12U Rec Team Practice vs Gameplay

[Coach kate]

This is the third year that my husband and I have coached rec teams. We are both driven to see girls develop skills, progress, and have fun. And year after year they do. There are several girls who were turned off from past coaching experiences that thrived with us, and we have brand new girls every year who develop into competent players at this level.

We take more of a gentle approach to correcting the girls, where they have to repeat a task in practice if we know they can do better and fudge a throw etc. We are really opposed to the incredibly loud, competitive, and berating approach we have seen from other coaches.

The problem is... those coaches do win a lot more games than we do. Our girls demonstrate proficiency in the field and at the plate during practice, but during gameplay, we see only glimpses of their potential that is so apparent in practice. Rec ball isn't all about winning... but winning is fun, and we would LOVE to see the girls be able to demonstrate more of their skill in games than they are now.

We do as many game-like drills at practice as we can and keep it fun. They ARE having fun at practices. But they seem to lose their drive and their spark in games. We recognize, reward, and praise their hard work, their growth, and their performance in both practices and games. What are we missing?

Do any of you have suggestions for how we can amp up their ability to perform in games? Should we be more "strict" with them? What have you seen as effective strategies for balancing the fun of rec and the competitiveness that leads to more "W"s?

 

[BrianTx01]

How much is coaching vs how much is the talent of the players they have? Good coaches can have bad records of they don't have the right talent. Likewise, bad coaches can have temporary success. I can tell you that being extremely negative will not be beneficial in the long run. At the same time do not be afraid to offer constructive criticism. Just find a balance and get them all the game like reps you can.

 

[_MIA_]

Some kids (especially girls at that age) are naturally more tentative during games than others...sounds like you unfortunately have a team full of them. To them it looks better to not go full bore after a ball and let it drop in front of them then to go full bore and have it go off their glove (or to let a good pitch go by instead of swinging and missing)...I would attribute what you are seeing as "losing drive and spark" to tentativeness more than anything else. The only thing you can do, outside of letting them know that it is ok to make a mistake when giving full effort (which you are probably already doing), is to continue to coach them up in practice so that some things become more instinctive...for some the tentativeness will go away as they get older.

 

[bmakj]

Some kids (especially girls at that age) are naturally more tentative during games than others...sounds like you unfortunately have a team full of them. To them it looks better to not go full bore after a ball and let it drop in front of them then to go full bore and have it go off their glove (or to let a good pitch go by instead of swinging and missing)...I would attribute what you are seeing as "losing drive and spark" to tentativeness more than anything else. The only thing you can do, outside of letting them know that it is ok to make a mistake when giving full effort (which you are probably already doing), is to continue to coach them up in practice so that some things become more instinctive...for some the tentativeness will go away as they get older.

and happens at older ages as well. DDs team won their tournament this past WE, HC was happy, but also talked about next steps to become better, laying out for a ball, etc. fit perfectly with two of my mantras

PLAY FEARLESS - it is OK to make mistakes, as long as you are playing aggresively (yes, at some point, making safe plays is smarter option, but easier to pull them back a little from the edge than to instill a go for it attitude later)

FAIL SPECTACULARLY - everyone makes mistakes/errors. make yours memorable. if you go for the diving catch and instead give up the winning run, people will still remember the effort. if you let that looper drop in front and that runner becomes winning run still was the winning run.

preach it AND walk the walk, praise the effort/attempts, not necessarily the outcome.

 

[_MIA_]

and happens at older ages as well.

Definitely.

 

[BigSkyHi]

Making competing fun?

 

[dbronstein]

I coach similar to you and my teams don't win as much as others because I keep the playing time pretty even, let the players play different positions, and mix up the batting order. I let less-experienced pitchers and catchers get game experience. And so on. A lot of the teams we play only pitch their top 2 or 3 pitchers, only put their best fielders in the infield, and always have their best hitters at the top of the lineup. So of course they are going to beat us more often than not.

Last fall, we were 3-9 in the regular season. Then in the playoffs we "played to win" with our best pitchers and lineups and went 3-2 in the playoffs and got third place. This spring we were 4-5 in the regular season and got second place in the playoffs. And even in the playoffs, I still rotate all the players in and out. Even the best players still take their turns sitting out.

 

[_MIA_]

I should have said this in my initial post but if see improvement from the 1st game to the last then you have done your “job”

 

[Rolling Hard]

That "No Goals Hitting Competition" is must see TV for all youth coaches. Got me thinking of a version of this for 14u softball were hitters goal is to split the outfielders.

 

[Strike2]

Those coaches aren't on the winning end because they're "loud and berating". Their teams are more likely, winning in spite of it. I'll guess at a couple of things here...

In Rec, optimizing what you have and just doing a few things well is often good enough defensively. Being able to get pitches over the plate is #1. After that, being able to catch easy fly balls and reliably get an out at 1B is vital. If you have a half-way decent pitcher, lots of balls get hit to the right side. If you're rotating players to 1B & 2B who can't field and/or can't catch a throw, you're giving the other team lots of extra outs.

Teach patience at the plate. Your players should go after that pitch right down the middle, but lay off everything else. Make that other pitcher work for the outs.