How many times have you listened to other parents complain that their kids' coach didn't have a clue, or that he/she didn't know how to motivate the kids, or was downright abusive to the little darlings? How many times have you felt that way yourself?
While
we have all had experiences with less-than-perfect coaching, as
parents who weren't stepping up to the coaching plate, we really
didn't have the right to complain.
To
be fair, most bad coaches really mean well, they just don't have the
knowledge they need to perform good skills transfer and motivate
their teams to succeed.
But knowledge can be gained, and motivation can be attained if you apply a simple, basic coaching philosophy that accomplishes the following:
Enforces
personal responsibility and commitment
Teaches
a team perspective rather than a me perspective
Allows
athletes to be active participants in their season
Uses
positive reinforcement along with constructive criticism to change
unwanted behavior
Once you've made up your mind to volunteer to coach your son's/daughter's baseball team, you'll need to get yourself a plan. Nothing calms the jitters of uncertainty better than a good, solid, doable plan. Here is what your plan should include:
Learn
the fundamentals of Baseball (how to hit, throw, etc.)
To learn as much as you can about the game, you should buy yourself a great book on the basics of baseball. There are a lot of good books out there and many of them have been written at your level. Find one that speaks to you when you open it, and doesn't make your palms sweat when you start to read it. For relatively young, beginning players, the game you will be teaching them is pretty simple. As your little athletes get older and more skillful, their game will become more complex. As your task becomes more complex, you will also grow as a coach. However, you will be creating unnecessary stress for yourself if you try to understand professional level baseball when you will be coaching 5-year-olds.
A good,
basic foundation in coaching fundamentals will go along way to making
your team's baseball experience a good one.
Learn
the basics.
Teach
the basics.
Execute
the basics.
·Goals
·Emphasizing
The Basics: Defense
·Emphasizing
The Basics: Offense
·Emphasizing
The Basics: Pitching and Catching
·Emphasizing
The Basics: Team Management
Again, the key at this stage is to understand your coaching target. If you will be coaching 5-year-olds, don't look at coaching instruction that tells you how to teach your team to hold its defensive shape when going from defense to offense. At age 5, players tend to want to follow the ball around the field in a giant wad. Obviously, your issues, as the coach of a team of 5-year-olds, will be very different and far less intense than the issues of the coach who has a team of 9 and 10-year-olds.
The best thing you can teach your little athletes as they start out on their baseball careers is the very basic elements of the sport. Don't even try to teach them anything fancy at this stage. Their bodies will eventually grow into the skills as they develop the size and coordination to accomplish them more easily.
You will also want to teach them the rules of the game, and basic positional baseball. At the younger, beginning stage, you should encourage your players to try out many different positions on the field. The earlier they get a feel for the different needs and pressures of these various positions the better. You will be rounding them out as players.
Set
up some kind of communication plan for the team. I always create a
database with names, addresses, emails, phone numbers, parents names,
etc. This comes in really handy when we have to send out information
or make phone calls to announce practice cancellations.
Make
copies of the schedule for the season, tournament information, maps
to games, and anything else your little munchkins will need for the
season, and send these documents out with an introductory letter
(described below).
Send
out an introductory letter with information about yourself and your
first practice. In this letter you should also set up a time to meet
with players and their parents to give them your coaching philosophy
and your expectations of the team for the season.
Create
your practice plan, including a wide variety of games and drills
that will teach them the basics without boring the snot out of them.
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