This week, the weekly parent tip focuses on respecting officials, a component of the Honoring the Game code: ROOTS

Responsible Sports Parent Tip of the Week:

“Some officials are learning the game, just like your child. Avoid criticizing them when you think they’ve made a mistake. Officials have a tough job, and we couldn’t have games without them.”

During competition it’s easy to forget that the officials may very well be just beginning to referee softball games, and learning as they go.  Respecting officials is one component of ROOTS, the acronym that stands for Rules, Opponents, Officials, Teammates and Self, which helps us remember the code of Honoring the Game.

In this article, you’ll read how to honor officials, and how our actions as Responsible Sport Parents carry over to the actions of our players and what you can do prepare your young athletes to not overreact, which can be the basis of bad sportsmanship.

To start, think about how your athlete would react to a questionable call on the field. Would you approve of their reactions? Would the coach know how to control his or her emotions and Honor the Game? Read how to respond to this scenario and access the downloadable PDF’s to bring to games!

Read more about Honoring Officials>>

Not all Athletic Scholarships are full ride like football. Most are classified as equivalency sports like softball. This simply means that coaches can share their financial aid allocation between a larger number of players. If you are good enough of course then a full ride scholarship is always on the cards.

The NCAA allows each division 1 softball program 12 scholarships; and in division 2, 7.2 scholarships are available. There are 262 division 1 and 253 division 2 colleges that offer softball scholarships.

You should be aware that college coaches attend National, Regional and State fast pitch tournaments. It is common practice for coaches to “track” players that have contacted them.

College coaches also attend, or in some cases conduct, softball camps and clinics and evaluate players. They also receive recommendations from high school and travel coaches.

Don’t make the mistake of concentrating on the top division 1 colleges, many of these big schools usually have a large number of potential recruits from some of the top softball travel teams. The competition is fierce, unless you are a blue chip player you wont receive an offer.

There is nothing wrong with smaller division 1, division 2 or NAIA college. What would you rather have, a partial or full scholarship at a division 2 school or the offer of a walk on at one of the top schools? At the end of the day its your education that’s important.

TRAVEL TEAMS. Top travel teams usually are made up of the best high school players in each state. College coaches are much more likely to attend these games than a high school game. If you have submitted your resume and your playing on a travel team you can just almost count on being watched.

Softball essays and stories from high school athletes.

Junior College Softball Scholarships.

Today more than forty million people play it each summer, making softball the No. one team participant sport in the USA.

Softball became a NCAA sanctioned sport in 1910.The NCAA College World Series is held each year. From 1982 -1987, the softball championship final was held in Omaha, Nebraska which is also the home of the men’s College World Series.

Urbana University offers the best of both worlds, the school is located on a One-Hundred and Twenty-acre campus in the small city of Urbana, Ohio, with the major metropolitan areas of Dayton and Columbus within an hour’s drive.

College Bound by Jamie Yaniga Ever since eighth grade softball has been a big part of my life. It was hard at first because usually in order to go far in such a competitive sport one needs to start out at an early age. Like my sister, she started at the age of five and now plays Division I softball for George Washington University.

Trust And Perseverance by Kasuandra Lopez. We had our first tournament with only two days of practice together. We were all unsure, but hopeful, only to get our hopes shattered when we had won one out of five games we played. Our next practice was not fun. We ran, drilled, drilled, and drilled some more. At the end of practice coach told us if we were not ready for harder practices and to learn a lot in return for working hard then his team was not the team for us.

The popularity of women’s fastpitch softball has grown steadily since the professional league’s end in 1980. In fact, once again, there is another professional fastpitch league called the NPF (National Pro Fastpitch League).