Youth coachin thread

[WarAdmiral]

I have coached youth sports for about 10 years now. I have always said that players win and coaches lose, and always put the blame on myself after a loss. I do it, because an old ball coach I had always made me feel better after lose, when he said it. After a tough loss tonight, where I really coached my ass off, but we just made to many mistakes, it was hard to take the blame, but I did, as I always have. Very tough loss, one of the toughest ever tonight.

Just like to have a place to share mental tactics and such to coaching youth baseball and advice. If the thread dies, thats cool, but if we can help each other by stealing of each other, maybe we get better and help feed the system with better players.

[hebner20]

Admiral,

Sorry to hear about your tough loss. I can't add much to help you since I am not a a coach but maybe tonight you made an impact on a kid's life and he will be talking about you in 20 or 30 years. You never know the impact you make on someone's life.

Hang in there.

[mattvan1]

I have coached youth sports for about 10 years now. I have always said that players win and coaches lose, and always put the blame on myself after a loss. I do it, because an old ball coach I had always made me feel better after lose, when he said it. After a tough loss tonight, where I really coached my ass off, but we just made to many mistakes, it was hard to take the blame, but I did, as I always have. Very tough loss, one of the toughest ever tonight.

Just like to have a place to share mental tactics and such to coaching youth baseball and advice. If the thread dies, thats cool, but if we can help each other by stealing of each other, maybe we get better and help feed the system with better players.

What age group? This is a big qualifier, IMO.

[FUDU]

Is this thread strictly for baseball coaching techniques?

[Fire Marshall Bill]

Quit taking the blame all the time. You're just conditioning them to accept all the losses as your fault

Quit trying to be perfect and don't be afraid to tell the "team" that sometimes "they" lost a game, not you

I coached LL for a number of years in Vegas and had 3 sons in 2 leagues per year there

I had a mentor in the name of Jim "lets go out and bore 'em to death" Hampton, whose son played CF with Matt Williams @ UNLV, who took 2 teams to the American Legion title game and it would take a whole day to relay what I learned from him

The #1 thing I learned is....Pizza Party!....for the team and the 'rents

That makes it easier to put the fun in the game, then blindside the parents with 'its more fun to win than to lose' when they ask why little Johnnie only plays 'X' or bats 'X'


and run.............run run run run run run run.

...and quit falling on your sword or its no fun for you.

One of my sons played for Jim as a 13-14 yr old. We had 4-5 8 AM Saturday games that year.

He'd have everyone show up earlier than the normal 30 minute warmups and have a ghetto blaster pounding out rock and roll while taking BP and hitting fly balls

The kids from thew other teams would be wandering in still wiping the sleep from there eyes and our kids would be yelling and screaming, having a ball and be in 4th inning form from the first pitch

Not one time was the game a contest....

Then he took the kids to Mickey D's for breakfast

Soooooooo, pony up Coach : )

[TBigz]

Don't blame yourself take it out on them ;)

[WarAdmiral]

Is this thread strictly for baseball coaching techniques?

Nah, it can be for whatever sport. The mental approach to coaching kids, crosses all borders IMO. Certainly though, I prefer a relaxed, alert baseball player, as I prefer a hyped up, roid raged like football player.

The team I coach is 12 year olds. This group of kids, doesn't handle criticism well. They are a group of boys, that have learned to never quit, which I take some credit for, and am proud of them for that. I have coached most of the boys for 6 years, and this is not a hand picked team. There are some players, that quite frankly, are very limited athletically.

I have found, that taking the pressure off them, as much as possible results in better play. When they press, they tend to make mental mistakes, and will have innings where the wheels come off defensively.

I also agree with the run, run, run. We run on the rirst pitch, and the batter is taking the pitch. I got tired of being doubled up on pop ups.

I like the boom box batting practice routine before games. I will try and institute that for Saturday morning games. Time is an issue on weekday games, but I can see how that would benefit us.

[mattvan1]

Is this thread strictly for baseball coaching techniques?

Nah, it can be for whatever sport. The mental approach to coaching kids, crosses all borders IMO. Certainly though, I prefer a relaxed, alert baseball player, as I prefer a hyped up, roid raged like football player.

The team I coach is 12 year olds. This group of kids, doesn't handle criticism well. They are a group of boys, that have learned to never quit, which I take some credit for, and am proud of them for that. I have coached most of the boys for 6 years, and this is not a hand picked team. There are some players, that quite frankly, are very limited athletically.

I have found, that taking the pressure off them, as much as possible results in better play. When they press, they tend to make mental mistakes, and will have innings where the wheels come off defensively.

I also agree with the run, run, run. We run on the rirst pitch, and the batter is taking the pitch. I got tired of being doubled up on pop ups.

I like the boom box batting practice routine before games. I will try and institute that for Saturday morning games. Time is an issue on weekday games, but I can see how that would benefit us.

Strictly amateur psyco babble here, but one issue may be the familiarity paradox. You have coached them for 6 years (starting when they were 6 years old) and at that time the game was all about learning and fundamentals and trying to get kids to love the game. After 6 years, you now need to be firmer, more structured, but the kids might see this as a departure from your historical style. Tough spot for you. How do you run your practices? Sometimes a bit of "pressure" in practice can really pay off in a real game. How many kids are going to keep playing? How many genuinely want to work at improving vs. are just out there for the social aspects? 12 is typically the year where baseball loses a lot of kids. Can you use the "focus on getting better every day" "we have to work on this to get you ready for Pony, Juniors, Mickey Mantle (whatever the next step)? They have heart, so after that you really can't go wrong.

My 2 cents - tough love, especially if they never quit. Tell them why things need to change. Tell them there's going to be a new approach to help them get better. This is more about life than baseball. Do work. Get better. As simple as that. At this age, they need to be treated like young men as opposed to little boys, and learning to accept a bit of constructive criticism is a must have skill for middle school and HS kids. Stay positive, make it fun, but let them know you are going to challenge them and you are anxious to see how they respond.

[Love child of shawn kemp]

I coached baseball for 8 years and I always told my teams, winning is fun but preparing to win is not fun. One of my toughest losses occurred when my team was down 11-0 entering the bottom of the last inning. Our league had a rule that an inning was 3 outs or once through the batting order. We end up scoring 9 runs, bases loaded and our last batter is up as we had batted around. The other coach calls timeout and then has his pitcher intentionally walk our last guy, scoring a run to make it 11-10 but ending the inning. These were 10 year olds. Poetic justice, we run-ruled them 16-2 in the championship game. That was our only loss of the year and we avenged it.

[WarAdmiral]

I know most of the stuff considered in the box. I really, really try to think out of the box, to give these kids a different, yet enriching experience. I made a written test, and gave it to them at the very first practice of the season. It had like 12 questions, and a written essay part about what you expect from your teammates.

The written essay part, is a nice tool to pull out when one of them starts goofing off to much or isn't staying focused. Almost to a kid, they expected hustle, effort and respect. I have plans to take a few words from their essays, and make a little poster of them, and hang it in the dugout, when we get closer to the playoffs.

I also use a skittle reward system, that I stole from one of my sons hockey coaches. I keep a small tin supplied with skittles. When they make a good play, or get a nice hit, they reward themselves with a skittle. I was the decider at the start, but am starting to see the team as a whole decide if a player deserves one or not.


I use many of the Emanski practice drills for practices. I love what they call Greenie board, which the kids love, since it is a hitting game. I usually base my lineup of the points scored, and tell the kids that, so they take it serious. Practice time is very limited once the games start.

We are 5-2, and really don't have much of chance of winning the league. There is one team that is loaded, and they are very well coached as well. I think, we can play with them, but we are probably the only team, that has a chance of beating them, and even that is a stretch. They are like the Yankees and the rest of the league is all AAA teams. We are like the best AAA team, although we lost one, that we shouldn't have. We should be 6-1.

Good stuff so far, and appreciate the input.

[jb]

Make 'em run without water. Kids are pussies now.

I myself am no TBagz and did not play NFL, errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr major college, errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr D 3 pay-to-play, errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr varsity D 1 big time HS ball, errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr start on varisty high school ball, errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr benchwarm varsity, but I can tell you this very true story.

When I was just 12 playing CYO for the team I was then bench warming for waiting my turn lost game one in a year that had championship asprations. Lost on dumb penalties and shitty execution casue of big heads gained from the last scrimmage. We thought coach, who was a yeller, facemask grabber was gonna just go postal on us. We'd lost city the year before to Gay-su because a player had his mouthpiece out on a TD run and it was called back as that was a flag in the league then, so he was on the warpath against dumb mistakes all pre-season. Coach calmly showed up and brought us in. Asked the captains how may pont we lost by. They said "13, Coach". He calmly said "helmets on, mouthpiece in, and times that by two. That's how many laps you're running for embarassing me." The practice field lap was somewhere between a quater mile and half mile. Now he wasn't a sadist becasue he cut it short after about an hour and the 6th kid or so quit, but he kind of made his point.

Then we could have some hose spicket water.

Cut down on the mental mistakes and we hung 60+ on the poor sons of bitches from some garfield heights pasrish the next sunday.

Man, they just do not make them like Auggie and Bill G anymore, or their proteges (as coach was) .

Anyway, I recoomend that approach. Good way to get your name in the headlines or even arrested these days. ;-)