New Coach - Where to start?!

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Jul 3, 2021
31
8
You need a parent assistant coach. One of those parents knows
The game and is waiting for someone to ask them….
I’d buy a net and a good travel t. The kids can help each other at
Batting after you show them what to do.
Have them play catch and hit at the start of every practice.
I’d find the best 2 or 3 pitchers and stick with it. If you don’t know anything about pitching have someone help that does. Find the
local rec stud pitcher if you have to. The pitchers need reps and
that needs to happen at home as well as practice. 12u rec is all
about pitching. Whoever has a pitcher will be top.

The parents have definitely been asked, more than once, and I got no bites. I've made 3 purchases to support this effort: a Tanner Pro tee, a 7-inch travel net, and 25-pack of small cones to use for various fielding drills.

I agree on pitching. I'm not sure what our pitching skills look like, but from what I have gathered almost all of them want to pitch. This may be the single hardest thing I have to juggle this season.

+1 for NFCA. I believe all the videos shown above, ebook, Practice Keys, and Plans and Drills Package 1 are included with the first year membership.

IIRC, the per-membership cost for multiple teams drops to like $50 if you sign up for 4-5 accounts.

IMO, an even better bang for the buck (or just get both) is an ABCA membership. I signed up before the convention last year, and now have access not only to this years virtual convention, but access to the video presentations from just about every previous convention. Wasserman has presented several times, Jerry Weinstein numerous times, Trosky, Tanner Swanson, Ryan Sienko (can you tell I favor the catching info?). To get past NFCA videos, you still have to buy them separately. Not ridiculously priced, but NFCA isn't nearly as big as ABCA, so I can understand their need for revenue.

I took the advice here and signed up for an NFCA membership. There's definitely some good material here that I will look through over the next week or so. In your opinion is the ASA's ACE Coaching Certification worth the cost of admission?


Based on my background ... don’t go out buying videos. Your players are not ready for that. I’m not saying there isn’t something to be learned, I’m saying you don’t need to spend money. Figure out your goals and make sure your actions align.

You said you are a 14u team with some 10u players ... that concerns me, but I admire the “whatever we need to do so they can play” attitude.

You also mentioned “so they don’t have to unlearn things in the spring.” Where will they be playing in the spring? Start by asking there ... find those teams/coaches and ask them what they would like to see. You might find some help.

I also love the idea of reaching out to some older players (high school or college), especially if they played for the organization.

Finally, to circle back where I started ... THANK YOU! I have a soft spot in my heart for community rec leagues. They need to be revived.

I recently visited the program I ran and was happy to see they had retained the partnerships with other programs (something I worked hard to build), but was not surprised to hear (and see within 15 minutes) that it was hanging by a thread due to the people in charge. It is a shame. Community ball needs to survive and be treated with the respect it deserves.

The videos and material were really for two purposes: to give me ideas of fun exercises to do during practice that are engaging while still helping the girls learn and improve, and to help me figure out what proper mechanics look like, how to recognize problems and how to correct them. The problem I was running into was, for example, one YouTube video might have one piece of advice that would then be disputed by the next video. I want to know the defacto standard for things as much as possible, though I definitely recognize there's more than one way to do things. It's also about helping them build habits that will protect them from shoulder and elbow injuries. I'm of the mindset that to be successful as a coach I need to be a student of the game as much as possible. I'm just looking for knowledge and ideas to absorb. :)

Good news is, it's not quite as bad as 14U and 10U. It'll be 2011 birth year and older kids playing in 12U, when some of them could technically have one more year in 10U. In reality, they may go back to playing 10U in the Spring when there is more interest at the 10U rec level. That brings me to your next question - I suspect they'll be in this same league in the Spring. With the state of rec softball here I suspect I'll still be coaching. What I need to find out is how many of them have interest in club programs and then talk to some of those coaches to figure out how to best prepare these girls for tryouts next summer.

The state of rec softball in the area is definitely frustrating to me as a coach and softball parent. We're nearing 40 teams signed up for rec fall baseball, but will likely only have a 12U fall league with 4 teams for softball. Tournament and travel softball is thriving it seems, at least based on the postings for tryouts this week and next. That's not something I'll be able to change, BUT, if half these kids bring a friend to play in the Spring, and then do the same for next Fall, that's at least one more rec team. Have to make it through this season first though. ;)

Thanks again to everyone for all the help and advice in this thread. It's been incredibly helpful!
 
May 29, 2015
3,731
113
The problem I was running into was, for example, one YouTube video might have one piece of advice that would then be disputed by the next video. I want to know the defacto standard for things as much as possible, though I definitely recognize there's more than one way to do things. It's also about helping them build habits that will protect them from shoulder and elbow injuries. I'm of the mindset that to be successful as a coach I need to be a student of the game as much as possible. I'm just looking for knowledge and ideas to absorb. :)

Good news is, it's not quite as bad as 14U and 10U. It'll be 2011 birth year and older kids playing in 12U, when some of them could technically have one more year in 10U. In reality, they may go back to playing 10U in the Spring when there is more interest at the 10U rec level. That brings me to your next question - I suspect they'll be in this same league in the Spring. With the state of rec softball here I suspect I'll still be coaching. What I need to find out is how many of them have interest in club programs and then talk to some of those coaches to figure out how to best prepare these girls for tryouts next summer.

The state of rec softball in the area is definitely frustrating to me as a coach and softball parent. We're nearing 40 teams signed up for rec fall baseball, but will likely only have a 12U fall league with 4 teams for softball. Tournament and travel softball is thriving it seems, at least based on the postings for tryouts this week and next. That's not something I'll be able to change, BUT, if half these kids bring a friend to play in the Spring, and then do the same for next Fall, that's at least one more rec team. Have to make it through this season first though. ;)

Thanks again to everyone for all the help and advice in this thread. It's been incredibly helpful!

You recognize there is conflicting information out there, but beware ... Just because you paid for it doesn't mean it is right. Whenever I have a team ask me "Hey, Blue, we had this happen last game and this is how they called it ... What do you think?" I will give my answer and then provide them an approximate place to go look in the rulebook for themselves. I always caution them, just because you like my answer doesn't make it the right answer. Same goes for paying for answers.

I appreciate you are looking out for the health and safety of your players ... but is that really a concern at this level with as little as they are going to be doing? A freak accident is always going to be a freak accident. I doubt you are going to be working any of these little girls into repetitive stress injuries with a handful of low-level rec ball games. (Maybe I'm wrong.)

Perhaps another controversial hot take from me, but WHY? You are obviously concerned with the state of community ball, so why are you pushing them into something they may not be ready for or even want to do? Just me, but I wouldn't bring up travel ball unless you have a player who has said "This is my goal" or your rec program puts together travel teams. It would be like me working at McDonalds and telling everybody that Whoppers are pretty damned good. Don't get me wrong, if a player wants that and is good enough, help her! Don't go putting that in everybody's heads though.

The question you need to answer is WHY? Why do the boys have ten times as many teams? There are several possible answers: * your org doesn't care about softball and treats girls like second class citizens * girls are playing volleyball in the fall, but football hasn't started for boys * the baseball travel teams are using your rec league for their fall league * you mentioned fall softball was new, how long has fall baseball been going on ... and so on. When I ran our local rec program, coaches always SAID they wanted a fall league ... but when we tried to put one together, we didn't have enough interest. May and June was our magic window ... by the 4th of July, rec families were ready to be done.

That's the right attitude! Quit worrying about pushing travel ball on them and encourage them to come enjoy he product you are putting out. When I took over the rec league, everybody pointed to travel ball as the problem. Truth was, we were the problem. We had to do some serious soul-searching and house-cleaning as an organization. We could co-exist with travel ball (with the proper attitude and policies) ... we couldn't continue to exist with the product we were putting out for people though.
 
Jul 3, 2021
31
8
You recognize there is conflicting information out there, but beware ... Just because you paid for it doesn't mean it is right. Whenever I have a team ask me "Hey, Blue, we had this happen last game and this is how they called it ... What do you think?" I will give my answer and then provide them an approximate place to go look in the rulebook for themselves. I always caution them, just because you like my answer doesn't make it the right answer. Same goes for paying for answers.

I appreciate you are looking out for the health and safety of your players ... but is that really a concern at this level with as little as they are going to be doing? A freak accident is always going to be a freak accident. I doubt you are going to be working any of these little girls into repetitive stress injuries with a handful of low-level rec ball games. (Maybe I'm wrong.)

Perhaps another controversial hot take from me, but WHY? You are obviously concerned with the state of community ball, so why are you pushing them into something they may not be ready for or even want to do? Just me, but I wouldn't bring up travel ball unless you have a player who has said "This is my goal" or your rec program puts together travel teams. It would be like me working at McDonalds and telling everybody that Whoppers are pretty damned good. Don't get me wrong, if a player wants that and is good enough, help her! Don't go putting that in everybody's heads though.

The question you need to answer is WHY? Why do the boys have ten times as many teams? There are several possible answers: * your org doesn't care about softball and treats girls like second class citizens * girls are playing volleyball in the fall, but football hasn't started for boys * the baseball travel teams are using your rec league for their fall league * you mentioned fall softball was new, how long has fall baseball been going on ... and so on. When I ran our local rec program, coaches always SAID they wanted a fall league ... but when we tried to put one together, we didn't have enough interest. May and June was our magic window ... by the 4th of July, rec families were ready to be done.

That's the right attitude! Quit worrying about pushing travel ball on them and encourage them to come enjoy he product you are putting out. When I took over the rec league, everybody pointed to travel ball as the problem. Truth was, we were the problem. We had to do some serious soul-searching and house-cleaning as an organization. We could co-exist with travel ball (with the proper attitude and policies) ... we couldn't continue to exist with the product we were putting out for people though.

Agree 100%. Sorry if I made it seem like I was blaming travel ball for what appears to be rec woes. That's definitely not the case. I'm happy there are options for every skill level out there. I just wish we had a little more on the rec side. That's not travel ball's fault though. I'd lean towards a mixture of all the possibilities you mentioned. I know there is fierce competition for time within girls sports with soccer and volleyball. It's somewhat comforting also to know that fall rec softball is just hard with a bunch of other competing priorities. All of that was said with my parent hat on. If I put my coach hat back on, I'm just happy the kids want to play. Lesson #40-something for the day is to remember what hat I'm wearing at all times.

I wouldn't push the idea of travel ball on any of the girls. I appreciate the challenge of WHY? I've been approached by one parent whose daughter is registered but also trying out for some of the club programs. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is how to challenge those kids that WANT that experience next year, while still keeping it fun and, well...rec softball. There are certainly a significant portion of the team that is content to stay in rec softball forever. My daughter is probably one of those. So, in short, the answer may be that I just don't try to cater to that at this point. It's also possible that the advice given here and the hours I've been pouring over the resources that are out there has me more confident than I should be, and I should remind myself to check back on this thread in two weeks when practice starts. ;)
 
May 29, 2015
3,731
113
@GhostRider82 -- no worries, and I apologize if I seemed "overly defensive." I'm just a staunch believer that a lot of this has gotten out of control as a business, so I tend to sound harsh! :giggle:

When I ran our rec program, what I was trying to accomplish was a move to PONY. Our program was created as a PONY program back in the 1970s, but had gotten away from it for whatever reason (I've heard stories, but never a definitive one) and gone independent.

When I was given the reins, I pushed for us to affiliate with somebody to help us restructure and to give consistency. So we did our due diligence and examined several programs, including PONY, LL, (then) ASA, etc.

We settled on PONY for several reasons: chief among them was PONY has a two-tiered program and we wanted that. LL has something similar, but their All-Stars starts after the season. We wanted something to run concurrent. Something like "all kids play on a regular team in the area during the week, then the Travel/Select (I think that was the right term) teams would play on the weekends and go outside of our area."

We knew it wouldn't compete with travel ball, but we saw it as part of the players' progression -- a good middle step for those players who maybe wanted to advance or maybe they didn't but wanted something more. Or maybe mom and dad couldn't afford travel ball (our school district is deemed highly impoverished).

Unfortunately, I was coming to the end of my tenure (honestly: fed up with people; particularly board members who were there for the wrong reasons and acted like children) and had gotten tired of fighting the fight. The two-tiered program never happened; the husband and wife who managed a take over our board of directors took charge when I left and are running it back into the ground.
 

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