New to head coaching

[Cornbread]

Basic Practice Plan

Stretch, Throw: do the Wesserman drills, have a throwing routine. I do posture throws after wesserman stuff (butt out, chest over shuffle and throw maintaining this posture, long toss (jaeger program), I do cut drills and run downs in sets of 3

Indy Outfield: self catch, do or die technique, partners throwing fly balls, partners rolling balls, coach throws, whatever lol

Indy infield: lead ups teaching proper fielding technique, partners rolling balls back and forth, forehand/backhand stuff, whatever lol

Positional Infield: have each position work at their spot, catchers framing/blocking/throwing, whatever lol

Infield Fungos: Self explanatory

Team Defense: use baserunners if possible, fly balls, ground balls, teach everything (baserunners too) rotate them around

Offensive Stations: tees with nets, weighted balls, bunt stations, dry swings, whatever lol

BP: front Toss, swing at everything round, 0-2 round, few bunts, few slashes, have Defense play it live, NO SHAGGING

I separate pitcher/catcher practice, typically 45 minutes before regular practice. I sometimes begin practice with a batters working on timing with a live pitcher on days we do pitcher/catcher practice

Make it your own but have a written plan with time limits and keep it moving. Go over signals or wristband stuff in a live setting. Have fun man! Fastpitch is a blast! Make sure you allow the kids to have fun but focused practices! Travel ball should be fun (kinda different than school ball).

Go over parent expectations frequently. I do it after every practice and text reminders continuously. Good luck! You will be fine!!

 

[CoachK_KCShock]

Basic Practice Plan

Stretch, Throw: do the Wesserman drills, have a throwing routine. I do posture throws after wesserman stuff (butt out, chest over shuffle and throw maintaining this posture, long toss (jaeger program), I do cut drills and run downs in sets of 3

Indy Outfield: self catch, do or die technique, partners throwing fly balls, partners rolling balls, coach throws, whatever lol

Indy infield: lead ups teaching proper fielding technique, partners rolling balls back and forth, forehand/backhand stuff, whatever lol

Positional Infield: have each position work at their spot, catchers framing/blocking/throwing, whatever lol

Infield Fungos: Self explanatory

Team Defense: use baserunners if possible, fly balls, ground balls, teach everything (baserunners too) rotate them around

Offensive Stations: tees with nets, weighted balls, bunt stations, dry swings, whatever lol

BP: front Toss, swing at everything round, 0-2 round, few bunts, few slashes, have Defense play it live, NO SHAGGING

I separate pitcher/catcher practice, typically 45 minutes before regular practice. I sometimes begin practice with a batters working on timing with a live pitcher on days we do pitcher/catcher practice

Make it your own but have a written plan with time limits and keep it moving. Go over signals or wristband stuff in a live setting. Have fun man! Fastpitch is a blast! Make sure you allow the kids to have fun but focused practices! Travel ball should be fun (kinda different than school ball).

Go over parent expectations frequently. I do it after every practice and text reminders continuously. Good luck! You will be fine!!

This is awesome! A lot of these drills I am not familiar with but I’ll research it. Thank you!


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[marriard]

The #1 piece of advice for the first time head coach. You are a benevolent dictator. That means you make final decisions - you should be willing to take input from others and you can delegate actions, but in the end, the final decision is yours and yours alone.

If you can avoid it, don't be the one in charge of the money. You decide where the money goes, but the collection, tracking and reporting you can hopefully have someone else handle. If you can hand off hotel/travel logistics to someone else that is good as well.

If you have a daughter on the team, don't give her less opportunities because you want to avoid 'daddy ball'. And don't give her opportunities she doesn't deserve - but (and this will be contrevertial) - if all things are even do favor your daughter slightly - she deserves something a little bit for all the extra time she is going to spend at the field because her parent is the coach.

At practice - lots of stations... keep them moving at all times or they will find things non-softball to do... 3 kids per station works great (one doing, one feeding balls, one waiting).

Lots of stations means assistant coaches. Make sure you set expectations.

And parents... well you know.

 

[Cornbread]

Coach K, you don’t have to know everything! They will get better due to the system! The brain is pretty awesome and coaches typically get in the way of it! Ask me about any portion of that plan and I’ll try to detail some things for you

 

[CoachK_KCShock]

Coach K, you don’t have to know everything! They will get better due to the system! The brain is pretty awesome and coaches typically get in the way of it! Ask me about any portion of that plan and I’ll try to detail some things for you

Well I’ll have to look up the wasserman methods. I’m sure I’ll know the drills if I saw them but by name I’m clueless. I’m just realizing there’s so much the girls will need to learn but you are right, I don’t need to know everything. I’m going to be transparent with my girls and parents as well that I’m still learning but I do have a lot to offer. My biggest thing at this age is making sure they are still having fun while learning.


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[Cornbread]

https://www.highlevelthrowing.com/softball-throwing-drills/

 

[Cornbread]

 

[lancer360]

Wasserman recently posted this on his website for free.

The "Necessary 9" Youth Baseball Throwing Drills - High Level Throwing -

Here are a few of our favorite Youth Baseball High Level Throwing Drills that can be used in a training session, before practice and games. Athletes will actually groove patterns and strengthen their mechanics THROUGH movement using these drills and progressions. The throwing program starts...

www.highlevelthrowing.com

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[CanOfCorn]

People have touched on all my main ideas but I will throw a few spins on them.

I generally found having practice 2x a weeks is best. I ranged from 75-120 minutes with one focused on fielding, team defense and the other on hitting with base running. I also am a fan of Wasserman throwing.

I layer my practices and drills...I will explain. Best way to think of practice are in groups of individual skills and teams skills. Each practice should have some mixture. I also break individual skills into form and implementation.

Wasserman throwing is an individual form skill and place some emphasis on families doing them at home. Throwing around the bases is an implementation of throwing (using good form of course). Just the ability to catch and throw will make your team much better. Team skills are the next layer which require decisions. Decisions + implementation = Team Skill so Cut-offs or Bunt coverage.

I have a huge document of various individual (often variations), implementations and team skills and cycle through them so we actually do the same things over and over it just does look like it to the eye.


My fielding practice would be:

Warm-Up
Form throwing (Wasserman)
Throwing Implementation (eg. Around the Horn)
Infield Form (eg. grounder to something)
Infield Implementation (eg. live balls to underhand flips, Double Play)
Outfield Form (Line-Drive,Fly Ball, Ground Ball)
Outfield Implementation (Live balls)
Team drill (eg. Cut-Off, etc)

As season progresses I spend less time on form as they should be solid (unless we have that weekend) and more live reps. I also choose team drills to cover areas of weakness so bad covering bunts one weekend, you can guess what we do next practice.

Hitting I try as many stations as possible with one being front toss. As season progresses we add in live. They key is to keep them moving so hitting groups, in live have all pitchers ready and a 1-1 count. We run out first only. Base running at the end.

Finally it is worth every few practices adding in some game knowledge like what is a live ball vs dead ball, what is infield fly rule...etc.

Ask questions and have fun!!

CoC


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[CoachK_KCShock]

People have touched on all my main ideas but I will throw a few spins on them.

I generally found having practice 2x a weeks is best. I ranged from 75-120 minutes with one focused on fielding, team defense and the other on hitting with base running. I also am a fan of Wasserman throwing.

I layer my practices and drills...I will explain. Best way to think of practice are in groups of individual skills and teams skills. Each practice should have some mixture. I also break individual skills into form and implementation.

Wasserman throwing is an individual form skill and place some emphasis on families doing them at home. Throwing around the bases is an implementation of throwing (using good form of course). Just the ability to catch and throw will make your team much better. Team skills are the next layer which require decisions. Decisions + implementation = Team Skill so Cut-offs or Bunt coverage.

I have a huge document of various individual (often variations), implementations and team skills and cycle through them so we actually do the same things over and over it just does look like it to the eye.


My fielding practice would be:

Warm-Up
Form throwing (Wasserman)
Throwing Implementation (eg. Around the Horn)
Infield Form (eg. grounder to something)
Infield Implementation (eg. live balls to underhand flips, Double Play)
Outfield Form (Line-Drive,Fly Ball, Ground Ball)
Outfield Implementation (Live balls)
Team drill (eg. Cut-Off, etc)

As season progresses I spend less time on form as they should be solid (unless we have that weekend) and more live reps. I also choose team drills to cover areas of weakness so bad covering bunts one weekend, you can guess what we do next practice.

Hitting I try as many stations as possible with one being front toss. As season progresses we add in live. They key is to keep them moving so hitting groups, in live have all pitchers ready and a 1-1 count. We run out first only. Base running at the end.

Finally it is worth every few practices adding in some game knowledge like what is a live ball vs dead ball, what is infield fly rule...etc.

Ask questions and have fun!!

CoC


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Would you mind emailing me what a practice schedule for you looks like? I have created my own but would like to incorporate some things I may have missed. If you don’t mind, you can email me at Kim@kcshockathletics.com

Thank you so much!!


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