Youth Coaching (sports)

[maryannette]

It does suck that they don't hit the ball. I don't know what kind of batting practice they are doing, but in our softball experience (especially when they're young) girls can be afraid of the ball coming at them and tend to freeze up. One thing that helped ours sometimes was wiffle ball batting practice. The fear of a wiffle ball hitting you is near zero. Good luck with them. You're doing a good thing.

 

[DVINNY]

We had opening ceremonies yesterday.

My son thought it was great that I had a uniform matching his.

 

[Slugger926]

good info slugger thanks! (you in the Atlanta area any time soon?)
And we are in the first year of kid pitch, our leaugue doesnt do walks at 10U. so what happens is say the girl pitching has 1 strike and gets to 4 balls, then the coach comes in and pitches the delta (2 pitches in this case)

What one of my parents told me is that she hears the other teams coaches say dont swing at any of the kid pitches and then wait on the coach to come lobb you a soft pitch... which IMO is totally wrong, I encourage my team to swing at the kids pitches if they look good and NOT to wait on me to pitch to them, apparantly it does win games at this level though, but I think its piss poor...

the one game we won our pitcher was on fire for that game so she had 5 strike outs,,,

spring break is next week and were going to serioulsy work on hitting and Im hoping my other pitcher isnt going on vacation cause she needs the work as well..

Yes, they need to learn to hit the kids. My daughter got her first hit last week off of a kid in 8U. When I played 8U little league, my team lost all but 2 games, but we were learning to hit while the other teams were learning to walk. A few years later, we were hitting and having a blast. By HS, as a class B school, we are kick all of the 6A schools in OK, and won the State Tournament with only 12 guys on our team. (It did help that we played fall, spring and summer starting in the 7th grade with no distractions of football.)

These young kids need to concentrate on learning and having fun. I had to confront my daughter's coach on punishing the kids before they learn anything when my daughter came home twice crying. The coach was meaning well, but didn't ask her if she really knew what she was supposed to do before yelling in her face or having her run poles. That stuff should be reserved for 7th grade and beyond when the kids know what the coach is getting on to them for.

I wish I could make it to Atlanta sometime. My aunt and uncle and one cousin are there in GA.

 

[Road Guy]

I'm not much of a yeller when it comes to my "extra curricular" activities, I figure if it gets me mad to yell at kids then I dont need to be doing it....

I;ve seen some people though that make me emberassed to be on the field at some times though..

Whats interesting so far is that the only girls that are hitting are the ones that dont have much defensive skills, and all the ones that are stud infielders are having a hard time hitting.....

 

[Slugger926]

I'm not much of a yeller when it comes to my "extra curricular" activities, I figure if it gets me mad to yell at kids then I dont need to be doing it....

I;ve seen some people though that make me emberassed to be on the field at some times though..

Whats interesting so far is that the only girls that are hitting are the ones that dont have much defensive skills, and all the ones that are stud infielders are having a hard time hitting.....

It is easy for the most rational person let emotions over ride their brain. I also learned a long time ago while dog training that some of the best trainers teach, and then even whisper their commands without ever raising their voice. Raising the voice will just short circuit the communications to negative emotions for both the coach and the subject (dog, kid, girl, boy). Yelling does not replace discipline either.

One thing that does make the yelling habit easy to get caught up in during outdoor sports is that sometimes it is necessary for communicating across the field. Then the habit carries over when trying to communicate to a kid 2 feet in front of you.

Most of the people that do it will get angry when you confront them because they don't realize the habit they drifted to. Or on the other hand, they don't know any better and that is what they think it takes to coach.

And on the hitting, it is more of a precision skill. The better defensive players are probably stronger and more athletic. So when they try to hit, they are over swinging and breaking down into bad mechanics. The weaker defensive players are probably lagging in strength or applying strength, and more precise with their mechanics which makes it easier to hit the ball. My daughter is the same way right now as one of the best contact hitters but lagging on D.

They have a long way to go before formalizing both D and hitting, and the conditioning that goes with it in HS.

 

[Dark Knight]

well we lost again last night, 8-2!
My pitcher (daughter) has 5 strikeouts in the first 2 innings, I still dont remember how exactly we can only play 3 innings, have 5 strikeouts and still manage to lose so badly..

oh yeah, no one wants to hit the ball!

Well at least it appears my daughter is set for the all star team, but damn losing is sucking so badly right now

I think that is called growing pains.

 

[ALBin517]

I'm not much of a yeller when it comes to my "extra curricular" activities, I figure if it gets me mad to yell at kids then I dont need to be doing it....
I;ve seen some people though that make me emberassed to be on the field at some times though..

Whats interesting so far is that the only girls that are hitting are the ones that dont have much defensive skills, and all the ones that are stud infielders are having a hard time hitting.....

The summer I turned 15, my summer job was to umpire for the local little league. I worked tee ball (6 and under), coach pitch (7 and 8) and a little of the 9-10 league.

The worst parents by far were in tee ball. I'd say 90% of the parents complained and they complained about every little thing.

I had to kick a dad out of a tee ball game.

 

[Road Guy]

We won another! 2-6

The last two games the girls have really come alive hitting, its been amazing watching the difference in a game when you actually put some hits on the board...

I have a deaf girl on the team who has been really struggling, but she even got a tripple last night (an error involved) but its great to see their faces actually happy for a change!

Slugger some of your tips were excellent so many thanks!

6 more games until the "tournament" I just dont want to be the last seed!!!

 

[willsee]

Even if you're the last seed and the girls keep improving sounds like you'll have a good chance to knock off the #1 seed

 

[Road Guy]

well due to how they cut the schedule at the end of the season we are the last seed we actually won our last two games, which technically were "next to last" but they had to cut the schedule off to set the trournament brackets last Friday, so those games didnt get factored in....

the 1st seed has a "bye" so were playing the #2 seed tonight..... We had a solid hitting practice last night, if we can not fall apart on defense I hope we have a chance.

Its sad but my goal is just to not lose two in a row and go home, my how our goals change!

any thoughts on how to go into a game with 5 girls who can really hit and 5 who are batting at .150 or less....??

 

[ALBin517]

well due to how they cut the schedule at the end of the season we are the last seed we actually won our last two games, which technically were "next to last" but they had to cut the schedule off to set the trournament brackets last Friday, so those games didnt get factored in....
the 1st seed has a "bye" so were playing the #2 seed tonight..... We had a solid hitting practice last night, if we can not fall apart on defense I hope we have a chance.

Its sad but my goal is just to not lose two in a row and go home, my how our goals change!

any thoughts on how to go into a game with 5 girls who can really hit and 5 who are batting at .150 or less....??

Like I touched on before, I would set my top five hitters at 1-5. Then I'd bat the ones who stink and are slow. Then at the end, the ones who stink but are fast... to set the table for the top if they happen to get on.

Or put the biggest hitter that stinks at leadoff and have her truck the first baseman. It will get the superior #2 seed off their game and get rid of one of your worst hitters, win-win.

 

[MA_PE]

and have her truck the first baseman

Instructing kids in little league/below HS to "truck" = FAIL

IMHO.

Focus at this level should be on skills not the brute tactics used to gain an edge just to win the game.

It's mindsets like this that take the fun out of youth sports. Seen it, done it, got the T-shirt.

 

[Road Guy]

What about telling the girls who are struggling hitting to NOT try and dodge the wild pitches to take a base?

 

[MA_PE]

What about telling the girls who are struggling hitting to NOT try and dodge the wild pitches to take a base?

Might work, but good luck at geeting the girls to "take one for the team".

Make sure they all know to run like hell on a pass ball on the third strike.

 

[Supe]

and have her truck the first baseman

Instructing kids in little league/below HS to "truck" = FAIL

IMHO.

Focus at this level should be on skills not the brute tactics used to gain an edge just to win the game.

It's mindsets like this that take the fun out of youth sports. Seen it, done it, got the T-shirt.

Says the former first baseman!

 

[Road Guy]

sadly they dont allow the run on a dropped strike 3 ball at our leaugue... I wish they did because throughout the teams there are not very many sure handed catchers..

the girl i drafted to play catcher who is very good at it, ended up being our 1st baseman so my dreams of lots of throw-outs to 2nd didnt happen, the girl I had hoped to play 1st just couldnt quite do it, although she did it very well at coach pitch, last year at the same position but for some reason couldnt grab them this year..

my 8 year olds team, who has Mike Ditka junior for coach is doing very well, they are only 2 games away from playing for the "big trophy" as the kids call it. We had a 3 hour practice on Sunday (yes Mothers Day) which ended up being a pretty nice day for baseball practice... some of the boys in that park can make throws that I havent seen older girls make all year long...

 

[MA_PE]

and have her truck the first baseman

Instructing kids in little league/below HS to "truck" = FAIL

IMHO.

Focus at this level should be on skills not the brute tactics used to gain an edge just to win the game.

It's mindsets like this that take the fun out of youth sports. Seen it, done it, got the T-shirt.

Says the former first baseman!

Right, don't teach them how to hit well and run fast when they can get on base by taking out the first baseman.

you should see it youth hockey. As soon as they hit pee wee level and can start body checking, especially at the lesser skilled levels, you develop this whole contingent of kids (and the parents of these kids) that think they're really good at the game because they can knock the opponent on his a$$.

When compared to the kids that are playing at the higher skill levels, the "checkers" often can't skate or stick handle worth a darn. The kids that have the skills will just skate a around them and leave them in the dust.

Of course, as the parents keep supporting the kids participation at $1000+/season the kid hasn't and is not learning the basics and really has no shot at playing at a competitve level at high school age. but he seems like a star when he plays against other kids who got the same "coaching" style.

 

[ALBin517]

What about telling the girls who are struggling hitting to NOT try and dodge the wild pitches to take a base?

Teamwork... that's good to see.

 

[Road Guy]

well we lost a nail bighter 6-5 last night, overtime game... I was literally swetting bulletts..

We were up one run most of the game. I think this game is on me, I let the pitcher go into an inning and didnt take her out soon enough, some times they are good and warmed up by the 3rd inning and sometimes they are not......

I was very glad to see them not make dumb errors and hit the ball though...

 

[snickerd3]

Even though it was a loss I think and overtime loss is still a feel good lost. They should feel proud of themselves. Wasn't it against the #2 team?