Discussing practice plan with HC

Get a couple bow nets... and bring them. While he's pitching BP, have a few girls shag. The other girls can be going through stations on the bow nets with tees and you can work with them.
He may be irritated, but who cares. Just say, I'm going to take half over here while you work with the other half. If he's not all about control and ego, he'll see it works better.

The next step is once you get through BP in half the time, getting him to use the other half of the time to teach them how to throw, catch and field. This is about drill work and not hitting grounders around the infield.

Other than that, just work with your DD and continue to improve her game and don't focus on the wins and losses. If your DD is clearly the best on that team and has a great attitude, there are plenty of other coaches she'll play against who will begin to notice her and open up new doors.

GunnerShotgun said:

When the players expectation equal the teams expectations life is good in travel ball. Clearly your expectations aren't being met so I would move on.

Yes, as the coach if you presented all of the information that you provided in this thread to me I would suggest you move on.

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Fair enough. My expectations for the team really were to just be competitive this season. We should be able to win games,we have, but probably not any championships,we haven't. Some of the girls really show potential.

MikeP said:

the definition of a daddy ball coach. Most practices consist of girls standing around while others take bp. His daughter always hits first, last and somewhere in the middle as well as hitting for much longer than other girls. His dd doesn't belong on the team but is by default basically. His dd along with about half of the team don't have a lot of basic,fundamental skills down yet.

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How common is this type of team? In my area we would call this a town team, and not a TB team. It seems generally understood that town teams do not sign up for TB tournaments.

Bob516 said:

How common is this type of team? In my area we would call this a town team, and not a TB team. It seems generally understood that town teams do not sign up for TB tournaments.

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We might be what you are referring to. We can only draw from our local rec league, more of an all star team that plays travel tournaments. The league decided a few years back to start an "elite" program but we lose a lot of talent to the pure travel teams in Louisville. Last years team struggled terribly and didn't win a game. This year after rec ball I was voted to coach all stars and was able to get some girls that wouldn't play for the coach of the travel team. We actually won a small tournament and was very competitive at the Ruth Babe Ruth regionals and state. We lost half of that team due to age this fall and my daughter wanted to tryout for the Sluggers travel team. She made it but they couldn't get enough girls to tryout and fill a roster, which was very surprising for that organization. In Louisville and the surrounding area's, we are south of Louisville, a lot of teams struggled this fall to fill 8u rosters. So that's the whole story. We are a small town team trying to compete against mostly teams from Louisville.

MikeP said:

We are a small town team trying to compete against mostly teams from Louisville.

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I really feel for you. Good luck.

Bob516 said:

I really feel for you. Good luck.

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Thanks. We have some really talented girls but usually by their 2nd year of 10u we lose them to Louisville teams. My dd likes playing here at our home ballpark with her friends but she also gets tired of losing to the bigger organizations. Next fall we will age up to 10u and I don't know what we will do,stay local or move on, since half our team is 7 and won't move up with us. Hopefully we have a good spring season, have fun playing rec and all stars with her friends and make lots of good memories.

This is 8U. The single two biggest goals for the players for every game and practice should be 1) have fun, and 2) get better. If BOTH of them aren't happening, there's a problem at the coaching level. Fundamental skills should be the top priority, and well as building an increased understanding of the game. The goals should NOT be to win now, but to develop players who are ready to play at the next level. Wins will come with improved skills.

So this coach is surely inexperienced and insecure about his abilities. Otherwise he wouldn't be upset when you offer to work with half of the girls while the other half take BP. Give him a few practices to improve his tactics. And continue to offer your help in the meantime. Maybe suggest you go and watch a higher level team practice so you can both get ideas for drills. Set it up, tell him you want to go so YOU can learn more and help the girls, and ask if he wants to join you. If you put it in the context of wanting to improve your coaching skills, he may be more responsive. If he isn't open to your help and continues to have the same BP practices, I would say that playing anywhere else would be a better option for you. And good luck!

gamommax3 said:

So this coach is surely inexperienced and insecure about his abilities. Otherwise he wouldn't be upset when you offer to work with half of the girls while the other half take BP. Give him a few practices to improve his tactics. And continue to offer your help in the meantime. Maybe suggest you go and watch a higher level team practice so you can both get ideas for drills. Set it up, tell him you want to go so YOU can learn more and help the girls, and ask if he wants to join you. If you put it in the context of wanting to improve your coaching skills, he may be more responsive. If he isn't open to your help and continues to have the same BP practices, I would say that playing anywhere else would be a better option for you. And good luck!

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I have talked to him some and he seems open to suggestions at times but then goes back to the same old practice routine. He is a really good guy and I like him a lot, he just seems hung up on only focusing on the one thing his daughter occasionally does well, hitting. If it were anyone else I would be more blunt and wouldn't care what they thought. We learned to deal with losing last fall & spring but what Eric F said above is what I also think, the girls should be focusing on fundamentals but they aren't. We literally have a few girls that you never know where the ball is going when they throw it and miss more throws to them than they catch. We left for that reason but when we came back it was with the hope that we could would work to get better be prepared for 10u next fall. I did convince half of the team to go to a Medina clinic he put on in Louisville a couple of weeks ago. We also attended his coaches clinic the next day, very informative.

MikeP said:

I have talked to him some and he seems open to suggestions at times but then goes back to the same old practice routine. He is a really good guy and I like him a lot, he just seems hung up on only focusing on the one thing his daughter occasionally does well, hitting. If it were anyone else I would be more blunt and wouldn't care what they thought. We learned to deal with losing last fall & spring but what Eric F said above is what I also think, the girls should be focusing on fundamentals but they aren't. We literally have a few girls that you never know where the ball is going when they throw it and miss more throws to them than they catch. We left for that reason but when we came back it was with the hope that we could would work to get better be prepared for 10u next fall. I did convince half of the team to go to a Medina clinic he put on in Louisville a couple of weeks ago. We also attended his coaches clinic the next day, very informative.

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I know Tony Medina is based on So Cal (my DD attends his clinics regularly), so I'm guessing he was just in Louisville for a quick visit. Are there other fielding clinics the girls can attend outside of team practices? If there are, it might be a path to improving their fundamental skills that are lacking.