Where Did all the Sports Activities Come From?

Baseball may have ended in October but there are sports in our communities year round and I for one have found it ridiculously difficult to keep up. But I try since I do own this site. I have made it my agenda to try and gather all the informational data, links, registration forms and tips from these sports organizations that I can. Obviously I can’t find them all and I have some great assistance from friends and fellow enthusiasts. To keep you informed I need to continue to make this site the portal of youth sports data I need the help of the parents and coaches in the sports community. The site is NOT just about Hernando, I inherited that name and it is appropriate for the area. Hernando de Soto is the first European documented to have discovered Mississippi River I feel our site is a one of a kind and unique to it’s viewers. We are currently building a new site. One that will allow people to logon and add their own site links and contact information. Leagues and organizations have members come and go more often than we can keep up so hopefully this new site will allow them to promote their league, event, organization as it evolves through the years. Spread the word. It is still the best place to get forms, links, and sports tips for kids but now it is also a tool for the entities to promote themselves to their prospective communities.

Competitive Sports, Can Our kids Take the Pressure?

Well, as I am finding out competitive baseball is just that, a competitive business and managed year round. Just as soon as the season is over the recruitment is underway, practices start and teams are starting to form. Don’t kids get burned out from this much intense baseball? Some don’t I guess and they eat, sleep, breath and love baseball. It is America’s favorite pasttime and I love the game and participating myself but my staff and I absolutly need those 6 months of down time to participate in life’s other pleasures, work, cutting grass, school, raffles, golf tournaments, swimming and fireworks.
If you’re one of those kids that likes the game that much then by all means suit up and get after it. There is nothing in this world better than watching our kids on the field of sports playing their hearts out for a sport them deeply love. But if you are one of those parents out there that signs your kid up and is the driving force behind them to participate every year all year then you might want to back up a second and review the playbook. So you kids is a great athlete, he\she said they love the game and want to play but do you really hear the enthusiasm or are you just overlooking that aspect? Are they saying it to appease you as a parent and need the attention it gets them?
Personally I feel that competitive baseball for kids below 10 years old is way too soon especially if they are burned out of the game by the time they reach high school when the skill level actually counts for something to a real scout.
Some of these season are 100-160 games. Taht is as much as a full Pro Baseball players season. C’mon, at 8, 9, or 10 years old what does that actually do for a kid but speed up the process to a quick fade from the game and it’s rigorous discipline?
I am sure there are kids that can hang with that and thos players do rise to the top. It’s the ones that don’t even turn away from a structured environment like sports and regress to something else. This could be just as bad as the ones who don’t ever play sports and hang out in small packs with no direction every day. We’re all familiar with this avenue right? The cautionary tales are there for parents, even if their children aren’t old enough to appreciate them. More than a decade ago, Jennifer Capriati turned pro in women’s tennis at 13, dropped out of the tour at 17 and was arrested on marijuana possession charges the following year. She has since returned to be one of the world’s top players. ….. Click the link for more information.

Coach Carl Butera, whose daughter Ashley plays on the team, said he and his assistants try to keep the game fun for the Fury, hosting sleepovers for the girls at each other’s houses. But Butera also has seen parents reluctant to commit their children to playing on the team.
“” excerpt from IS YOUR KID SUFFERING FROM BURNOUT?
“There are a lot of good players that we can’t get to come out,” Butera said. “The parents don’t want to do it year-round at this age.”

From crisscrossing the country for tournaments to special sessions with sports psychologists, the demands of playing youth sports only have increased. On the Patriots, only a couple of Boersma’s players play another sport in addition to baseball, usually basketball in the winter.

The coach, meanwhile, said the traveling team was created for one purpose: To prepare players for the rigors of high school baseball.

“We try not to overwork overwork

the condition produced by working a draft animal or working dog, an eventing or endurance horse too hard. See also exhaustion. them,” Boersma said. “But next year they’re going to go into high school and are going to be practicing and playing every day.

“(High school baseball) is highly competitive,” he added. “If you don’t play travel ball, you’re going to have a hard time making the team.”

What am I saying here? Parents, coaches, while you are hammering the best of your knowledge and experience of your sports into your children keep in mind they do have a breaking point and you may not be able to see it until it’s too late. Keep checking and gauging the temperature of enthusiasm of your offspring to make sure this is what they want and if its time for a break or not. See you on the field or at Chuck E Cheese

It’s Football Season. So Why do the Parents Need to be Referee’s?

Well, we are Ready for some football and the local communities are geared up. You can see the schedules online. One thing that really comes to mind is to first remind you all, these are kids and this is a recreational league, given that let’s hope we can all act as adults on and off the field. Reports of coaches being escorted off the field, parents threatening coaches and coaches confronting referees and other coaches seemed to be very disheartening to some past player’s parents causing them to seek a sports fix for their kids elsewhere.

Are you kidding me,

A coach being escorted from the playing field for unsportsmanlike conduct?
I thought youth sports is supposed to be about teaching our kids ethics, team play, good sportsmanship, and ultimately how to win and lose while maintaining the spirit of fair play and good sportsmanship.
Now those of you who did not bear witness to these outbursts fear not, our community is not the only one to harbor such emotion: Here is a video from a Corpus Christy game that ended up in court, and another video from Bakersfield Ca. remember folks, everyone has video capabilities on their phone and You Tube is not where you want to end your day, let alone the wrong side of assault charges and a civil suit. Why? Because a call you don’t agree with, your kid not getting enough play time or other unfairness perpetuated upon you or your child that you feel retaliation is in order. If you want to teach kids fair play then set the example. If some kid throws a bad block, hit, or some unsportsmanlike move on another child, show your kids how to be the better man and that way we won’t have so many thugs in professional sports.
Plant that seed mom and dad. Make this a great season in North Mississippi for Football, Soccer, Baseball and any other sport where we as parents and coaches have they eyes, ears and morality of our children in our hands.
Now sure this is a bit extreme

Who Won at the All-Stars?

I was unable to catch any games in Hernando this weekend. I heard some great games went on down there though. Who won what division? Who played great and who just couldn’t put it all together? Who had a hard time?
I tell my teams this every game. The team that wants it the most is going to win. So tell me sports fans. Who wanted it more on the ball fields this past weekend?

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to the USA. Our beloved country as young as it it is the most revered country in the world, either they want to be like us or tear us down because our people actually do have a say in how their lives are managed. On any given day we can go to a sports event, pray in a flavor of the month Church, shop at Target, Wal-Mart, Overstock.com, Mommy’s Secret, or Talbots. (That’s for the wife). We can aspire to race cars at NASCAR or become an aid worker and travel to a less fortunate country and help them survive their own affairs. We can choose to sit and play video games, twitter about the injustice in Memphis Politics or blog about the lack of schedules to a baseball game that happens in a particular day. Or we can give pause and thank the men and women that have made a difference in this country and decided back when that that wasn’t enough and they wanted more so they fought, in one way shape or fashion for the freedom that we all sometimes take for granted. So in the scope of that thought, I say Happy Birthday America, Happy 4th of July in all it’s meaning and glory. Thank God I was born in this county. The rest is just gravy.

Got Schedules?

In case you are looking, this website has not been granted copies of the schedules for the 2009 Dizzy Dean All Stars at Hernando. The other Parks have theirs posted online for the teams, coaches, families and fans of Americas favorite sports. Why aren’t they available from Hernando? I don’t have an answer, for that you will have to contact Danny Phillips. He is the Mississippi Dizzy Dean Commissioner and manages the Hernando League.
This doesn’t differ from the past few years so it’s nothing new. It does have a negative impact on the way the community views the management of the Hernando Baseball League, because parents, coaches, and fans rely on schedules to make plans to come see their beloved kids play in the greatest game on earth. I have gotten dozens of emails from people looking for schedules and can’t find them. I have to reiterate, this site does not have anything to do with the administrative end of Dizzy Dean. We just make our site available to them as an information conduit. So why don’t they use it to get the word out? Is the ballpark over flowing with visitors and they are trying to keep the crowd down? Are the games secret? Is it something else? You tell me.

What can I do, when is it time, where is it starting? Without the information getting out there how do you get the kids to sign up? What are some of the sports available in the fall for kids? HYFA is the Hernando Youth Football Association also includes cheerleaders, SYFA is the Senatobia flavor of the same. They do play some games between the two entities. Sign ups are underway now.
Soccer is rampant in Desoto County and it is so diverse it is hard to keep up with. Hernando Soccer used to be managed by the Olive Branch YMCA, yeah who thought of that? Now it is managed by the Hernando Parks Department. Links here
We hope to update our Soccer page and cover every group in the North MS Area. Hunting season is coming up soon, gold is in full swing and bowling is coming to Desoto County Schools.
What we want to know is who is organizing these sports, where are the signups and page links so we can help get the word out. HernandoSports.com is not JUST about Hernando Youth Sports, it’s about Youth Sports in North Mississippi. If we can be a source point of information then all you need is to come to HernandoSports.com to start your search for any sports available in Mississippi.
Last Year NoXCusesBasketball came to Hernando but the response wasn’t as good as it could have been. Baseball sign ups were down and the population is at an all time high. Why is that? Because people don’t know where to go to get information. A lot of these sports entities have their own sites and that’s great. If you can’t get people to your site what good is it. If they would let us help HernanoSports.com can drive traffic to your sports site as long as you get us the information about sign ups season dates and times, schedules etc. We are in the business to connect the kids to sports. That’s it. How do we do it? We get just enough advertising to cover expenses. As a parent and a coach I saw a big gap and decided to fill it.
Right now we try to cover all of Desoto County, Tate County, parts of Tunica, Panola and Marshall Counties and expanding to more. So if you know a group, team organization or sports entity that needs exposure contact us or have them contact us.

What Would You Do If you Were in Charge of the League?

How would you handle the registration and tryouts?
How would you get a fair rating on all the players signed up?
How would you handle the draft?
Would you even have a draft?
How would you handle practices?
How would you make the schedules out and make them available to everyone?
How would you manage umpires?
How would you schedule tournaments?
How would you handle rain-outs?
How would you handle All Stars?
Would you have a fall season?
I have seen many emails about people complaining about the way this is done or that isn’t. I was just wondering if maybe besides complaints, there are some solutions out there, so I have listed some primer questions concerning the decisions that need to be made every year. Some of these decisions are based on others, or results of the previous year or changing trends. So, what would you do in you were in charge of the Dizzy Dean League in Hernando?

All Stars and World Series- Is Your Team Ready?

Hernando Dizzy Dean picks it’s All Stars at the end of the season and they have roughly 2 weeks to gel as a team and get some practice in before warm up tournaments start and then the real deal. This hardly seems like enough time for a team of hand picked, position specific kids, to adjust to potentially new positions and become one as a team. You have to get along with the other kids to play well otherwise that is something that sticks in a kids mind. I have seen some All Star Games, and those teams from Grenada, Batesville, Sardis, Pontotoc look like they had been practicing together a lot longer than 4 weeks. One of the parents told me that they pick their All Stars after the first tournament or even as soon as the draft so they can get that chemistry going ASAP, I am not sure that is true but it makes sense.
What makes up a good All Star team? I think you need good utility players and enough time to paractice and get the team familiar with each others talents. Players that can move to any position and understand the schematics of that position. Can a kid that has been on first base all season because he is the best catcher make a good left fielder. Now he has a wider area to cover, back up center filed, third and short stop. A utility player can do just that because he has taken it upon himself to learn all the positions, or almost all of them. He also has to be consistence in hitting, base hit every time not just a homer or triple twice a game and there are quite a few of those in the league.
I am excited abouot the All Stars because I finally get to sit down and enjoy a whole game without yelling, “pay attention, put those clovers down and watch the batter.” or ” stop looking at the ball and run!”

So

What About Fall Ball?

When I first started playing ball in Hernando I discovered the season is way too short for the teams that just want to play recreational baseball and softball. The season has 12 regular season games and 3 tournaments (minimum 2 games each) so that is 18 games from April to June, roughly 7 weeks of baseball. Minus the rain-outs, this year it was 5 for us, for a total of 13 games. Makeup games did not begin until 3rd week of May and never impacted everyone. I understand those that keep saying, “They can’t do anything about the rain!”. and that is true but they can be prepared for the contingency and have a rain out schedule prepared. It does happen every year. Let people know ahead of time all makeups will be played on Wednesday and or Sunday. If a team can’t make either then have the next missed game ready to go. There are enough teams that want to play ball that will fill those schedules
My whole point is it is not enough play time for the kids and they just want to play. So what about a fall season- 6-7 weeks with 1 tournament at the end. Who will spearhead it, organize it and manage it? we are back at the same starting points as we are every season, we need volunteers, dads, moms, and ex players and a place to play, because the Hernando Ball fields belong to private owners we will need their assistance and permission to play. I have no problem tossing my coaching services in the ring and this website’s assistance to get the word and schedules out, applications out and processed, teams set, schedules posted, so on and so forth. Wow this sounds like there could be some work to it. How can 1 person do all this. Personally I would, couldn’t do it but remember, one man does and somehow gets done. Is it feasible to have a fall ball season? Sure, but that is me thinking out loud. What are you thinking?

Hernando Parks Dept. Hurry up and Get There!

The Parks Department in Hernando is still growing and trying out it’s legs but I think they really need to start running soon.  Yep, they need funds to be able to manage all the cherry projects they have planned so tell your aldermen and mayor to step it up.  Hernando had some great growth in the past 5 years including the neighborhood off McInvale.  So why don’t we have more kids in baseball, football and soccer than we do?  Fact is,  the numbers have decreased.  They won’t sign up if they don’t know where to go.  It’s all abaout getting the word to them, on a frequest basis.  The old methods are just that.  Use the internet. local signage Big signs not the cheesy magic marker poster boards at Kroger.  How about this blog, our newsletter with yours, and a database of email addresses of kids that have played sports in the past?  Wow am I thinking too much out of the box?

This is why I took over HernandoSports.com from Chris Halstead a few years ago with a vision to make it all encompassing and actually assist community sports organizations reach out to the communities.  It is only as good as the information posted on it’s pages.  If you manage, promote youth sports, let up know and keep us as informed and in advanced as possible so we can help you.

Now, back to Hernando Parks Department, they are trying but need to ramp it up.  Even without funding you do have some tools at your disposal that can help you leverage your goals.  Use them.  Reach out to people that can help.  handing out flyers is great, but if you can reach the young community through facebook, myspace, IM and blogs, now you have an audience.

What about Fall baseball\Softball Leagues? Soccer?  Or just access to ball fields?

Dizzy Dean Tournaments

June Jam, All Stars, World Series; there is plenty of baseball and Softball left.  even if your kids have wrapped up the season, I highly recommend you go out to the parks and watch these kids compete at a level that will knock your socks off.  The first time I saw a 5 year old All Star Game was mind blowing.  I saw a kid catch a fly ball in the infield and turn completely around and make a throw to second where the runner had taken off too early.  Without even blinking or the coach shouting it out.  5 YEARS OLD

Boys State Tournaments

Girls State Tournaments

What do you think about the tournaments?

Hello Sports fans!

Welcome to the new HernandoSports.com Blog. This is our newest addition to the web site where we hope that you the fans, coaches, players nad friends of youth sports can talk about the things that interest and concern you.  First let’s start with a few ground rules.

1. No profanity, pornography or rude behavior.
2. No spam
3. Be nice.

Now we understand some people can and will be passionate about certain topics but play nice.  Children can see this as well.  We do have the ability to edit any submissions.

So, let’s get at it.