If you are a yellow jacket blue parent with a daughter on the bottom half of the roster, you need to listen to this. The coaches and organization have a standard reply to all players if their parents are complaining. They will tell you that the time to win is now. That college coaches will not come to the sidelines to watch the team if they are not winning every game. They will tell you that even though your daughter is not playing she's getting great benefit from having the yellow jacket blue name. And that may be true for some. But at the same time it maybe destroying your daughters confidence and love of the game. This was the situation we were in and we decided to try and stick it out. For us that was the wrong decision. At that time for her the sport was about having fun. But how can you have fun when you're not seeing the field. By the end of the year, it became a job to her. It was then that we finally decided to look for another place for her to play. She decided to go to what many consider to be a much lesser club. And it turned out to be the greatest thing she ever did. We just wish she did it earlier. And guess what she got recruited to a D1 school. We just had to do a little bit more legwork. Needless to say we are going about it differently with our younger daughter. I'm not saying that this situation doesn't work for some. It just definitely didn't work for us. At 12 years old all my daughter wanted to do was play.
And before somebody calls me a yellow jacket hater, that is not the truth. When I asked them for the truth they gave it to me. They didn't string me on. We just decided to make our own decisions for what we felt was best for our daughter. And sitting on the sidelines watching other girls play meaningful minutes was not what was right for us as a family. Good luck to everyone going forward.
This is a great post. Each families experience is different. It depends on what the parent feels is most important in the outcome. Does YJ Blue hold huge wieght for some colleges, absolutely. But I honestly feel that it doesn't hold the weight that it once did. YJ used to be the only show in town. that is long gone. With the wealth of information that is at a parents and coaches disposal these days, if your daughter is a good player, she will get recruited. You just need to spend some time emailing coaches and attending some 5 v 5's and clinics for the school that you are interested in. Have your daughter let college coaches know that you are interested in the school and what showcases that you are attending. Most of the websites for these showcases tell you who is attending and you can even send them a message directly from the tournament website. It's amzing what technology can do.
