Coaching plans

[JaC]

Talk to me about how you plan your season and how you plan your practices for 8u/10u. Do you go in with set plans such as:

Practice 1: Align on basic terminology and proper fielding stances and batting stances

Practice 2: Focus on fielding and batting

Or do you figure it out as you go?

Habe you ever brought a team to playoffs or nationals? Does your plan vary based on that?

 

[Orange Socks]

My practice plan was based on what I thought we need to work on from last practice, last game. But always worked on fundamentals. Keep it simple and keep it fun. Lots of stations and absolutely no standing around. Quick 2 minutes breaks for water. Keep it snappy and stick to your time limit per drill. Lots of fielding reps, throwing and catching. Tee work, front toss, other various hitting drills. Hopefully you have some other parents to help out.

 

[CoachCeetar]

They need to know, roughly, everything. And you only have very limited time to teach them it. Drills for fundamentals, fielding, throwing, hitting, etc. Then HYPER focus on one or two things. Whether it's the RFer backing up first, or being a cutoff, or when it's a force play and when it's not a force play and what to do in situations.

Depending on your team/skill level you might be able to work in a few more things at 10u ,but it's easy to overload them too.

We're (hopefully) having a practice tomorrow we're going to do hitting and pitching reps, and I think we're gonna focus on time to first, because some of them aren't great at recognizing "oh i hit it?", dropping the bat and running. Probably gonna time them so they can compete a little or something, to try and make it fun. We're right at the point where teams start actually catching throws to first, so getting their faster will probably pay dividends.

 

[_MIA_]

aren't great at recognizing "oh i hit it?",

make sure you work on 3-0 strategy after they learn how to recognize that they hit the ball…

 

[RADcatcher]

Develop athletic catchers.

 

[CoachCeetar]

make sure you work on 3-0 strategy after they learn how to recognize that they hit the ball…

30 laps for every take sign they ignore. Never mind that teaching them signs feels one level too far for these kids right now. No excuses!

 

[Towny9]

Fundamentals at practice and learn the game through the games.

 

[daywalkerdad]

It depends on the skill of the team. I helped 10u, 25% were ready for big girl practice, 50% were ready for some things but not all, 25% needed very basic.
A few things I learned.
Try to avoid long lines and split into stations.
Make sure everyone understands working outside of practice. To learn to catch, you need catchable throws. Many times at 8u the throwing skill level is not enough to get great work learning to catch player to player. Some will need tons of pitches to make contact, just not enough practice time.
If you have a fast pitcher only allow experienced batters to face in practice. One year the coach had a girl who had never played bat against my daughter and being first batter got hit by a pitch. She was then scared of the ball. I really felt bad about that.
Kids remain in dugout, parents remain out of dugout. Just a huge pet peeve of mine, even at older ages when kids leave dugout to talk to parents during the game.
Sliding needs to be taught to avoid collisions.
Runner on third batter gets out of way on wild pitch to avoid collision.
Every girl should try pitching that wants too. A nice rule is you must make it to the plate to pitch in games.
Go over safety bag at first.
Be respectful to the other team and umpires.
I really like the grammar pole kids have to run to for using improper grammar. (This is a joke from a movie but as you can tell I could have used it.)

 

[coachRob22]

Talk to me about how you plan your season and how you plan your practices for 8u/10u. Do you go in with set plans such as:

Practice 1: Align on basic terminology and proper fielding stances and batting stances

Practice 2: Focus on fielding and batting

Or do you figure it out as you go?

Habe you ever brought a team to playoffs or nationals? Does your plan vary based on that?

It depends on the skill of the team. I helped 10u, 25% were ready for big girl practice, 50% were ready for some things but not all, 25% needed very basic.
A few things I learned.
Try to avoid long lines and split into stations.
Make sure everyone understands working outside of practice. To learn to catch, you need catchable throws. Many times at 8u the throwing skill level is not enough to get great work learning to catch player to player. Some will need tons of pitches to make contact, just not enough practice time.
If you have a fast pitcher only allow experienced batters to face in practice. One year the coach had a girl who had never played bat against my daughter and being first batter got hit by a pitch. She was then scared of the ball. I really felt bad about that.
Kids remain in dugout, parents remain out of dugout. Just a huge pet peeve of mine, even at older ages when kids leave dugout to talk to parents during the game.
Sliding needs to be taught to avoid collisions.
Runner on third batter gets out of way on wild pitch to avoid collision.
Every girl should try pitching that wants too. A nice rule is you must make it to the plate to pitch in games.
Go over safety bag at first.
Be respectful to the other team and umpires.
I really like the grammar pole kids have to run to for using improper grammar. (This is a joke from a movie but as you can tell I could have used it.)

 

[daywalkerdad]

30 laps for every take sign they ignore. Never mind that teaching them signs feels one level too far for these kids right now. No excuses!

You need a sign package that requires an enigma machine to crack.