Not enough coaches: JV and varsity practice together?

[tim_s]

I thought of this old Candrea video.

What I like is groups moving quickly and rolling balls rather than fungoes for better control. If you get enough balls I've even had girls make (short) throws into bownets and then hustle and collect the balls and get them back tot he coach. If you keep things moving fast you'll even wear kids out. One coach infield like this another one doing something similar with outfielders and pitchers/catchers getting their work in would be a nice breakdown doable with two coaches. Another thing to look for might be a student assistant or two?

i was just going to post this......rolled ball drills in this style has them working on receiving/footwork/throw AND has a group catching at a base.......i can get my girls many more reps in 1/3 of the time

we practice together, last year we had 19-21 kids, though......and 3 knowledgeable assitants


to me the key is having a plan and communicating it so that everyone is on the same page, players and coaches......i like written practice plans, posted before practice, with a time schedule on it.......makes it much more efficient, and everyone knows what to expect

get your assistants the drills and their focus ahead of time.......give them something you may have already taught if they are not comfortable actually teaching things

early in the year when we're in the gym, we rely on our experienced girls, too.......my DD spent a lot of time when it wasn't her turn at a tee station helping lesser experienced girls.......we train our girls to feed the pitching machine, etc so that coaches aren't wasted doing things like that, also

 

[FP26]

If you are going to do mass infield you may have to have 3 or 4 kids at each position and have one of those kids at each spot rotate as the fungo hitter (I personally believe this is a good exercise for kids to do anyway). Have one group throw is across to first and the other groups field and place in a bucket at their position. After 1 bucket have the next position throw it across to first and the others bucket, etc.. Have your assistant coach run through outfield drills and since you don’t have to hit the ground balls to the infielders - that frees you up to oversee both infield and outfield and teach/correct both.

That’s just one example that will get your whole defense plenty of reps with a big group. If you have an idea of what you want to work on let me know and I’ll take a shot at thinking how I would organize it.

The biggest thing to avoid is one kid working while the other kids stand around and wait there turn.

We did a drill similar to this with a few differences. But if you have some solid players that can handle the fungos for you, it will be a great help. Separate the infielders into two group, half playing second base and half playing shortstop. Have a single (or two rotating) playing first base and third base. One player stands on the first base line hitting grounders to the players at short stop, who throw the ball to first base where they are placed in the bucket. Another player stands on the third base line hitting grounders to the players at 2nd base, who throw the ball to third base where they are placed in the bucket. You can increase the number of reps this way.

Also, as you build confidence, I would suggest scrimmaging as much as possible. Then you have entire groups engaged in real game activity. At the rec level I would often hold practices with two teams and it was typically around 24 to 27 players. I would break them into three groups. Team "A" would play the field. Team "B" was batting. Team "C" was working with a parent on various tee drills (typically three tees). Once Team "A" completed 6 or 9 outs, they would rotate to the tees. Those at the tees would rotate to batting. And those batting would rotate to the field. As others have stated, the key is to try your best to keep everyone busy. learning, and having fun. You will definitely have your hands full unless you are able to find some quality help.

 

[tim_s]

and as a PE teacher, I'd say do your best to limit wait time/standing around.......I see a lot of practices in multiple sports where most of the time at practice is spent waiting......maximize touches.....i really like station work, start your season teaching a few staple stations that you'll use a lot, find some that they can do on their own (yeah, you don't want repeated bad habits, but there's some things they can do after being correctly taught)....make things routine to limit transition time also

 

[taylormeyer77]

Can you stagger practices? I was in a similar situation a few years back. I scheduled practice so I had smaller groups. I always did JV practice first and Varsity after. Varsity went second because most of them could drive, and most were better at taking care of homework and stuff. Also allowed them to visit teachers after school so they could do well on State exams and ACT/SAT.

Typical Practice Plan:
JV:
Warm-up Jog - Dynamic Stretch - Throw Routine - Everydays
Infield Fundamentals - Outfield Tee Work
Outfield Fundamentals - Infield Tee Work
Combined Team Work - Varsity arrives and begins their Warm-ups.
Combined Situationals with JV Running Bases
Varsity:
Infield Fundamentals - Outfield Tee Work - JV goes home
Outfield Fundamentals - Infield Tee Work
Live Hitting on the Field/Base Running

This makes for a long day for you, but it is, IMO, less stressful and I think more productive, not to mention, safer. The real struggle is time with your pitchers and catchers. They need their work every day, and it should be monitored.

Agreed, this may be the way to go. More time spent at the field but I'm okay with that, and just seems like less chaos.

 

[taylormeyer77]

Can you stagger practices? I was in a similar situation a few years back. I scheduled practice so I had smaller groups. I always did JV practice first and Varsity after. Varsity went second because most of them could drive, and most were better at taking care of homework and stuff. Also allowed them to visit teachers after school so they could do well on State exams and ACT/SAT.

Typical Practice Plan:
JV:
Warm-up Jog - Dynamic Stretch - Throw Routine - Everydays
Infield Fundamentals - Outfield Tee Work
Outfield Fundamentals - Infield Tee Work
Combined Team Work - Varsity arrives and begins their Warm-ups.
Combined Situationals with JV Running Bases
Varsity:
Infield Fundamentals - Outfield Tee Work - JV goes home
Outfield Fundamentals - Infield Tee Work
Live Hitting on the Field/Base Running

This makes for a long day for you, but it is, IMO, less stressful and I think more productive, not to mention, safer. The real struggle is time with your pitchers and catchers. They need their work every day, and it should be monitored.

It's brilliant, actually. And enables the control freak in me.

 

[taylormeyer77]

We always practice JV and Varsity together. However, we keep 22-24. It helps to have a knowledgeable assistant coach but this way, you can train the coach the way you want. Do you have any facilities? For example what is your cage situation? Do you have the equipment? We use a lot of softballs in practice. In fact, we have several bins and then buckets that we use in a typical practice. Keep in mind that there will come a time as you head toward that first game where you are going to have to focus on those first 11 more. You want your varsity to have their best chance to win. Have you thought about who is going to keep the scorebook? I'd recommend finding a colleague if possible who might want to do it. I was fortunate to find a teacher who was a stats freak who loved baseball/softball and so, he jumped in to help out. From there, he became another coach and a valuable one at that.

We luckily do have a cage, so anticipate some tee work, soft toss, etc., in there, of course. Hitting stations seem easier to plan that defensive ones. I'm thinking about position work, etc., and already thinking about how to rotate and monitor and give feedback to all. I know it'll certainly require a lot of kid/captain led activities.

 

[Cannonball]

Coach, a cage should let you have a minimum of 4 hitting stations. I am not a big fan of side soft toss. I am a huge fan of front toss. If you have the screens to protect the tossers, think about how you can get that done. We set up 5/6 stations inside of a 70 foot cage. We always have 2 front toss stations. I want my hitters to hit balls in flight as much as possible.

I am not a fan of "Captains." Be careful if you go that route. We typically depend upon seniors to help out but even then, not all seniors. Some of our seniors take hitting lessons from me and can get exact definitions of our terms and exact details of what each drill needs to accomplish. We are fortunate that I can see the cages if I am on the field. I am actually the JV coach now but was the HC for my dd when she played. The HC is often doing the work on the infield which makes it easier for me to do the hitting.

 

[dmcwhinnie]

I think Coach YodaD's
practice plan is a great suggestion and you would do well to to adopt it. It makes the best use of the kids time and keeps them active and involved. When you combine both squads and have the JV's running the bases you can be coaching both the JV's and Varsity at the same time. Put your Varsity players at the positions that you want and then put the runners where you want them. Tell them the number of outs and then fungo the ball and let the situation play out. You said that you had a lot of newbies, if that's the case for the first week you might have to make sure that the runners understand the number of outs, what they're going to do on a groundball, a flyball, or a line drive. You could have your assistant coach the bases if you want or if he can fungo let him hit the situations and you could be out in the field coaching the situation. I would probably wnat to be the one fungoing.

 

[taylormeyer77]

I think Coach YodaD's
practice plan is a great suggestion and you would do well to to adopt it. It makes the best use of the kids time and keeps them active and involved. When you combine both squads and have the JV's running the bases you can be coaching both the JV's and Varsity at the same time. Put your Varsity players at the positions that you want and then put the runners where you want them. Tell them the number of outs and then fungo the ball and let the situation play out. You said that you had a lot of newbies, if that's the case for the first week you might have to make sure that the runners understand the number of outs, what they're going to do on a groundball, a flyball, or a line drive. You could have your assistant coach the bases if you want or if he can fungo let him hit the situations and you could be out in the field coaching the situation. I would probably wnat to be the one fungoing.

Perfect. This is why we ask each other. THANK YOU!

 

[taylormeyer77]

Coach, a cage should let you have a minimum of 4 hitting stations. I am not a big fan of side soft toss. I am a huge fan of front toss. If you have the screens to protect the tossers, think about how you can get that done. We set up 5/6 stations inside of a 70 foot cage. We always have 2 front toss stations. I want my hitters to hit balls in flight as much as possible.

I am not a fan of "Captains." Be careful if you go that route. We typically depend upon seniors to help out but even then, not all seniors. Some of our seniors take hitting lessons from me and can get exact definitions of our terms and exact details of what each drill needs to accomplish. We are fortunate that I can see the cages if I am on the field. I am actually the JV coach now but was the HC for my dd when she played. The HC is often doing the work on the infield which makes it easier for me to do the hitting.

You know, it's funny, all the way through (D-II) college ball, we did side soft toss, and that's so interesting how I never thought about how ineffective/unrealistic it is. Don't know of many pitches coming in at a 45 degree (if that) angle... Good point.