Overwhelmed high school coach

[Primetime17]

Hi all. I am currently coaching a Jv team of 20 girls. All by myself. And being Jv there are some really good girls that play travel and others that play rec only or never played.

Tips on how to run efficient practice being alone and also with different skill sets for all the girls. How do I run infield and ignore outfield. Or vice versa

Also. Looking to develop my catchers. What are some good drills to increase their arm strength on steals and quickness.

Thank you so much for any help

 

[Dabears17]

A quick response-

The $80 I spend a year on the NFCA membership is one of the best deals on softball resources, and if you use the code 'NFCADAY2022' you will get a new one year membership for $40. The deal is definitely for April 23rd, and I've pretty sure April 18th-25th.

High School Softball | NFCA Softball Coach Membership

NFCA High School members receive access to student-athlete awards, coaching awards, scholarships, grants, drills, practice plans, charts, and so much more! Join the NFCA to start receiving education and networking opportunities today!

nfca.org

A link to a bunch of good information in about 300 short videos is on youtube at: #TipTuesday . This information is better organized linked by topic if you have a membership on the www.nfca.org website.

As part of the 1st year membership there are links to practice plans and a drill book or two. There is likely some good outfield material in the tips, I just haven't looked in-depth.

@Cannonball has a ton of experience as a HS coach in both baseball and softball. He shared some of his material with me last year.

I love www.catchingcamp.com material for starting out catchers. I looked on his website this weekend and couldn't see any information on availability of their DVD, but I suggest sending them an email. At one point their DVD was on Vimeo. Just use Wasserman's throwing stuff.

Austin Wasserman has an excellent e-book on throwing, and a lot of the material is available on his website. He had a one day 30pct sale on his e-book yesterday. I suggest sending him an email and asking if he'll still honor that deal. There are free e-books for warm-ups and some of his teachings on his website.

www.highlevelthrowing.com

 

[CoachJD]

If you have travel players, you need to rely on them to help run/rotate through stations. They aren't coaches, but they can help.

I have a couple girls who are good at hitting infield. If all the other coaches are occupied, I can tell them to take a group of girls and hit infield (making sure the hitter rotates into the fielding line, too).

This works best when you're having them run something simple or something everybody has done before. Again, you're not asking them to coach, just help facilitate. Helps if these girls are also your leaders/captains, too.

You also may need to split the girls into groups based on skill level. Let the experienced players run a round of infield while you teach the new girls the proper way to field a grounder, that kind of thing.

The truth is, with 20 girls on JV, it seems unlikely that all those girls will eventually be Varsity players. While you don't want to ignore any players, your challenge is to identify the girls who are most likely to make an impact at the varsity level and to ensure those girls are ready ASAP. Just be sure you're constantly reevaluating everything. Don't lock in to certain ideas. Be flexible. One of those girls with little experience can surprise you given a small opportunity. Does the varsity coach have any input in this regard? Are there certain players they want you to do certain things with?

As an example, while we (me, AC, JV HC) do joint practices with both teams, we are in need of a backup/additional 3B. Today, my instruction to the other two coaches was to put a couple candidates at third to see how they looked while I was working with outfielders. If your varsity coach isn't giving you anything like that, ask for it. After all, you're preparing players for that team. There should be communication there.

 

[Rolling Hard]

Twenty girls and 1 coach is not going to work. You must employ a couple dads/moms asap.

 

[Lance Steckler]

20 girls that are all good is easy, albeit a slow practice. 20 girls that the majority need extra work is recipe for disaster. Alot like herding kittens. just not going to work.

you need at least a couple extra bodies to help with hitting outfield or rolled balls infield, so you can either observe everything and evaluate or work with neediest. And if you're having to work on fundamentals, again need help.

there are lots of throwing drills that you can easily run with 20 players that will greatly help many facets of the game, keep all the girls involved and moving. BUT you can't throw 100% of all practices. Eventually, you will need to break down in smaller groups for hitting and fielding work, and again need a couple adults.

and one thing to watch for (and it will happen), is the really advanced girls chucking the ball at their normal speed, to the barely rec player that wants to play 1b. that ball will likely be coming far faster than her skill can safely handle. the point being pay attention and be ready to step in and assign players to warm up together to prevent injuries, and parental complaints. I had to address this years ago when coaching 7-8grade team. not a pretty talk with the Mom of the 7th grader that was convinced her DD was best 1b ever, yet was petrified of balls really moving coming all the way from SS. "No ma'am i will not have Players X, Y or Z throw from SS more softly. your DD is wearing a mask. She can catch it or find another position."

best of luck.

 

[chinamigarden]

As the JV coach the V coach is depending on you to develop players. As a V coach he/she should be helping you out in this situation. They should be getting you some help.

 

[Westwind]

Is the jv baseball coach by himself too?

 

[nchesher]

That's a huge roster, maybe next year you can keep it under 13 or so.

 

[radness]

That's a huge roster, maybe next year you can keep it under 13 or so.

Would not recommend that because there are too many reasons why student players will not attend 100%.

Including but not limited to~
~Illness
~Injury
~Being academically ineligible
~Parents said they can't as punishment
~They forgot where their uniform/glove is.
~They purposely can't find their uniform/glove.
~Had something else to do that was more interesting.
~Doctor's appointments that the only time the parent could schedule a doctor appointment was during a softball function or game.
~*Some of the players ate a pot brownie on the way to practice. Consequently several players got removed from the team.

Stuff like that there,
They are all factual occurrences.
Going to add, sometimes the person who brought the pot brownie was the least expected person on the team to do so.

 

[radness]

Hi all. I am currently coaching a Jv team of 20 girls. All by myself. And being Jv there are some really good girls that play travel and others that play rec only or never played.

Tips on how to run efficient practice being alone and also with different skill sets for all the girls. How do I run infield and ignore outfield. Or vice versa

Also. Looking to develop my catchers. What are some good drills to increase their arm strength on steals and quickness.

Thank you so much for any help

There is a benefit to coaching all the players as one large group and that is that everybody gets to hear instruction all at the same time. Where you can save time and everybody can be on the same page.

There are many teams that all of the players practice both infield and Outfield drills at their practices.
Developing well-rounded players enables you to utilize all the players wherever needed.
Plus the added bonus of getting to see a breakout player that may actually be better at a different position than the position they have been playing.

For the catcher's there is lots of fantastic information and conversations in the catching Forum with video.