Why do so many coaches force or even mandate that their players play AAU. Many softball programs struggle to even play half a schedule because they cant play any weekend for having to go to AAU tourney. A basketball coach would never go for a player missing a game in January to go play in a weekend softball tourney. But the softball coaches seem to be happy playing 15- 20 games and not practicing or playing on the weekends.This is sure tragic to those girls that really want to play softball. Hey AD's, and principals take control of this before you ruin softball in small town USA.