First time coach advice

[Cmancelet]

Hello all!

I am coach my daughters 6u softball team for the fall. There was nobody else willing to! Down to the point where they were not going to let the play. So here i am and not willing to break my little girls heart .... Im coaching. I was wanting some advice on practicing. Hitting, throwing and feilding. I can teach those mechanics i played college ball. Although 15 years ago. So with these little 5-6 your old sweet hearts whats the best way to run a practice to incorporate base running? When should i actualy have live hitting ? When to start putting them into positions? Maybe some games anyone has used to keep it fun ? Did i mention there is 18 girls on the team .... I called all the parents and i have 1 mom willing to help me plus my wife. I am terrified and dont want to turn any of these young minds away from the sport . I appreciate any advice in advance!

 

[fastpitch]

wow. this was me 10 or so years ago. I never coached girls softball before that. With my first group I dont think any could catch, throw or hit so I just focused on getting them to get a lot of reps in and do my best not to make it boring or get too critical on form. In our area it was still tee ball for that age.

I remember just making sure I had a lot of tees and small buckets for balls so they wouldn't get bored standing around. I think I had like 6 tees for 12 girls and bought a bunch of tennis balls and small plastic buckets. I might have borrowed traffic cones to use as tees. I would have the girls all line up on like the RF foul line and just hit off the tee into the field at the same time. After one round was done I would then have them run to pick up the balls and make it like a race against time. I think that was their favorite part. Chasing after the balls in a race to see who could fill up their buckets the fastest.

Then for throwing after quickly going over some basic mechanics I would just have them all just throw into the field at the same time and then race to pick up the balls. I would have them all do the motions at the same time, step by step at first.

For grounders I just rolled the ball to them slowly and had them work on putting the glove down. I didnt let them even try to throw to each other until they felt comfortable.

Pop ups and anything off the ground was a little tricky. I bought these pitch n catch velcro game tools to help them understand how to get under the ball to catch it or put the glove up above the waist. You could just make it a drill station.

Baserunning is easy. Just make sure they know the right direction to run. I didn't teach my daughter which direction to run and she ran to 3B in her first at bat. Maybe time them on shorter bases so they know they need to run fast. time them in a friendly type of game home to 1B and home to home.

I didnt really make positions. It was tee ball so it was more like lines of defense with the general idea to get the ball to 1B somehow.

Good luck! It was a lot of fun for me and helped sparked my daughter for her love of the game.

Sadly, after that first year, my DD changed leagues so I left that team. But the rest of her friends stayed and another dad took over. The girls would later tell me they had so much fun with me and that the next coach basically killed the fun for it. He was like a drill instructor and was a little too tough for that age group. They all ended up quitting after that next year.

 

[quincy]

God bless you.

You are going to have as many parents as players at practice, talk them into helping at individual practices even if they do want to volunteer to help at all practices.

Starting live hitting day 1, who doesn’t like to hit.

You are going to need all the help you can get, break them into as lowest adult to kid ratio as you can, spend a lot of time with the adults and try to just run around and watch.

 

[chinamigarden]

18 kids that age at one practice, you need more then 2 people helping you.

Keep your expectations low for that first practice. My first baseball practice was for 6-8 year olds and I had a plan. That plan was dashed when I had to teach the kids which hand the glove actually goes on. And that is a lot harder when 1/2 of the kids don't know the right from the left and some don't yet know which hand they throw with.

Keep them in groups as small as possible, and have them move from coach to coach doing a variety of things. Keep them as active as possible. The worst thing you can do is have a bunch of them standing around while 1 kid does something. At 6, break it up a little with a game of tag, or a race, something they already know how to do and that keeps them moving and having fun.

Do not assign kids 1 position, make them learn several and rotate them infield and outfield

when it came time to actually play games, I found having the same line up each game works great. They always know who they follow. I made my first line up by alternating kids who hit in practice with kids who did not. After the first game I took the 3 kids who batted at the end of the order and made them the first 3, I rotated by 3 every game. It allowed every kid to be at the top of the order and the end, they also followed the same kid in every game so they learned when it was their turn to bat. At the end of the year, the kids who came to every game were literally within 2 plate appearances of each other. Kids were given time in the outfield and in the infield, it gave them experience in both. It also kept the parental complaining to a minimum.

Good luck and learn to control the unruly crowd you have been assigned, once you do that the kids will fall in line too

 

[CoogansBluff]

Did i mention there is 18 girls on the team ....

How did that happen? You're saying every kid has to wait 18 turns to bat? At age 5-6?

Is it because you had to enter a team in a league and there was a 12-player minimum or something like that?

 

[CoogansBluff]

Hitting, throwing and feilding. I can teach those mechanics i played college ball. Although 15 years ago.

You might, but you might not. Be careful. There is a lot of bad mechanical advice being taught by former good baseball and softball players. I'm glad some of the things I taught in 6U and 8U weren't caught on tape.

 

[quincy]

If you want to see how a kid can throw bring a dog to practice, dog taught DD more about throwing then I ever did.

 

[Il softball fan]

Wow. Good luck with that....That young of age and that many kids can be very frustrating. I would say keep it simple, and work on basic mechanics of how to throw properly, and how to catch the ball. A lot of them will show up with very cheap, not broken in gloves, so just catching the ball will be difficult at that age.

My number one advise at that young age.....don't have too many bats available for them to pick up, and number one rule for all of them...do not swing a bat at all until it is your turn at one of the stations. And if you have helmets available for all of them (probably not unless each brings their own) helmets are always on when batting practice starts. The youngest team I was around when my DD started was 8-9 year olds, and to stop the questions "do I need my helmet for this?" our rule was if ANYONE was swinging a bat, EVERYONE had a helmet on.

 

[gator5]

Things I would do over at the 6u level.... Oh, I wish I could do these over to save myself so much pain down the road.

stress proper throwing technique.

make sure the gloves are broken in so the girls can learn to catch properly. I know - hard to break in those plastic gloves many have. But how can they learn to catch with a plastic glove that won't move at all?

I know there is much more to do, but as an 8u coach, I would have been ecstatic to have a group of 6u girls move up who could throw and catch.

As an aside, I played baseball for years. That in itself does not make one a good coach or even give someone the knowledge they need to coach. I speak for myself.

 

[Orange Socks]

Keep things in perspective first and foremost. It's all about development...not about winning no matter how much you want to or the parents want to. Keep it light and fun. Keep the kids as busy and engaged as possible. Lots of drills and less talk.

By the way, I hope that you realize that you just started something that you will not be able to stop! Your weekend life as you know it will be over in a few years. Your once beautiful yard, will now look like an over grown lot because you will not have time to tend to it. Golf, fishing, whatever makes you happy is over too. Your work days will be consumed with hourly check ins on DFP. Welcome and hang on tight!!!