman team they can play on to compete against kids their age.

I think this could be something which would help yoru son in the long run.

One last thing, why is this coach trying to get your son on varsity now - does he not know the Florida rules?

That is a red flag for me.

It sounds like your son has talent at 12. Will he have talent at 17 when it's more important? My suspicion is he will not if you follow this path.

You state that the educational opportunity is foremost. So IMHO drop baseball and don't ask this question on a high school baseball website. If you want him to have a chance to succeed in baseball, however, I'd slow down, let him play on a solid travel team and enroll him in a more competitive high school when the time comes. I'm sure there are many more private high schools in your area that are willing to wait, right?

I also have serious reservations about any 12 y.o. hanging around high school students, regardless of whether it's a private or public environment. I think you're making a SERIOUS mistake if you do this.

I am not for this. Some of us have had players who were offered the opportunity to play Varsity as 8th and 9th graders. In most cases, those players and parents chose to play at age level, and to let the kid progress at a normal rate.

I dont want to be percieved as negating your opportunity, I hope it works out well. I really do.

Having said that, I have honestyl never seen a 12 y/o who is physically or emotionally ready to play with 18 year olds.

Please be aware, your son is going to be faced with some social situations, innuendo etc. that he is unfamiliar with. Please make sure and educate him in advance. There is a big difference between a 12 y/o and an 18 y/o.

Will your son be expected to pitch?

I hope it works, I really do. There are just a lot of red flags that go up for me.

Really good points here. I’m all for moving a player up. I did it and would do it again in a heartbeat. I think it challenges the player and drives them to be the best they can be. Like Estone says and I agree with him/her, there are some social issues that have to be addressed on the front end. Is the age difference a big issue? It wasn’t with us. I don’t think it will be an issue at all "on the field" if the player can compete. The tempo of the game is controlled by talent not age. Once the game is over and the players get into their cars then age makes a big difference.

Think about this (if you end up staying in FL.) It currently is perceived that your son is playing “up” --- which is good. However, if you stay with this 1A team that you son was invited to play on as an seventh grader the infatuation will soon become reality and your son will find himself playing “down”. This reality may not sink in until he’s 17 and he finds himself adjusting his baseball skills to match a small 1-A high school team and he finds himself playing with some 12yo kids.
Fungo

Jimnev

You might also want to look into the middle schools available in the area you decide to settle. Many programs in Palm Beach county have middle school teams that play a spring schedule. It will give you a chance to get acclimated to the area and if your son is a talented as it sounds I am sure he will quickly be recruited to play travel ball.

1A is the smallest school classification in Florida so as Fungo mentions as your son matures you might find you want him playing a litle higher up the chain. This is no knock on the 1A teams as some of them are very good but as a rule the competition many times can be weak.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

I too think it is a good thing for a kid to be able to play up with some older competition if his ability is befitting. But, you better be dang sure he can hold his own before you allow it. Personally, I just don't see it working at his age. I'd let him play with players closer to his age, and make sure he always works on his game to keep up.

I guess I'll elaborate on my flat answer before.

"Playing up" is OK if limited to maybe one year. Beyond that, you're likely doing more harm than good.

I don't care if your kid is huge and strong. He's not mature enough to play with kids that much older than he is. I don't need to see him to know this, either. He will not have the lateral speed, the core strength or the coordination needed to compete. He should not be throwing curves at his age, which puts him at a competitive disadvantage in terms of pitching. And he will not relate socially to the kids on the team, which makes for a miserable experience for him.

Also, at your son's age, it is difficult to discern whether he is destined to be a stud in 5 years, or whether he just hit puberty earlier than the other kids. At age 12, my son went from 5'6" to 5'9", holding at a "baby fat" 150. Today he is 6'3", 220 lbs. That's one possible future.

Another kid I know was 5'11" at age 12 and by the end of high school has still not hit 6'0" and apparently never will.

My advice is, let your son succeed NOW and enjoy NOW for what it is. If he's destined to be a stud, you'll have that in the future. But if not, you'll be glad some day to have today's experiences to remember fondly, instead of thinking back to when he hit .150, got shelled on the mound and learned to hate the game.

Not sure of the rules in the early 2000's but we were a K-12 until 04 and we had a few kids who played jv in 8th right thru 12th. We had 1 exceptional kid who began playing varsity in the 6th grade. He was on the roster right thru 12th and we never had anyone question it. He was big and could hit. We were class 1A and then 2A. When we arrived at 4A we just had 10th thru 12th graders because the talent just got a lot better.
Jimnev, could you reveal the name of the school?

quote:

Originally posted by Estone28:
I am not for this.

I dont want to be percieved as negating your opportunity, I hope it works out well. I really do.

Having said that, I have honestly never seen a 12 y/o who is physically or emotionally ready to play with 18 year olds.

Please be aware, your son is going to be faced with some social situations, innuendo etc. that he is unfamiliar with. Please make sure and educate him in advance. There is a big difference between a 12 y/o and an 18 y/o.

I hope it works, I really do. There are just a lot of red flags that go up for me.

There are situations that come up with 17-18 year olds in the dugouts, on the bus and locker rooms that most 12 year olds should not be dealing with. That is experience speaking, we let our son at 13 play on a 18U team summer rec ball (HS daughters friends from Varsity football team going away to school) this past summer. He had a great time and they should not have won a game instead they swept the league.

On the field our son could compete and he was overjoyed to be able to razz these 'men' that the only game they lost was the one our son was absent from. He did pitch a some, he was pitching 70+ then & he did hit. It's just different.

With that said there is a huge difference in language, conversation topics, physical attributes etc.. Not to mention that scantly clad girls at 13 look a lot different than scantly clad girls of 18 flirting & hanging out(both ways )with/for the boys. A big wad of bubble gum is much different than a big wad of chew. When a play or an at bat goes wrong an angry boy of 13 is far less scarey than an angry man of 18 . What about base running or home plate collisions? Yes when the 'men' go to there cars and go to a party it is much different than your 13yr old getting in your car to go for a pizza with the team.

We have let our son play up before this closer to his age and this was fun for him. It wasn't his school team, it was a park league for fun and we were there every minute. We would not have allowed this if we had not been able to supervise this every step of the way.

We feel play up within reason.

Please check the rules just because you move now and again later may not change the fact that he already played 3-4 years of high school ball, transcripts go with you. You don't want him to be ineligible his Senior year. It would crush my son if he only could play for school til he was 16.

Very hard choices - Best wishes for your move and to your son!

MidloDad, I always respect your opinion. There are always a few exceptions to the rule. When I heard we were going to have a 6th grader try out, I laughed. I said, "how good can he be"? This kid was truly exceptional. He kept getting better. He was eventually offered a scholly to Stetson U and was told he would be their starting cf. During his senior season he met a girl, left his mom and moved in with her and then starting using drugs heavily. If not for the lack of home discipline he had, he may have gone far. Many in Fla knew this kid. If the coach believes this kid can make it against the talent they face, then he may fit in. He may also end up on jv which isn't a bad thing.

Well Im with Midlo on this one for many of the same reasons he listed. Socially its a nightmare scenario. What is he going to be hearing on the bus in the dugout around the other 18 year old players? A 12 year old is not prepared to be hanging out with 18 year olds. Secondly their is no way he is going to compete with these kids unless the hs team is very bad. Its just too young period imo. Why rush it anyway? Why take the risk? Whats the point? Why not let him naturally progress in the game along with his peers.

Has he played on a big field yet?

Play with your age group.
And play up with older kids in the summer/fall.
While still playing with your age group.

There's a thing in baseball called giving back to the game.
It goes along with personal jinxes and the baseball gods.
If your Better then everybody else around you?
Then you better be helping Everybody else around you,
get better??

EH

It would be pretty sad (and hard to explain) if some college bound stud hits a rocket up the middle while your son (who's 12 or 13) is pitching... Having a fastball is not the only requirement of being able to play hs varsity.
Socially.... please; step back, take a breath and then make a rational decision.

The only "solid" information we have to go on is velocity and high 60s for a 5'10" 12yo at this point is good but not exceptional by any means. I think I'd wait and see how he develops before locking him into anything. Any time a parent says a 12yo has 4 tools there's a lack of understanding of what it means to have the tools.

If academics really is the bottom line then go with that and why even ask about the baseball?

Playing up can be tough especially if the other guys resent you being there.
I can remember my son at Minor Bantam playing all the tournaments and weekend games with the Major Bantam team. At one tornament he had a bad outting and the parents were openly verbal about it. A 12 yo would have difficulty with this. Players give you the cold shoulder etc.
At 15 you are physically and emotionally better equiped to handel these issues. Not everyone ia going to be happy about your son being there.
Don't get me wrong I am a firm believer in playinging up but not at 12-13. My son played 19U District all star at 15. They asked him and he had an outstanding season. I actually think it can be one of the best things you can do for your development.

At 12 he should stay with his friends. Allow him to be a kid. Be the star of the team instead of one somewhere down in the pack. When he makes an error, it's going to be , Why is he here.
Throwing in the 60's at the freshman level he would get hit pretty hard. Throwing in the 60's at varsity would mean the bench and maybe some mop-up time.
Sounds like a good kid, don't rush him.

Jimnev,

Welcome to FL. We've been in a similar situation, except 2B is not a pitcher, ours isn't a private school, and he was 13, 5-5, 119 when he was asked to jump in with the sharks. 7th grade JV, 8th grade varsity (starting DH, believe it or not), this year as a freshman (14, 5-9, 150 and counting) he'll start at 2B on the varsity squad. We may even play against the school you're thinking about. It's been tough, especially the move to varsity last year, but great. He's gained tremendous poise and confidence on the field, and has been priveledged to practice with and play behind some fine older players who are now either playing college and MiLB, or will do so soon. Yes our division is weaker small schools, but we do play locally against some of the best 4A and 6A programs in the state. And his summer team is made up of the best underclassmen in the region - including EStone's younger brother - that's where he gets his higher level play. I agree with those folks who say your son will probably not get much playing time, and that if he's throwing in the 60's he's likely going to get hammered. But if the coaching is good, your son is patient, mature and serious enough, and you find him a good, FUN summer team with his peers, he might do just fine. Send me a PM if you want to know more.

One more thing to add. Make doubly sure that you, as a parent, don't get caught up in the, "glory & hype" component that this situation can call up.

Some experience here with a family member. As an 8th grader the Head FB coach who was also the asst baseball coach told him he was going to make his life miserable if he didn't get out there on the baseball field. School was 3A with 4A being the largest class and a pretty good paseball program. He wasn't going to try out because he didn't think he could compete, so he started a couple of weeks after the rest of the guys had been practicing.

A few games into the season coach tossed him the ball before a game and told him he was starting. Got knocked around pretty good by an avg team. By the end of the season he was the ace starter throwing 78-80 and started 3 consecutive games in the state play-offs - the pitching rules were a little more lax back then.

His High School experience and playing with the older guys was great. Summer ball, that was a different matter. Didn't have many summer options in a small town and after 9th grade was asked to try-out for a nearby Legion team. Made the team along with 1 Soph, 4 Juniors, and the remaining graduated Seniors and college Freshmen. He competed fine but learned a lot on those bus trips and out of town weekends, like how hotel long distance charges work , sisters of other playes, and the worst of all - smokeless tobacco.

Like most things in life there is some good and bad that you are going to have to evaluate. Try to remain objective and not get too excited because someone has asked him to move up (a lot).

SoutherNo1 and lub are both right about hype and not getting too excited. It's really easy to get excited when a coach sees something special, believe me. When they're that young, the coach might be the only one (besides you) that sees it. People will talk, there's no doubt about it, and some of what they say won't be nice. They'll come around in time as he proves himself. Just support your son, and try to keep a thick skin and a low profile and you'll be fine.

Please let us know what you decide to do.

Have you asked your son what his feelings are?

I'm trying to grasp the idea my fourteen year old (15 in May) freshman may get a shot at varsity. The juniors and seniors are so much bigger and stronger. A twelve or thirteen year old is hard to fathom.

I remember when my daughter was fourteen playing 16U softball I was concerned what she would hear in the dugout, much less what a twelve year old would hear from eighteen year olds.

What's the rush?

quote:

What's the rush?

Exactly. Enjoy the trip; that is the fun of it.....