What you wish you knew then....

[CoogansBluff]

I am not a coach, so at the risk of inserting myself into this thread..... coaches - (and I wish I knew this as well when my DD was 10 and 12). These girls are young. 10s and 12s is NOTHING compared to 14s, 16s, 18s. Please don't worry about winning everything under the sun with a team of 10 year olds. You have no idea how a 10 year old is going to look at age 17. You really don't. Know that these are little kids and develop them all.

Love your post. Especially what I put in bold.

However, from a more tangible point of view, what exactly does this mean?

How can we tell when a coach really believes in developing ALL of his/her players and does not worry about winning everything under the sun with this age group?

For example, is a 12U coach willing to bat all 11 players on his/her roster in every game for the sake of developing every player, or is winning more important?

 

[left turn]

There are two big things that immediately come to mind:

- I wish I had known the difference between coaching a game and practice. I started out trying to help (train) during the games when I should have been coaching.

- As a dad of a pitcher, I wish I had a better understanding between warming up for a game and practice. Trying to accomplish too much during warm ups is really counterproductive. Now I let her warm up and try to stay quiet.

 

[canyonjoe]

I wish when my DD was 8 I had known about TB. She lost a couple of years in Rec before we realized she had the talent to play at a higher level. In the long run it may keep her from playing to much, but it hurt her a little to play rec for too long.

 

[JAD]

I wish that I had a crystal ball to use at tryouts so I could tell which players were diamonds in the rough and which ones were over rated with high maintenance parents!

 

[02Crush]

I wish that I had a crystal ball to use at tryouts so I could tell which players were diamonds in the rough and which ones were over rated with high maintenance parents!

Better yet, which kids looked great in practice but once the games started and the parents began coaching through the fence the player fell apart

 

[Indiana]

However, from a more tangible point of view, what exactly does this mean?

How can we tell when a coach really believes in developing ALL of his/her players and does not worry about winning everything under the sun with this age group?

For example, is a 12U coach willing to bat all 11 players on his/her roster in every game for the sake of developing every player, or is winning more important?

That's the big question. I concede that developing all players while winning enough to keep everyone hungry for more can be extremely difficult. But I commend all coaches who will do it through 12U and even into 14U. I'm not sure how a parent can tell what a coach's philosphy is - except maybe by reputation or by word of mouth?

 

[CoogansBluff]

I'm not sure how a parent can tell what a coach's philosphy is - except maybe by reputation or by word of mouth?

Helluva question, IMO. ... We're approaching tryout season, and you see the same cliches. All coaches state that they are committed to developing players.

How can you tell? Here are some questions -

-How often do you bat every player on your roster?
-What size roster do you want? (What size did you have last season?)
- If you've got 11 players but the team is not playing that well, would you consider adding a 12th or 13th to make the team perform better?
- Do you use pickup players for competitive advantage, or only to replace missing players?
-What is your lineup philosophy in pool games that don't count?
-Do you have players who spend more than 90 percent of their time at one position (counting outfield as one position)?
- How many players are returning from your last team?
- Were any cut for lack of skills? (Not saying this should never happen, but how prevalent is it?)
- What was your team's W-L record last season? How many tournaments did you win? (Coaches who want to develop players tend to have teams that win about half, because they seek out a challenging schedule, or if they do have great success, they downplay the championships and talk more about the level they aspire to play.)