[Ksyrup]

It's hard to find the right set of 10-12 core families to build a team around. That's the way we tried to do it - talent mattered, of course, and there was some room for managing unreasonable parents, but big picture, the core of the team had to be the right mix of parents. It's difficult to try to balance playing time and personalities when people believe you are the only thing preventing them from money/free college.

We were very lucky to have a core 6 players for 7 years and 8-10 for the last 4 years. We had one bad parent - the dad of the #1 pitcher, of course. We managed to deal with him, and most of the coaches saw the issue as a dad/kid problem that didn't infect the team. One SEC coach told our coach that it was the worst parent/player dynamic she had seen in at least a decade. But we managed around it.

In most cases, teams are constantly evolving and players are coming and going either due to their perception of how good they are, or other opportunities to play for more prestigious travel teams who have pipelines to certain colleges. You just have to wade through it all and try to find the best landing spot for your kid.