I post this for Jr High baseball parents for information only...
Last night, my daughter played her last softball game (8th grade) for our Jr. High. My son had played for her coach in 7th grade baseball. He's a good guy, he works hard and knows his stuff. Since we got run ruled, he would've had to wait 1 hr+ for a ride back to the school, so I gave him a ride.
I asked him about 7th grade baseball and he said he was indeed coaching, but wasn't looking forward to it (try outs start next week). He's a former D-1 pitcher, so he knows baseball. He's also a social studies teacher. I asked why he wasn't looking forward to it and here is what he told me, I'm paraphasing...
"I'll have 75 kids out there. I have 4 days of try outs and 2 hours max per day. I'm not allowed to cut the 30-40 obvious non-players on the first day, so as a result I won't be able to really evaluate the fringe players. Will I miss a few, yes. I don't know how you don't miss a few."
"I dislike baseball because I'll be accused of only taking the LDS kids, or not taking any LDS kids. I'll be accused of having the team picked before tryouts or only picking club players. I'll be accused of not balancing playing time, but I'll keep 15 or 16 trying to try and avoid missing kids. Dads will backstab me, accuse me of having picked the team ahead of time, but honestly I've heard rumors about two kids who are supposed to be 'pretty good'. I'll put numbers on their backs and record the performance of numbers and not even look at the names until I'm writing down who made it."
"I don't know who they are. I only want to pick the best players, but how do you evaluate 75 kids you've never seen before or heard about in 8 hours?"
"Can you get me in at the High School?"
...and yes, I'll try to get him in at the high school. He's a good coach.
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