U12 Nashua Nightmares Black: My Site News: About the Nightmare Organization

About the Nightmare Organization
The Nightmare ASA Girls Softball Organization The Nashua Nightmare organization is a competitive girl’s softball program that currently sponsors teams in the U12, U14 and U16 age brackets.  We compete and practice year round at the highest level of competitive, Junior Olympic fast pitch softball. We have 3 major goals: 
  1. Teach all the girls the basics and fundamentals of quality softball play.
 
  1. Instill a code of conduct and an ethic that rewards honest, hard work, which emphasizes sportsmanship and nurtures the girl’s love of the game.
 
  1. Prepares each girl for the chance to represent herself, her family and the local community by way of playing for their school team.
 Our concept is to recruit groups of talented girls to form the nucleus of teams which move up the age brackets together.  We recruit from the local communities that are near Nashua, New Hampshire.  We do not have any restrictions related to the towns where the girls live.  Most girls that try out and make a squad live within half an hours car ride from our practice facilities. Equally important are the parents of the girls that try-out.  We always seek "good" parents as part of the selection process.  We work hard to keep the egos of both parents and players in check.  Ultimately, we form a very close organization that stays in close contact for a complete year. Tryouts begin at the beginning of September each year.  Our organizational philosophy is that players earn their spots and play to keep them.  Our goal is to teach solid fundamentals to every player and collectively pool our talents to win games. Good sportsmanship is taught and expected at all times by both players and parents.

Once the various teams are selected, we practice outside for the fall.  Depending on scheduling, each team will play some fall ball either by way of scrimmages or actual ASA tournaments.    We practice outside during the fall while the weather and daylight permit.  After that, we move indoors and practice once a week until the holiday season. We normally stop practices between Thanksgiving and New Year.  We return after New Years with inside practice.  To date, we have used the gym at one of the local schools for these practice session.  We also attend batting practice regularly at a local indoor practice facility. Practices for each of the Nightmare age groups are scheduled to coincide with the other Nightmare teams. This allows the coaches to work with more girls and the younger girls to experience and learn from the older ones.

The spring and summer tournament schedules are established by the start of practice in January.  The general calendar has the season start in April and continues through August.  We do our best to coordinate the tournament schedule between each of the other Nightmare teams. Our typical goal is to schedule about 10 tournaments per season supplemented by any number of scrimmages. 

Costs are estimated to be about $450 per player for the whole season (September 2008 - August 2009).  This includes uniforms, practice facilities, tournament fees, insurances and miscellaneous equipment.  The average tournament cost $400 per team to register.  Travel costs are not included in our figures. Historically, the teams have played one or two tournaments that require a hotel stay per year.  We expect to continue this trend.

We expect each girl to get a local business sponsorship valued at $150. These funds are used to offset the costs of running the team.   Sponsors will be prominently displayed on both our website and team banner/sign that is hung on the fence at each game.  If a girl gets more than 1 sponsorship, her team obligation is reduced.

The Nightmare typically charge about half of what some other similar teams charge for their roster fees. The Nightmare coaching staff is not compensated for their time and efforts.  We solicit help and support from every family that has a child playing in our organization.