Just took on a new coaching job. Help!

canyonjoe said:

We had a coach this week at our game tell the kid who was on second on a grounder to SS that next time she should run over the kid. I told him you would be out for interference and he looked at me like I was nuts. Early on in practice have a scrimmage or 2 where you just have a coach pitch they put a lot of balls in play and you will
see how few kids really know how to play.

Click to expand...

Wow! That's definitely interference. Lol. Talk about crazy! Hope someone clarified for the kid. And that's actually a really great idea. Maybe I can do that the first day just to get a feel for what they know and how much work we actually have to do. Unfortunately, I'm going into this a little blind. My assistant knows my players a tiny bit but for the most part, I don't think we even know what positions they play. If they play a specific position at all, that is... Which is a whole new ball game to me (no pun intended). How do I figure out where to put them on the field if they've never been assigned positions from the beginning? Guess the positive is it'll be a fresh start for everybody if that's the case.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

One more thing. Remember when you played travel ball how bad the parents were?

You probably only heard/saw a small amount of the problem with parents. Now that you're the coach you're going to see the entire thing. And it is not pretty. You'll soon learn that every kid on the team should be the shortstop, every kid should bat leadoff or cleanup, and every kid should be the starting pitcher. Don't ever be their friend. Be the coach, and do your job. You're the only one in this relationship that doesn't have a kid on the team. You're the only one with an unbiased point of view. Pay attention at practice and form your opinions there and for the love of Pete don't let the Moms and Dads tell you who the All-Stars are.

peachyvolgirl said:

So I've been playing fastpitch since I was 8. I'm 22 now. From the time I was 10, all I've done was pitch. Living in a rural town on the east coast, I played high school ball at a 2A school. For those of you who don't know what that is, here's an explanation: Public schools here play by school size. 1A is smallest and 6A is the largest. Generally speaking, the bigger the number, the tougher the competition. I played club ball for a decent team where I pitched and played second base a little. After my senior year of high school, I found my way to two different juco's for pitching. After I came home, I found a school to help out at. My first year I was there for the varsity pitching only. The second year, I was "promoted" to varsity assistant coach. After the season was over, I was presented the opportunity to take over the school's middle school softball. I took the job... But to be honest, I'm a little worried. I know the game backwards and forwards as a player, but it feels totally different as a coach. Any tips on how to transition from player to coach? Last year, I was extremely timid. I second guessed myself a lot because I only played at the juco level, and to be honest, I didn't play a whole lot. I almost don't feel qualified. I don't want to go into a season feeling this way. It seems like I struggle with taking charge and figuring out a practice plan. I know several pitching drills, but not so many for IF/OF. Please, guys. I want to be good at this! Any and all advice would be great!

Please, no bashing! I'm trying.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

First - thank you enough for caring about the girls on the team and the sport to ask for help!

You will receive excellent advice and counsel here.

klamath632 said:

One more thing. Remember when you played travel ball how bad the parents were?

You probably only heard/saw a small amount of the problem with parents. Now that you're the coach you're going to see the entire thing. And it is not pretty. You'll soon learn that every kid on the team should be the shortstop, every kid should bat leadoff or cleanup, and every kid should be the starting pitcher. Don't ever be their friend. Be the coach, and do your job. You're the only one in this relationship that doesn't have a kid on the team. You're the only one with an unbiased point of view. Pay attention at practice and form your opinions there and for the love of Pete don't let the Moms and Dads tell you who the All-Stars are.

Click to expand...

Understood! That's an excellent point. With the varsity, we look at performance only. We're striving to get back to a state championship. With middle school, I'm going to be looking for effort and attitude the most. Hopefully I can take the field as a coach with more confidence with my younger girls. With varsity, I found it harder to draw the line because I was so close in age with those girls. I feel almost certain this go around will be easier in that sense.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

peachyvolgirl said:

So I've been playing fastpitch since I was 8. I'm 22 now. From the time I was 10, all I've done was pitch. Living in a rural town on the east coast, I played high school ball at a 2A school. For those of you who don't know what that is, here's an explanation: Public schools here play by school size. 1A is smallest and 6A is the largest. Generally speaking, the bigger the number, the tougher the competition. I played club ball for a decent team where I pitched and played second base a little. After my senior year of high school, I found my way to two different juco's for pitching. After I came home, I found a school to help out at. My first year I was there for the varsity pitching only. The second year, I was "promoted" to varsity assistant coach. After the season was over, I was presented the opportunity to take over the school's middle school softball. I took the job... But to be honest, I'm a little worried. I know the game backwards and forwards as a player, but it feels totally different as a coach. Any tips on how to transition from player to coach? Last year, I was extremely timid. I second guessed myself a lot because I only played at the juco level, and to be honest, I didn't play a whole lot. I almost don't feel qualified. I don't want to go into a season feeling this way. It seems like I struggle with taking charge and figuring out a practice plan. I know several pitching drills, but not so many for IF/OF. Please, guys. I want to be good at this! Any and all advice would be great!

Please, no bashing! I'm trying.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Awesome. Great job taking this one and good luck!

You've gotten some great advise in the thread so far. As long as you're a student of the game and always willing to learn, I'm sure you'll do great.

I've tried the practice plan before. I mapped out times as you suggested. The only problem is I ran out of time. I never like to end a drill with someone doing it incorrectly, so I went over time. Is it okay to quit the drill and move on?

Click to expand...

I coached a 14U combined spring team with another coach once. The woman ran her practices by her watch. It didn't matter if the kids were learning or not. They went through the motions of the drills.

What I did when I first started coaching was sit down and write out a list of specific skills the kids will need to learn to play the game for each position. There are many of the same skills that are common to almost all of the positions on the field. Some are very specific to a given position.

I will pick 3 or 4 things to work on for a practice. Make a mental note starting with the most important in your judgement and begin there. If you're working on something and they are struggling with it at practice they will struggle with it during the games. Don't move on until they have it right. If the entire team is struggling with something stop and look at how you're teaching it. You may have to come at them from a different angle. Don't be afraid to change your plan.

The other thing I do is to separate practices. When we're working on hitting it's nothing by hitting. One practice will be working individual skills. One will be geared to working game situations. One may be basic base running skills. Other times you'll have to break them up into individual positions to work on the specific things.

The other thing I found that saves tons of time. If you're working on something and a player makes a mistake stop the drill and call all the girls over. Show them that when this happened Susie did this and this mistake was the result. Then give all of them the correction at the same time. It's much better than trying to correct the same mistake 16 times. Explain to them at the start, if you use their mistake as an example you're not picking on them. You're using it as a teaching moment for the entire team.

The other thing you need to remember. At the MS level it's about teaching them how play the game. Expect mistakes. Correct them and move on to the next one. NEVER assume they know something until you've taught it to them.

One last thing. Read the rule book. Make sure you know the rules of the game and then teach your players. Too many coaches have never cracked a rule book in their lives.

Good luck, be patient, be firm and be fair. Make sure every player gets their chance to succeed or fail on the field.

GunnerShotgun said:

As a middle school coach I would do the following.

1. Only work on things that you will actually do during the game. Base running, cut/relays, bunting, catching pop flies.

2. You will get the least amount of return working on the following: Hitting, pitching, fielding ground balls, and the catching position.

Basically anything that requires a foundation (see #2) you will not have enough time to implement and your time would bet better spent on being really good at things in #1.

You need to figure out where to the maximum ROI (Return on Investment) with your time as you are limited to just a couple of months with the girls. You will either be lucky to get a pitcher and catcher every year or you won't.

That's what I would do...

Click to expand...

I just finished my 1st year as MS coach, and I'm going to disagree with some of #2 above. #1 is spot on.

IMO, just as in all the younger age groups, a good battery is a huge asset. There's not much you can do about pitching other than have them pitch every practice and maybe make small tweaks. At the minimum, teach them a good warm-up routine.

Catching - you can teach NECC receiving and blocking easily without getting too deep into the details. A catcher who receives and blocks well is worth her weight in gold.
Throwing - Wasserman water bottle drill (I used it all season with excellent results)
Fielding - Kobata basics: momentum through the ball, quick throws - keep it simple

We spent almost no time on hitting other than bunting. I took 2 of mine and turned them around to the left side (they volunteered) just to give D something to think about, and one turned into a stellar leadoff batter, bunting for singles and going opposite field a lot.

Thank you a million. You guys have been incredible help!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

BuckeyeGuy said:

I just finished my 1st year as MS coach, and I'm going to disagree with some of #2 above. #1 is spot on.

IMO, just as in all the younger age groups, a good battery is a huge asset. There's not much you can do about pitching other than have them pitch every practice and maybe make small tweaks. At the minimum, teach them a good warm-up routine.

Catching - you can teach NECC receiving and blocking easily without getting too deep into the details. A catcher who receives and blocks well is worth her weight in gold.
Throwing - Wasserman water bottle drill (I used it all season with excellent results)
Fielding - Kobata basics: momentum through the ball, quick throws - keep it simple

We spent almost no time on hitting other than bunting. I took 2 of mine and turned them around to the left side (they volunteered) just to give D something to think about, and one turned into a stellar leadoff batter, bunting for singles and going opposite field a lot.

Click to expand...

Sounds like a good plan. Where did you find your drills at? YouTube or books or...?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

peachyvolgirl said:

Sounds like a good plan. Where did you find your drills at? YouTube or books or...?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

The NECC DVD can be purchased here - The New England Catching Camp - Online Store
The Wasserman High Level throwing e-book can be purchased here - High Level Throwing: Baseball Edition E-Book – $50.00
The Kobota defensive drills DVD here - DVD’s | Softball Skills.com