Tips for College Players Who Want to Coach

[Sweet Pitch 96]

What are some do's and don'ts for college-age players or recent college grads who are getting into coaching? For younger teams, older teams, etc...? What are some pitfalls that they might fall into and what are the most important things to do/know?

 

[Amy in AZ.]

The best ones that I found were - be active in the sport. You have to set yourself way ahead of the other 15 girls on the team. You want to stay out of trouble, make A's in class and do the grunt work. All of this is so your coach and professors can "highly recommend" you to future employers.

Take all of the officiating classes and umpire some games.

It doesn't hurt to learn to pitch, either.

 

[sluggers]

My advice:

(1) The hour long post-game speeches your heard in college were useless. They are 10X more useless in travel ball than in college.
(2) You have to really like kids. Putting up with teenage girls and the attendant gaggle of Crazy Daddies and Crazy Mommies is a challenge. Just because you played softball in college doesn't mean you have the personality to coach.
(3) Lighten up and have a sense of humor. If you are coaching 14U, 12U or 10U, the kids are going to do some really silly, funny and frustrating stuff. You have to laugh it off or you'll go crazy.

 

[Coach JV]

Good Post Ray! you summed it up in 7 lines.

On a side note, we have a rec. coach who played semi pro BB
and is a 'paid' slowpitch player. He is a terrible coach! His girls do not develop
individually or collectively, they have some fun as he is a nice guy,
they do have to resign themselves to the fact that his teams rarely win games
and never play for the championship. (biggest age group is never more than
4-5 teams.)

Understand the kids, its a game-HAVE FUN

 

[amanda_cake]

As a HS player who helps coach little kids, also remember that a lot of the stuff you are used to is going to be thrown after the window. I'm used to long, hard practices. You can't do that with little kids, you can barely hold their attention for the hour and a half practices they do have. In that hour and a half, you need to pack as much into it as you can, having them constantly moving and doing stuff. You also have to take things down a notch, including tone. You can't speak to 10U girls the same way you would an 18U Gold team or a college team. You've got to bring it down to their level.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

Got one for you. We had a local girl who went to a small private school and pitched fairly well for the weak competition they faced. Her father really tweaked her stats and must have had some great connections because she got into our local D1 school. And for the record, I never thought she was all 'that' because I knew and understood the HS was the lowest classification in the state ( single A minor ) and they played the weakest of the weak in their district. And she didn't play travel ball.

She went on to pitch at the D1, she never won a game in 4 years. Her career ERA was 15.78. She is now the PITCHING COACH for a D2 school. Go figure??

 

[druer]

1. DON'T fall into a trap of measuring yourself by the teams win-loss record but DO measure yourself by your players abilities
2. DON'T forget that while softball is important to many of the girls it may just be for fun for others so DO keep it fun while you teach
3. DO start out the season by setting the tone of what is expected and how you will deal with situations and then be consistent
4. DON'T compare the girls you are helping to yourself or your old teammates as a way of putting them down. DO inspire those are serious about the game by comparing their positives to your old teammates.