Crowdsourcing ideas for a Softball Club for Junior High Students

Brief background: The school I coach at is K-12. In the spring, I started up a junior high (6th-8th grade) team to get the girls playing before they got to me in high school. As I've mentioned before, I largely work with girls who have never played before.

We have a new coach for the junior high team this year, and she's a lot more dedicated. The school has a requirement where all teachers have to run an after-school club one day a week, so we decided to start up a Softball Club for the 6th-8th grade girls to get them familiar with the sport before team tryouts/practices in the spring.

The Softball Club meets once per week for what amounts to around 45 minutes of time. This is not a lot of time, so I'm trying to design these club meetings so we can maximize the limited time we have. Since it's a club and not an actual team, we won't exactly have full practices. It's more about giving them a taste of the sport/teaching the basics. My expectation is that most of the girls who join will have limited or no experience, so I want to tailor these meetings to them.

So how would you structure this Club, knowing it's basically a softball primer? How much time should we spend on the physical vs "classroom" (videos, demonstrations, etc.)? Since we only meet for 45 minutes, should we work on one skill (or a related skills) per meeting? I know keeping them focused on one thing for too long is tough at that age.

(Below is based on 6 or more players and at least 2 adults)

I think my DD could focus for 45 minutes at this age as long as she was active.

At first at least I would limit time spent on classroom stuff and keep them active.

Your #1 job is to have them wanting to come back, keep them moving. #1a is that they can protect themselfs and no one gets hurt, so catching.

Sure would like them to throw too, so I guess start every club meeting catching and throwing.

Since pitching is so important, if they can throw and catch Ok off to pitching and catching with you for a little bit while these others players have a catch for a while.

Every player loves to hit so try to cycle some players through some hitting every practice while you work through them all, then start over.

Running bases is always good for a little while because it keeps them moving.

Fit in felding when you can, followed by positions.

Good news is that they might not have a lot of bad habits yet.

If we're talking about "never picked up a bat" - consider trying wiffle ball for the first 2-3 meetings?

Being you're in Chicago, I'm going to assume outdoor space will be limited in another month or so anyway (temperature, rain, snow, all of the above...), so you'd only need a portion of the gym (heck - maybe you could even use the cafeteria?)

1. Spend the first 5 minutes going over the rules and positions (and you can probably simplify the rules down to just: 3 strikes, you're out, catch it in the air, you're out, ball hits the ground, get the ball to 1st base before runner gets there).
2. Equipment - yellow wiffle ball bat, softball size hole balls (I wouldn't use regular wiffle balls - no need to introduce the "slurve" to them yet!), throwdown bases
3. Skills

• Catch the ball with two hands
• Throw by bringing your hand behind you, step forward with your left foot, and twist your body so your arm comes forward
• Hitting - Stand sideways to the plate, front hand on bottom, bend knees, hands by your shoulder/ear, swing hard

4. Have fun

Maybe at week three, switch to a game like "Running Bases" (maybe similar to what some refer to as "Pickle"?) - two "bases" 'x' feet apart, one fielder at each base, everyone in the middle, fielders throw a ball (wiffle, tennis, whatever) back and forth, players have to get to the other base w/o getting tagged. (Teaches running, change of direction, ball awareness, catching, and tagging).

Gradually introduce the equipment, such as incrediballs before regular compression balls, and start working in regular drills disguised as games (practice grounders by rolling balls they have to scoop, run to a bucket to drop in, or scoop, then run sideways and be able to underhand toss it through a [hula hoop? tire swing?], etc.).

Probably after a month, you'll already have noticed who "gets it", so you can set up alternate stations to introduce more advanced skills, so that come February (which would be about 18 weekly meetings, if you start late Sept), you could probably get at least 4-5 girls up to speed at the key positions, and the rest able to at least know what they should be doing, and working towards being able to actually do it.

Hope it works out for you. Sounds like a real challenge, but with a much bigger-payoff in the long-run.

I should have mentioned that, yes, we'll be indoors in limited space within a month or so.

Some good ideas so far. It's a challenge, but we're used to teaching girls who have never played before to be game-ready in 2-3 weeks of practices, so this is actually much less stressful.

Should also add that in addition to the junior high coach and me running it, I also have the ability to get a high school player or two to help us (the students at the school get what amounts to service hours for this kind of thing, so they love doing it). That might be helpful if we have to split them into groups based on experience/ability so the girls who get it aren't tossing a wiffle ball around for too long.

CoachJD said:

I should have mentioned that, yes, we'll be indoors in limited space within a month or so.

Some good ideas so far. It's a challenge, but we're used to teaching girls who have never played before to be game-ready in 2-3 weeks of practices, so this is actually much less stressful.

Should also add that in addition to the junior high coach and me running it, I also have the ability to get a high school player or two to help us (the students at the school get what amounts to service hours for this kind of thing, so they love doing it). That might be helpful if we have to split them into groups based on experience/ability so the girls who get it aren't tossing a wiffle ball around for too long.

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If you're the school's head coach, have you looked into the state rules to ensure that you are allowed to have a softball practice with your team in the off season? I know as a club you can say its open to anyone to attend not just the team. But, are there rules as to the number of school team players who can attend an off season practice with the coach? I know in Michigan for HS its 3 players at a time.

chinamigarden said:

If you're the school's head coach, have you looked into the state rules to ensure that you are allowed to have a softball practice with your team in the off season? I know as a club you can say its open to anyone to attend not just the team. But, are there rules as to the number of school team players who can attend an off season practice with the coach? I know in Michigan for HS its 3 players at a time.

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This is a club for junior high students (6th-8th grade). I'll be helping with the club in the off-season, which is within the rules since I won't be working with the high school girls/organizing high school team practices. Once the HS season starts, I won't be working with the club anymore (I'm unclear on if I could within the rules, but I won't have time anyway so it won't be an issue).

I do not know if you have had the same experience but HC asks DD to do something, I ask DD to do same thing, looks at us like we are idiots.

Older player tells her exact same thing, DD goes that makes sense.

If you have older players there get them involved as much as possible in the teaching.

quincy said:

I do not know if you have had the same experience but HC asks DD to do something, I ask DD to do same thing, looks at us like we are idiots.

Older player tells her exact same thing, DD goes that makes sense.

If you have older players there get them involved as much as possible in the teaching.

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This absolutely will work. Now, got any advice on how to get my DW to not look at me like I'm an idiot?

CoachJD said:

This absolutely will work. Now, got any advice on how to get my DW to not look at me like I'm an idiot?

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don't do stupid stuff... of course, since most DW's definition of stupid is whatever their DH just did, kinda hard

The first thing I would do is line them up across from one another and have them throw some underhanded pitches back and forth. You need to identify a couple of pitchers as early as possible and try to get them started on some type of pitching routine. You could have the greatest HS team in the country, but without a pitcher you will never be competitive.