Post by CEZAR on Feb 6, 2014 9:34:45 GMT -6
The Biggest Differences Between Southern California Softball and Midwest Softball:
Over the years, I have had a chance to compete against the best teams in the country on a fairly consistent basis. I bring 1 or more teams out to Southern California to play in various tournaments throughout the year. I am fortunate enough to work with as a minority owner and as an advisory board member many of the top Southern California travel teams head coaches thru PGF and Surf City Tourneys. With that being said, I personally have found many differences between their programs and top programs from across the rest of the country, including the Midwest.
Your top programs in Southern California charge around $1,200, they only travel to Boulder, with the exception of the Firecrackers, that play in the Fireworks. There are few exceptions, some will play in Diamond 9 in Florida, in November and some will play in the DeMarini Invitational that Gerry Quinn and I host in July. For the most part these teams don’t need to travel because there is an abundance of talented teams in their backyard and PGF Nationals are in Huntington Beach. These teams have no need for indoor team practices because of living in the comforts of mostly sunny California. The top organizations have their top teams sponsored from head to toe, while their younger programs are mandated to use such equipment at slightly discounted prices. In general, coaches do not get paid in Southern California.
The top teams in Southern California budgets and traveling are much more in line with the average program from across the country. Many programs around the Midwest charge around $1,200 yearly, do little travel and they don’t pay their coaches. The problems is that these teams don’t have the luxury of playing year round outdoors against high end quality competition. In order to do that, you need to spend considerably more money, time and resources to get to the same place as the top teams and organizations from Southern California. I personally feel that the players and families that are playing out in California, Florida, Texas and Boulder are far more committed and have far more skin in the game than their counterparts in Southern California. In my opinion, we have to spend considerably more time and resources to get to the same point as the top teams in California. The top players and families from outside of SoCal are more committed, more dedicated and considerably more vested in the game of softball than their counterparts because they have to be to get to the same finishing point.
My program runs differently than most but this is my budget for 7 teams:
Airfare for 28 coaches yearly - $28,000
Insurance and registration for 7 teams $3,000
Coaches compensation without performance bonus $70,000
SUV and Van rental for 7 teams $50,000
Entry fee for tournaments for 7 teams $ 96,500
Hotels rooms for coaches and players for 7 teams $92,000
Equipment, bats, gloves, cleats, helmets, bat bags and indoor training for 7 teams $72,000
Camps and clinics and miscellaneous meals $10,000
That is a budget of over $420,000 with 97 players, I subsidize a fair amount of this for the Bandits but this is an average cost of $4,330 per player to get near the same product as the top Southern California players are receiving for $1,200. Life is not fair and neither is softball. We can get busy complaining about it or we can busy busting our humps to close the gap. I for one, choose the latter.
Bill Conroy
Over the years, I have had a chance to compete against the best teams in the country on a fairly consistent basis. I bring 1 or more teams out to Southern California to play in various tournaments throughout the year. I am fortunate enough to work with as a minority owner and as an advisory board member many of the top Southern California travel teams head coaches thru PGF and Surf City Tourneys. With that being said, I personally have found many differences between their programs and top programs from across the rest of the country, including the Midwest.
Your top programs in Southern California charge around $1,200, they only travel to Boulder, with the exception of the Firecrackers, that play in the Fireworks. There are few exceptions, some will play in Diamond 9 in Florida, in November and some will play in the DeMarini Invitational that Gerry Quinn and I host in July. For the most part these teams don’t need to travel because there is an abundance of talented teams in their backyard and PGF Nationals are in Huntington Beach. These teams have no need for indoor team practices because of living in the comforts of mostly sunny California. The top organizations have their top teams sponsored from head to toe, while their younger programs are mandated to use such equipment at slightly discounted prices. In general, coaches do not get paid in Southern California.
The top teams in Southern California budgets and traveling are much more in line with the average program from across the country. Many programs around the Midwest charge around $1,200 yearly, do little travel and they don’t pay their coaches. The problems is that these teams don’t have the luxury of playing year round outdoors against high end quality competition. In order to do that, you need to spend considerably more money, time and resources to get to the same place as the top teams and organizations from Southern California. I personally feel that the players and families that are playing out in California, Florida, Texas and Boulder are far more committed and have far more skin in the game than their counterparts in Southern California. In my opinion, we have to spend considerably more time and resources to get to the same point as the top teams in California. The top players and families from outside of SoCal are more committed, more dedicated and considerably more vested in the game of softball than their counterparts because they have to be to get to the same finishing point.
My program runs differently than most but this is my budget for 7 teams:
Airfare for 28 coaches yearly - $28,000
Insurance and registration for 7 teams $3,000
Coaches compensation without performance bonus $70,000
SUV and Van rental for 7 teams $50,000
Entry fee for tournaments for 7 teams $ 96,500
Hotels rooms for coaches and players for 7 teams $92,000
Equipment, bats, gloves, cleats, helmets, bat bags and indoor training for 7 teams $72,000
Camps and clinics and miscellaneous meals $10,000
That is a budget of over $420,000 with 97 players, I subsidize a fair amount of this for the Bandits but this is an average cost of $4,330 per player to get near the same product as the top Southern California players are receiving for $1,200. Life is not fair and neither is softball. We can get busy complaining about it or we can busy busting our humps to close the gap. I for one, choose the latter.
Bill Conroy