Girls Softball

Agenda

About Demographic studies Current known programs locally Why Softball D5 run program Close/Questions

Girls Softball Growth

•Began in 1974•Spread west in early ’80’s•4% incremental growth over 2005

Source: http://www.littleleague.org/media/06participation.asp

Girls Softball

0

50,000

100,000

150,000

200,000

250,000

300,000

350,000

400,000

1974 1980 1990 2004 2005 2006

Demographics

Area bound by local ASA programsASA has programs from Carmichael to

Rocklin for a total of 21* programs (Orangevale merged with Fair Oaks last year)

Typical league will grow to ~13 teams or ~150 players

Softball centric programs and ‘only game in town’!

Current local SB programs

D5 – Sunrise Little League 2005~110 players in 2006

D7 – North Natomas/Rio Linda/West Sac SB LL all 2005

D54 – Lakeside (Granite Bay) 2006 D11 – Auburn LL has integrated with ~250

Girls

Goal: Proliferate program throughout D5

Why Softball?

Adds new element to your programExcitement and cheering energizes your

current programsHelps grow your program

More Baseball players will come

Title IX & AB:2404 Additional catalyst for change in how we do

things today!

What is Title IX?Congress enacted Title IX to serve as a catalyst against sex discrimination at federally funded academic institutions, to encourage the development of athletic programs for female student-athletes, and to stimulate female participation in school sports. Within eleven years of Title IX's enactment, statistics revealed that progress was being made toward these goals. In 1983 more than 150,000 women were participating in college sports, compared to 32,000 in 1972, while the number of colleges and universities offering athletic scholarships to women increased from 60 in 1974 to over 500 in 1981.

And…AB 2404: A bill prohibiting gender discrimination in youth athletic programs passed the California legislature in 2004. What does this mean?•“… that cities, counties and special districts may not discriminate against any person on the basis of sex or gender in community youth athletic programs or in the allocation of parks and recreation facilities and resources that support or enable these programs.”•Entities to make available funds, staff, and resources for equal distribution to both genders of community youth athletics facilities.

Sunrise RPD has been instructed to request rosters from youth groups that use our facilities to help us determine current gender ratios. This will assist us in forecasting what facilities need the most adjustment, and will allow us to begin steering towards those goals.

•The bill is pretty specific about equal quality of facilities in addition to equal quantity of facilities. If the fields that the boys use have covered dugouts and drinking fountains, the girls field must have similar amenities. It could become costly to agencies and youth sports groups. It could result in some big changes in how facilities are allocated to youth groups. It could cause a lot of bad blood between youth groups. We believe that the end result will be very positive, but there will likely be many challenges along the way. -Barry Ross SRPD

2007 D5 Plan

D5 run program Similar to how >13 yr old programs currently

are run Fields allocated by participating league’s Scheduled through D5 Consistent rules that are not league bound

Min play, continuous batting order, etc… D5 interface/involvement

Umpire development

Questions