First Time High School Coach Looking for Advice

[RichK]

Thanks, Rich.

We're a public charter school in Chicago. Of the girls who played for us last year, only three had played regularly before. A couple others had experience in PE or playing on a park district team for a year, but most had never played. There aren't many softball opportunities in the area for the younger kids, though there are a few, and I've already started getting to know those people.

I like your idea of holding the all ages meeting. We are planning to start a junior high team, but generating interest among all levels and getting them to sign up for the local park district leagues is something I want to do. I think doing multiple clinics for younger ages is a great idea, and that's something I'll look into setting up for the summer.

So here's the big question: How do I get them to WANT to play outside of school? We had a hard time getting them to sign up for the summer league (only 3 joined, and I believe 1 quit). They're all about playing for us during the spring, but I honestly think a lot of them are afraid to venture out into the vast softball wilderness to see what's out there.

CoachJD, thanks for the note back. I think you have to keep being creative and exposing girls to opportunities. I'm in the Chicago burbs would be happy to connect you with people in the area...you might want to touch base with the assistant softball coaches at Loyola, DePaul and Northwestern and see if they'd send a player or coach to do a clinic or a meet and greet. I know some local college girls now graduated that might help too (feel free to private message me). Maybe you could do a "field trip" to a local travel or exposure tournament to let them see how big and fun softball is. If numbers are an issue, maybe you could do a clinic and bring together a bunch of charter schools if you have a conference or affiliation you can leverage and build a rec team that way?

Good luck.

 

[CoachJD]

First of all, this board is fantastic. I appreciate all the responses. I'm impressed with this community and how much everybody seems willing to help each other.

can you do off season open softball practices? we do that here in my part of NY, practices are open to everyone, all skill levels, and it's a great way to bring players in and go over skills. softball starts in January.

I actually found out today that I am allowed to do "open field" practices in the fall/winter. There are some limitations, but they should provide a great opportunity to keep the girls active so their skills don't deteriorate from inactivity.

If you are only going to be K-11 this year I would seriously consider playing as a JV team, if you still don't have any experienced players (especially a pitcher) it is going to be fairly brutal playing other varsity teams.

I could be wrong since I haven't seen every team, but a lot of the competition in Chicago isn't great. One of the teams we played last year was a varsity team (I didn't even know this until after the game), and our girls were right in it until the end of the game. I've been hunting for other schools with newer programs, and coaches around here have been really helpful in putting me in touch with coaches for schools that are a little closer to our talent level. But, like I said, maybe I'm dead wrong and this season would be a nightmare. We'll see! (FWIW, I anticipate only having 3 juniors this year, so we're really two years away from a team full of seniors)

CoachJD, thanks for the note back. I think you have to keep being creative and exposing girls to opportunities. I'm in the Chicago burbs would be happy to connect you with people in the area...

Sending a PM shortly.

 

[YOCOACH]

First of all, this board is fantastic. I appreciate all the responses. I'm impressed with this community and how much everybody seems willing to help each other.



I actually found out today that I am allowed to do "open field" practices in the fall/winter. There are some limitations, but they should provide a great opportunity to keep the girls active so their skills don't deteriorate from inactivity.




I could be wrong since I haven't seen every team, but a lot of the competition in Chicago isn't great. One of the teams we played last year was a varsity team (I didn't even know this until after the game), and our girls were right in it until the end of the game. I've been hunting for other schools with newer programs, and coaches around here have been really helpful in putting me in touch with coaches for schools that are a little closer to our talent level. But, like I said, maybe I'm dead wrong and this season would be a nightmare. We'll see! (FWIW, I anticipate only having 3 juniors this year, so we're really two years away from a team full of seniors)



Sending a PM shortly.

Most of us on here still believe it's all about the girls. The more we interact and share our knowledge, the better off the softball community, as a whole, will thrive and continue to grow as well as the players themselves developing ever higher skill sets.

 

[flipper14]

First of all, this board is fantastic. I appreciate all the responses. I'm impressed with this community and how much everybody seems willing to help each other.



I actually found out today that I am allowed to do "open field" practices in the fall/winter. There are some limitations, but they should provide a great opportunity to keep the girls active so their skills don't deteriorate from inactivity.




I could be wrong since I haven't seen every team, but a lot of the competition in Chicago isn't great. One of the teams we played last year was a varsity team (I didn't even know this until after the game), and our girls were right in it until the end of the game. I've been hunting for other schools with newer programs, and coaches around here have been really helpful in putting me in touch with coaches for schools that are a little closer to our talent level. But, like I said, maybe I'm dead wrong and this season would be a nightmare. We'll see! (FWIW, I anticipate only having 3 juniors this year, so we're really two years away from a team full of seniors)



Sending a PM shortly.

First of all, I really commend you for taking on this responsiblity. I'm pretty confident from your writing that the girls who play for you will really benefit, regardless of how much success you have on the field.

In some ways, you have a great situation with a K-12 school. I coached at a private high school in the suburbs of a major city and while we could draw from a large geographic region, it was really tough to know who was going to end up at my high school, unless it was a younger sibling, and that wasn't even necessarily a given because our tuition is about $14,000 annually. The private schools who always get accused of recruiting really probably aren't it's just that the school has had success in a certain sport so kids want to go play there. Many really good soccer players came to our high school, not because our coaches were out recruiting but because the soccer program had a history of success and kids who wanted to be on a good soccer team sought out our high school's program.

Yes, pitching and catching are key and you really aren't going to have the time to do what needs to be done in the spring. As was written earlier, baseball coaches have such a great advantage because they can turn throwers into pitchers. Softball doesn't have that luxury.

I'm not sure what other spring sports you have to compete with at your school but I'd identify some 3/4/5 graders who are good athletes who you can encourage to start going to pitching and catching lessons. It's just so hard to "make" pitchers if they don't start quite young. Catchers can be made in a shorter period of time but if you can't pitch you can't win, and even more importantly the walk fests make softball so boring and that discourages turnout.

Just know that it can be done. My first year of practice we only had EIGHT girls show up for practice in the entire school. One of the primary reasons I took the job was because we had a very talented returning catcher. She let me know the day before our first practice that she decided not to play. She sat out her junior year but came back her senior season and was fantastic. But, that first year, so much for a frosh/soph. or JV team with 11 players, three of whom we had to beg after the season started. By the second year we increased our numbers from 11 to 30-plus, which was actually quicker than was good for us because we only had two pitchers and the frosh/soph. pitcher just wasn't adequate.

The third year everything changed because we had a freshman from a nationally recognized travel program join the program. She was a tremendous player but even more so she was a great leader. She would get frustrated at times, but never publicly, and she was such a great example for our younger players, even how to dress appropriately for practice, which was something I never expected to have to teach.

I had to stop coaching for family reasons but, although we've had a lot of coaching turnover, our program is at least competitive now and it's interesting because this year's team will have two committed DI players who again will be playing with some girls who have never played before, and when I say never played I mean may not even realize that right handed throwers wear a glove on the left hand. It really makes for such a fun mix. Only 4-5 of our kids play year around, yet we have 2 DI commits and three kids who play top-level travel. On a good day when the ball doesn't find the girls with so little experience, we've been able to upset some really good teams. Other days it may be a complete train wreck but one of my goals when I first started that, no matter what, we weren't going to embarrass ourselves. Most days we met that standard, even if we were getting pounded.

So, all that to stay, if you stay steadfast in your beliefs, let the girls know that you care about them as people much more than as athletes (I did a poor job of that my first year), that the program will grow. Identify some young girls and connect them with pitching coaches and, as was suggested earlier, get the girls going to local college camps/games/clinics to really expose them not to just how the game should be played, but provide them with a better understanding of the softball culture.

If you have any questions, please feel free to send me a message. I was far from a great coach but I feel that I left our program in much better standing than where it was when I stepped in, mostly thanks to my assistant coaches and our school's administration.

 

[CoachJD]

Just know that it can be done. My first year of practice we only had EIGHT girls show up for practice in the entire school. One of the primary reasons I took the job was because we had a very talented returning catcher. She let me know the day before our first practice that she decided not to play. She sat out her junior year but came back her senior season and was fantastic. But, that first year, so much for a frosh/soph. or JV team with 11 players, three of whom we had to beg after the season started. By the second year we increased our numbers from 11 to 30-plus, which was actually quicker than was good for us because we only had two pitchers and the frosh/soph. pitcher just wasn't adequate.

(Another long post coming; sorry about that!)

It's like you lived my life! Everything from lack of players to losing people to having players not know right-handed players wear a glove on the left hand.

Here's how the spring went: We had 14 girls say they were interested. 8 or 9 showed up to the first practice. We got one more for the next. Then over the next month, we would get a girl interested, but she wouldn't stick around. Or we'd add a girl, and then another girl dropped off. We had one girl who had to quit because her mom wanted her to go home after school to do chores instead of playing (The good news is I think we'll get her back this year; she's not very good, but she's a great teammate).

In Illinois, the games usually start 2nd or 3rd week of March. As I mentioned before, we had an AD who didn't do anything. I'm pretty sure he was hoping we'd just give up. Around the beginning of April I started emailing coaches in the area to ask if we could pick up a few games. I had set up 2-3 games for late April/early May when, in mid-April... oh man.

I was saving a post about this girl for later, but let me tell you about Crystal. She was a sophomore last year, and she had never played outside of a semester in PE. I don't want to overstate this, but I have never, ever seen a person -- male or female -- her age who had never played the sport (or, as far as I know, any other sport) have as much natural ability as she has. I called her Vlad Guerrero because she would swing at everything. She'd also hit everything. One time she hit a pitch I threw that was so high and outside that I sort of did an "oops" after it left my hand. I just laughed and said it was a nice hit, but don't do that. She asked why not, and I told her because it wasn't close to the strike zone (my thinking, of course, is that we don't want to develop bad habits even though it worked out that one time). She said "what's the strike zone?"

She truly had no idea what she was doing, but it gets better. Early in the practices, I identified the infielders and outfielders. She was in the outfielder group, and I started with just soft, thrown pop-ups with Incrediballs. She caught everything. She demanded I make them harder (and use real balls). So I'd throw angled balls to her left and right. She'd drop-step, run to the spot, and catch the ball. She isn't fast, but she did everything right. I haven't coached a lot, but I've watched a lot of ball, and the raw talent was off the charts. She had no idea where to throw the ball once she caught it, but, oh, I didn't mention her arm. Yeah, she'd fire the ball on a line from center field to home plate. When hitting infield/outfield, I would hit the ball as hard as I could do her. Occasionally I'd send one out of her reach, but if she could get to it, she'd catch it.

As we practiced, I had her pegged as our starting CF and cleanup hitter. She was the one player I was absolutely certain of. Just had to teach her the rules of the game, right?

We had an optional Saturday batting practice session in mid-April. I'm in the gym setting up the pitching machine. My wife goes to let girls in the school. She comes back and tells me that that practice would be Crystal's last because she was moving to California to live with her mother on Monday. It happened four months ago, and I'm still devastated by it. It's not just that we lost a girl with a ton of potential, but she was everybody's favorite. Not just mine or my wife's. The other girls all loved her, too. Sounds kind of lame, but I actually hung her jersey (which she never even got to wear!) in the dugout for all our games. The team loved that I did that.

Before I get back to the story, I just want to throw this out there: If there are any coaches in California who might be interested in working with a girl who is unbelievably raw but who has immense potential, please let me know. She lives in a town about midway between LA and San Francisco, and I really, really want her to keep playing. All she needs is a coach who has the patience teach her the game. She's probably not ready for high level competition because of her lack of knowledge, but I promise you she is every bit as capable as a lot of TB players. I am realistic about my players and their ability, but I haven't seen anybody like her before (neither have my sisters, who both played at a high level and who watched her practice; they couldn't believe she'd never played before).

Crystal left so we were down to 8 players. Literally two weeks before our first game, we recruited three more. One girl who had quit came back, one who was ineligible finally got eligible. We eventually got up to 11, but then one girl had a family emergency and missed the first game (and another was suspended for behavior at school). We had all 11 for the second. And then for the third the girl who was suspended for the first game got in trouble AGAIN... and our starting third baseman faked an injury so she could watch her best friend play in the baseball game. And we couldn't even punish her because the rest of our games all got rained out.

So, yeah, the first year was a roller coaster for sure. This year has already started off better. Everybody who played last year wants to come back. We have a handful of Freshmen who are interested, and a few girls from 10th/11th who are also interested (though I've learned "interested" doesn't mean "is going to play"). At the very very least, in the spring I will not have to worry about fielding a team. I'm sure of that. In fact, now I'm worried I'm going to have to cut a couple girls if they all actually try out. I might have to come back here in six months and ask people how you do that because I have no desire to tell girls who want to be there that they can't.

One last thing: You touched on something that surprised me about myself. I've found that, in just a short time, I care so much more about them as people than I would've ever guessed. I'm not a teacher, and I've never been a person who deals with kids very well. When I agreed to help I figured it would be fun to teach the girls how to play the sport, and after maybe two weeks they became "my girls." I wasn't so sure most of them liked me very much, but more than one got this huge smile on her face on Friday when I told them at their orientation that I was the head coach this year. It's not because they don't like my wife (she's much more likable than I am). I think they just appreciate that someone who doesn't have to be is dedicated to them.

I appreciate the thoughts, flipper. I'm sure I'll be reaching out before long. I always want to know how everybody else handles all aspects of coaching.

 

[flipper14]

(Another long post coming; sorry about that!)

It's like you lived my life! Everything from lack of players to losing people to having players not know right-handed players wear a glove on the left hand.

Here's how the spring went: We had 14 girls say they were interested. 8 or 9 showed up to the first practice. We got one more for the next. Then over the next month, we would get a girl interested, but she wouldn't stick around. Or we'd add a girl, and then another girl dropped off. We had one girl who had to quit because her mom wanted her to go home after school to do chores instead of playing (The good news is I think we'll get her back this year; she's not very good, but she's a great teammate).

In Illinois, the games usually start 2nd or 3rd week of March. As I mentioned before, we had an AD who didn't do anything. I'm pretty sure he was hoping we'd just give up. Around the beginning of April I started emailing coaches in the area to ask if we could pick up a few games. I had set up 2-3 games for late April/early May when, in mid-April... oh man.

I was saving a post about this girl for later, but let me tell you about Crystal. She was a sophomore last year, and she had never played outside of a semester in PE. I don't want to overstate this, but I have never, ever seen a person -- male or female -- her age who had never played the sport (or, as far as I know, any other sport) have as much natural ability as she has. I called her Vlad Guerrero because she would swing at everything. She'd also hit everything. One time she hit a pitch I threw that was so high and outside that I sort of did an "oops" after it left my hand. I just laughed and said it was a nice hit, but don't do that. She asked why not, and I told her because it wasn't close to the strike zone (my thinking, of course, is that we don't want to develop bad habits even though it worked out that one time). She said "what's the strike zone?"

She truly had no idea what she was doing, but it gets better. Early in the practices, I identified the infielders and outfielders. She was in the outfielder group, and I started with just soft, thrown pop-ups with Incrediballs. She caught everything. She demanded I make them harder (and use real balls). So I'd throw angled balls to her left and right. She'd drop-step, run to the spot, and catch the ball. She isn't fast, but she did everything right. I haven't coached a lot, but I've watched a lot of ball, and the raw talent was off the charts. She had no idea where to throw the ball once she caught it, but, oh, I didn't mention her arm. Yeah, she'd fire the ball on a line from center field to home plate. When hitting infield/outfield, I would hit the ball as hard as I could do her. Occasionally I'd send one out of her reach, but if she could get to it, she'd catch it.

As we practiced, I had her pegged as our starting CF and cleanup hitter. She was the one player I was absolutely certain of. Just had to teach her the rules of the game, right?

We had an optional Saturday batting practice session in mid-April. I'm in the gym setting up the pitching machine. My wife goes to let girls in the school. She comes back and tells me that that practice would be Crystal's last because she was moving to California to live with her mother on Monday. It happened four months ago, and I'm still devastated by it. It's not just that we lost a girl with a ton of potential, but she was everybody's favorite. Not just mine or my wife's. The other girls all loved her, too. Sounds kind of lame, but I actually hung her jersey (which she never even got to wear!) in the dugout for all our games. The team loved that I did that.

Before I get back to the story, I just want to throw this out there: If there are any coaches in California who might be interested in working with a girl who is unbelievably raw but who has immense potential, please let me know. She lives in a town about midway between LA and San Francisco, and I really, really want her to keep playing. All she needs is a coach who has the patience teach her the game. She's probably not ready for high level competition because of her lack of knowledge, but I promise you she is every bit as capable as a lot of TB players. I am realistic about my players and their ability, but I haven't seen anybody like her before (neither have my sisters, who both played at a high level and who watched her practice; they couldn't believe she'd never played before).

Crystal left so we were down to 8 players. Literally two weeks before our first game, we recruited three more. One girl who had quit came back, one who was ineligible finally got eligible. We eventually got up to 11, but then one girl had a family emergency and missed the first game (and another was suspended for behavior at school). We had all 11 for the second. And then for the third the girl who was suspended for the first game got in trouble AGAIN... and our starting third baseman faked an injury so she could watch her best friend play in the baseball game. And we couldn't even punish her because the rest of our games all got rained out.

So, yeah, the first year was a roller coaster for sure. This year has already started off better. Everybody who played last year wants to come back. We have a handful of Freshmen who are interested, and a few girls from 10th/11th who are also interested (though I've learned "interested" doesn't mean "is going to play"). At the very very least, in the spring I will not have to worry about fielding a team. I'm sure of that. In fact, now I'm worried I'm going to have to cut a couple girls if they all actually try out. I might have to come back here in six months and ask people how you do that because I have no desire to tell girls who want to be there that they can't.

One last thing: You touched on something that surprised me about myself. I've found that, in just a short time, I care so much more about them as people than I would've ever guessed. I'm not a teacher, and I've never been a person who deals with kids very well. When I agreed to help I figured it would be fun to teach the girls how to play the sport, and after maybe two weeks they became "my girls." I wasn't so sure most of them liked me very much, but more than one got this huge smile on her face on Friday when I told them at their orientation that I was the head coach this year. It's not because they don't like my wife (she's much more likable than I am). I think they just appreciate that someone who doesn't have to be is dedicated to them.

I appreciate the thoughts, flipper. I'm sure I'll be reaching out before long. I always want to know how everybody else handles all aspects of coaching.

I love your stories and can certainly relate, although I think you are in a much more difficult situation because I was blessed at being an affluent school, which doesn't seem at all to be the case for you.

Crystal would have been so much fun to coach. I had a similar story. I was out of town one Saturday in February. We were having open gyms and I started to get a few texts from returning players that Sarah, I girl who I had targeted after seeing her on the volleyball court, showed up at the open gym and was really good. At the open gym next Saturday I asked her where she learned to throw like that. Her mechanics were great and she could really sling it. She said, "Last weekend." I couldn't help but laugh. Sarah turned out to be a really nice player.

I really started to seek out freshmen at our school who were really good athletes and had much more success developing them than I did rec league players who had been playing for some time. Bad habits were hard to break.

We were fortunate that we were at a 650-student school so, although we played a few non-league games on our schedule against schools with 2-3,000 students, we weren't usually overwhelmed by the other teams, even though we are in an area where most teams have at least one DI committed player.

The toughest part was changing the mentality of the program and, while doing so, I don't think I was necessarily fair to me first team. I was really tough on them. Coming from a college background, I had a really tough time dealing with all kinds of conflicts (practice for the musical, family trips, etc.). I finally started to figure out that it is what it is at the school I was coaching and they want well-rounded students, and that's one of the advantages of being at a smaller school. I started to worry much more about who was at practice or a workout, and far less about who wasn't, and fully invested my time in the girls who were investing theirs.

 

[CoachJD]

I love your stories and can certainly relate, although I think you are in a much more difficult situation because I was blessed at being an affluent school, which doesn't seem at all to be the case for you.

Crystal would have been so much fun to coach. I had a similar story. I was out of town one Saturday in February. We were having open gyms and I started to get a few texts from returning players that Sarah, I girl who I had targeted after seeing her on the volleyball court, showed up at the open gym and was really good. At the open gym next Saturday I asked her where she learned to throw like that. Her mechanics were great and she could really sling it. She said, "Last weekend." I couldn't help but laugh. Sarah turned out to be a really nice player.

I really started to seek out freshmen at our school who were really good athletes and had much more success developing them than I did rec league players who had been playing for some time. Bad habits were hard to break.

We were fortunate that we were at a 650-student school so, although we played a few non-league games on our schedule against schools with 2-3,000 students, we weren't usually overwhelmed by the other teams, even though we are in an area where most teams have at least one DI committed player.

The toughest part was changing the mentality of the program and, while doing so, I don't think I was necessarily fair to me first team. I was really tough on them. Coming from a college background, I had a really tough time dealing with all kinds of conflicts (practice for the musical, family trips, etc.). I finally started to figure out that it is what it is at the school I was coaching and they want well-rounded students, and that's one of the advantages of being at a smaller school. I started to worry much more about who was at practice or a workout, and far less about who wasn't, and fully invested my time in the girls who were investing theirs.

Funny you mention the volleyball player. At orientation a new girl was signing up for volleyball. She just looked like an athlete, so I asked her if she was interested in softball. She said she's never played before, and she's an 11th grader. I encouraged her to come to the open field sessions to see if she liked it. I'm hoping I get lucky and she ends up loving the sport.

Our school is small. There are a total of 91 girls in 9th-11th grade. The fact that almost a quarter of them expressed some interest in softball is remarkable, I think. I'd like to think at least some of that is the result of the work we did in the spring (something as simple as seeing the girls on the team wear their jerseys to school on game day might motivate a few to want to play).

Changing mentality is hard. Even though we're a new program and I get to build it from scratch, there is a lack of team sports mentality among the girls. They don't really understand being on a team, the commitment, etc. And I couldn't push too hard because at times losing one girl meant we couldn't have a team. I got so frustrated when I would plan out a practice, and then I'd get there and we'd have 5 or 6 girls, not enough to do what I had planned. I'd love some advice on how to get them to show up every single day. My hope is that if we have a full team of 15 or 16 players, they'll all be motivated to show up because they know if they don't they might lose their spot.

 

[flipper14]

I'd love some advice on how to get them to show up every single day. My hope is that if we have a full team of 15 or 16 players, they'll all be motivated to show up because they know if they don't they might lose their spot.

It's so funny you mention showing up every day because before I started coaching at the high school level I would have thought, "What do you mean show up every day." I couldn't even comprehend. Again, I think I was in a different situation because I certainly don't think the kids on our team thought it was optional, but the first year it seemed that there was always a field trip, musical practice (they actually moved the spring musical up a week after I complained about the conflict), and they used to schedule the senior trip during regionals (they switched that too). I didn't think it was fair for the kids to have to choose, and the scary thing is on that first team I think they would have picked the trip.

The coach can only do so much. As you mentioned, when there's no threat of the bench because you don't have enough players, that's when it's most difficult. When you start to have larger numbers and competition for roster spots, benching kids is a great motivational tool. Of course when that happens and the competition is greater to make the starting lineup, then all of the complaints will start about why this girl starts over another girl.

If practices are well constructed and the girls are getting better at practice, they'll come, with the caveat to make sure you know the real reasons they may not be coming and it may have nothing at all about the "want to" of the girl and it may be because she has legitimate family responsibilities.

The other lesson that I learned, if one of your player's boyfriends breaks up with her and she's an emotional mess, don't make her practice. Learned that one the hard way. Girls are different than guys.

 

[CoachJD]

The other lesson that I learned, if one of your player's boyfriends breaks up with her and she's an emotional mess, don't make her practice. Learned that one the hard way. Girls are different than guys.

This is why, even if my wife no longer wanted to coach, I would always have a woman on the staff. There are just certain things I don't understand about the lives of teenage girls.

Our girl who missed the game to watch her best friend's game also missed one practice because of "family issues." Turns out those issues were her twin brother was having issues with his girlfriend, who happens to be her friend. So, really, "teenage drama." It bugged me, but I guess that's a thing that's just going to happen from time to time.

Sounds like what you're saying is that even in the best of times, it's unrealistic to expect 100% attendance regularly.

 

[flipper14]

Sounds like what you're saying is that even in the best of times, it's unrealistic to expect 100% attendance regularly.

No, not necessarily unrealistic. Just don't get so locked into your practice plan that one girl's absence because she has to go meet with a math teacher would throw the entire practice into chaos. As the program gets better you'll have few, if any, attendance issues without great reason.