Running a tryout

This will be my 2nd year coaching 16U, I was assistant coach for 2 years in 14U, and HC 1 year in 12U.

This will be my first time holding tryouts. I'm sure there have been a lot of posts on here about running a tryout.

Do I use the same drills that we use in practice? Do I seperate position specific? What about hitting? Should I pitch (slow) or machine?

Any tips, or if you could point me to previous posts, I would appreciate it.

*Btw, I lost my assistant coach due to financial issues, but I'm pretty sure I'll have a college player as my new assitant. But I will probably be running the tryout by myself.

Again, Thank You!

In my experience teams usually hold 2 tryouts, the first is more of an all skills tryout (including hitting) and the second is position specific. Only the players that are invited back tryout for specific positions.

Running a tryout by yourself is not going to be very fruitful. You will be conducting all the drills and not standing there evaluating. You should get 3 or 4 other people to assist. Make notes and then compare at the end.

Like others have said, running a tryout by yourself will be nearly impossible. Find some knowledgeable volunteers ( not parents with an agenda) who will come out and rate the talent. You will run drills, but you can also rate the girls.

Our tryouts are not exactly like our practices because we want to focus on seeing what the girls know and what skills they have versus trying to teach them new skills. That being said, we do teach a little to see how quickly kids can pick things up. We start out with a warm up and then some speed and agility tests. We then move to timed base running and base running skills, then to throwing, fielding, and outfield. We tend to do general fielding and then position specific. Hitting is done both with a machine AND with live pitching from a former college pitcher. We end the general session with a parents and players meeting to outline what our season and expectations will be and to answer questions. Then, catchers and pitchers stay on and do their thing. We try to get this all done in three to four hours.

Holding tryouts blind (with no knowledge of athletes ahead of time) is difficult, there are only three things that I feel you can accurately evaluate in that situation throwing, fielding, and athleticism.

If you run the star drill you can evaluate two of those without being involved yourself. Split them into 5 groups put one group at C,1B,2B,SS,3B adn the drill is to throw from C - SS - 1B - 3B - 2B - C repeat and they follow their throw and move to the back of the line at the next spot.

Hitting and Pitching are very very difficult to evalute blind. A kid with great hitting mechanics could be way behind in understanding how to make contact against good pitching and a kid with so-so mechanics could be very advanced in that area and be a few tweaks away from being a great hitter. But all you can really evaluate in a tryout is mechanics. Even if you put the kids against live pitching in tryouts you would want to see at least 5-10 at bats before you really felt you knew anything about the kid as a hitter and that takes way too much time. I would want information about where they played what kind of pitching they have faced (in general) how they did and where they batted in the lineup. Pitching is a little better you can evaluate control, speed, spin, movement, but again you'd rather have game information to know how the kid holds up in the circle for the real deal.

In addition to the star drill above I would probably have the kids do some tee work, to get some idea of where their swing is at, and have the infielders field grounders and the outfielders field pop fly's. That can be done in a reasonable amount of time and if you hit a kid 10-15 grounders or flys you should get a pretty good feel for their fielding.

Catchers I would have run through some throwdowns as well.

Great queston Izzy's dad. I will be also be holding my first tryouts in a couple of weeks. In addition to the starter question is there a standard form you use or do you customize your own?

As far a forms I would just make my own using whatever metrics you feel comfortable with have boxes for times home to first and around bases, then usually some kind of scale system for skills 1-4, 1-5 or 1-10 or poor, below avg, avg, above avg, outstanding. Again it is best to use whatever makes sense to you. I would also have a comment section where you can make notes for instance throwing "strong but not accurate" same with hitting power or contact, can they bunt?

Maybe it is just me but it does not take long to tell which girls stand out and which girls just don't have the skills the hardest part is always those girls in the middle that are strong is some areas and weak in others that is when team needs, coachability and yes parents attitude etc. all come into play.

Keep in mind that some girls have no intention of playing for you. They just go to tryouts.

I was surprised to learn that, but it is true.

Kudos to Amy! As much as 30% come to tryout with no intention of playing for your team

In our area most team hold tryouts 3 or more times within a one or two week period. Players are encouraged to attend multiple sessions. I think many players attend tryouts for teams they have no intention of playing for just for the experience. I suggest you get some parents or friends to help you run the drills so you can spend your time walking around and evaluating.