When did Camps, Travel Ball, AAU bc more important than High School??

Limitation of stats/ability to show out due to highschool system.

I live in Pennsylvania and for softball it’s been that way for about 10 to 15 years at least. Helped w coaching my daughters teams and some of the coaches kids were also on tournament teams to get noticed by college scouts.

your highschools are locked into one region facing the same teams year in and year out. they may play other schools in higher or lower divisions from time to time, but the teams play the same schools, much like conferences do. because the regions dont change, the player pool (the pool of players that each school has to work with) remains relatively unchanged, baring waiver transfers.
with travel ball and private leagues, the pool expands exponentially. top players are invited and only the best of the best play.

basically, To Be The Best You Have To Beat The Best, and you cant really do that at some rinky dink highschool out in the middle of bumfrick nowhere

Correct and they always have been. The downfall and trend of the dog and pony shows ruling all began when Nike/Under Armour/corporate sponsers that always drove the money began partnering with the rankings sites giving them a vested interest in the success and importance of those events. The sites overinflate their importance because it's in their best interest to do so. It's where their bread is buttered.

quote:

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Unless you go to a big name program, you won’t get proper development.

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your teammates probably won’t be good enough to play with you either.

Maybe this is anecdotal evidence but I think kids are driving further to go to HS than ever before

The live period used to be in July only when AAU was being played instead of HS that usually shuts down summer league at the end of June.

My kids are going to do golf.

When someone figured out the money to be made

1999-2000 travel ball started being pushed pretty hard.

Now have 7-8 yr old travel ball killing rec ball.

My only issue is once travel ball starts, they don’t practice to improve skills and pick up bad habits during a 6 month season.

Zero interest.