Coach or GM?

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Feb 20, 2020
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In reading the boards, and in a few years of being around the game, it seems like a lot of coaches are more interested in being General Managers of their teams than coaches. They actively recruit the best players available, and often sort of expect them to come onto the new team already game-ready. They may tweak a few things along the way, but it seems once girls get above 12, fewer and fewer coaches want to teach the game. Instead, they focus on finding players that are already developed the way they want them.

Anybody else starting to feel that way?
 
Aug 25, 2019
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Absolutely! At the end of DD's 2nd yr 12U season, the coach tells me DD has a good bat, but she's not gonna see much field time because she was weak defensively (she was)... He was basically trying to say he didn't want her on his team because he wanted to build a pre-made powerhouse. I finally said to him "well you're the coach, why don't you coach her to make her better?". He really had no answer.
 
Jun 16, 2010
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In reading the boards, and in a few years of being around the game, it seems like a lot of coaches are more interested in being General Managers of their teams than coaches. They actively recruit the best players available, and often sort of expect them to come onto the new team already game-ready. They may tweak a few things along the way, but it seems once girls get above 12, fewer and fewer coaches want to teach the game. Instead, they focus on finding players that are already developed the way they want them.

Anybody else starting to feel that way?

There are definitely teams that have paid coaches, and that's the case. to a large extent players are expected to work with their own private hitting, fielding coaches etc. During week.

That was not the norm when my daughter was playing. And I doubt it is in most places still.

it's a lot easier to put together loaded teams, in places where there's a lot of girls and a big softball presence. CA for instance.
 
Jul 14, 2018
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There are definitely teams that have paid coaches, and that's the case. to a large extent players are expected to work with their own private hitting, fielding coaches etc.

I don’t think it’s a paid coach thing, in fact my experience has been the opposite. DD plays for a paid coach who spends at least an hour of any given practice focusing on a specific part of the game. She sees herself as a teacher as much as a coach. She even said to me, at one point during this crazy season, that she would have been perfectly happy to do nothing but practice all summer instead of playing in tournaments, because the girls would get the most benefit.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Dec 26, 2017
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Oklahoma
I'm not sure it's necessarily a bad thing, if it's communicated and expectations are managed correctly. I know of one coach who is very clear to all parents that the team is made up of players who are expected to have a certain level of fundamental proficiency and are expected to improve on those things in their own time, at a rate that is similar to their peers. He feels like he has a limited amount of time and wants to use it in different ways. Whether that is effective or not is irrelevant, as long as people know what they're getting into.

I've also been in the position to have coached kids who were absolutely wonderful kids and great teammates that I wouldn't cut in a million years and were welcome to stay with us as long as they wanted. Unfortunately they just weren't going to be able to keep up in terms of skill, and we told them the truth about their prospective playing time, so that they could make their own decision. Not every kid is "just a little coaching away" from being good enough to play, unfortunately.

It's not how I would do it, but I feel like it shouldn't take more than a couple of practices for all but the newest (to the game itself) parents to recognize that you're on that kind of team, and to decide that's not what you're looking for.
 
May 23, 2015
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Management of a team is the easy part. Its low hanging fruit that why the transition. Coaching is an art. To be really good at it you have to paint a masterpiece. That's very difficult
 
Aug 27, 2019
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Lakewood CA.
At the younger ages I think the HC still has a large role to play in teaching. But once you get the the older and more serious TB ages (14U+)
the vast majority of players are taking individual lessons and do work on their own. That is when the HC becomes a manager (and also a GM in a lot of ways). The girls on my DD's 18U team don't need to be taught how to throw, catch or hit for that matter. They need a coach to manage game situations and work on strategy. And a good TB coach will also be good at helping a kid find the right collage. Of course they can also help tweak technical things when they get out of wack.
 
May 6, 2015
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Really is a sliding scale, at 8u, 90% time teaching, 10% on situational coaching, strategy, managing PT, etc.probably exact opposite at 16u (this is for TB, probably not as much a progression for HS, depending on state of softball in the area).
 

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