Coaching Kids

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Freed Roger
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Coaching Kids

Post by Freed Roger »

Am coming to appreciate people that can coach kids. Some people have the knack and patience, some don't.

I'd like to read some tips for working with kids, and stories of your coaching experiences, your coaches/or kid's coaches -bad and good -in any sport.

Here's a starter:
My Dad coached the baseball team my brothers and I played on. It was a park district team that took anybody that wanted to play within the 7-9 year old range. He loved the heck out of the game, and that was apparent to any kid that played for him. He was the quiet/lead-by-example type -not a guy that yelled - which IMO is the type a coach that a kid never wants to let down. Had a great patience for giving game time and working with the kids that were clueless about baseball. We won some and lost some, but the running joke in the family was how honored my Dad was when the team won the league's "Good Sportsmanship Award" -because he really was proud of that.

As far as practical coaching moves - he was a big proponent of putting your better fielders on the right side (RF, and 1B) because more kids bat RH and can't get around on the ball - and also because the bad kid won't feel slighted for being stuck in RF. If opposing pitcher was too fast for some of his guys to handle - the strategy at times was to give bunting a go. Another of his principles was to "stop swinging for the hills." I recall a demo he did once, with work clothes on and all - he stepped up to the plate and told the pitcher to throw it as fast as he could - it appeared that he just stuck the bat out, and the ball soared to kingdom come.

jim
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Re: Coaching Kids

Post by jim »

I coached from t-ball up to 16u teams. For all teams an organized practice is essential. You need to plan out to the minute what you will be doing, and more or less stick to it. Also, very important for baseball to avoid down time. Baseball lends itself to that, and you need to minimize that. Younger kids get bored, older ones get in trouble. Here are a couple of sample practices off the top of my head - one geared toward a 9-10 year old team and another toward a 16 team.

9/10/11'ish:
:00 - :10: Warmup. Stretching, catch, etc...

:10 - :20: Criss cross. Put half the kids at SS, half the kids at 2B with on coach positioned on the 1b line halfway between H and 1B hitting balls to the SS group, and the other coach on the 3b line hitting balls to the 2B group. Do this everyday.

:20 - :35: Three station drill - 5 minutes per station. For example:
Station 1: Cone drill for OF'ers. Or if they are really starting out just toss easy balls up and get
them catching it on their nose.
Station 2: Form throwing drill. More advanced you can do a throwing line drill.
Station 3: Sliding drill.

:35 - :55: Situations. Put kids in positions, use extra players as runners, and coach hits
fungos calling out situation before play.

:55 - :70: Group A hit (half of the kids). Group B in outfield working on pitching (gotta find your pitchers and it helps to get all kids working on this. Hitting kids get in and out - lay down 3+ bunts (also you can have a bunting station above if you want to focus on that) and 12 swings. Every 8 seconds a pitch, 15 pitches you should be able to get a kid in and out in 2 minutes. 6 kids per group - that's 12 minutes. 15 minute sessions gives you a little wiggle room to get an extra swing in, plus kids fart around when switching and they may eat up that 3 minutes.

:70 - :85: Switch - group A goes to throw and group B comes to hit.

:85 - :90: Baserunning.

End of practice. That's more work in 90 minutes that I've seen teams do in two weeks. Do NOT have a practice where you play catch, take an infield, and then hit. Mostly that turns into grab ass.
--------------------
Older kids:

:00-:10 - Warmup

:10 - :20 - Infield criss cross

:20 - :30 - Outfield criss cross ... just send them out to LF/RF and hit fungos.

:30 - :50 - Positional breakdown as follows:
- Outfielders
- Middle Infielders
- Corner Infielders.
- Pitchers.

Have the outfielders work on situations - do or die plays for example. MI'ers turn two. Corner infielders working on slow rollers and bunts, pitchers doing PFP etc...

:50 - :75 - Team Work.
- Pickoff plays, bunt coverage, cutoff plays, run downs etc...

:75 - :120 - Hitting.
- This is where pitchers get their throwing in. Also always have coaches on the 1b/3b line hitting ground balls to the infielders between pitches. Each BP pitch the two coaches hit a ground ball to an infielder. This just keeps the infielders get more work in.

- Also work on situational hitting. When a hitter has finished his round, have him run out the last one to first base. Next hitter sacrifices him to 2B, moves him to 3b with a ground ball to the right side, and then drives him home.

...

Just some samples. Keep them busy. And for god's sake don't schedule 2+ hour practices for little kids. And don't keep them late. If you tell the parents practice is from 5:30 to 7:00, you are done at 7. Not 7:10, 7.

More random thoughts ...

Kids transport and pickup equipment, not coaches. Assign a group to be equipment guys for the day.

Arguing with umpires is not allowed under ANY circumstance. Not even mumbling under your breath. And shake the umps hand in the post game hand shake thing and thank them for their time.

With little kids do goofy things from time to time - remind them it's playtime. Big hit for our team was bringing water balloons and letting them throw them after me after a game. Stuff like that.

jim
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Re: Coaching Kids

Post by jim »

Oh yeah hide your Dad was right - if you need to hide a kid put him at 3B. 2B is really important, so is 1B.

While we are on this subject in general up to a certain age and league I advocate for similiar playing time. For a house league 12 and under, really I can't see an excuse for not playing everyone the same. If it's a select team ... ok a little bit maybe. We used to play in a league and then 4-5 bigger tourneys. The tourneys we would give the kids a dose of reality - the best kids played more. But the league - which was 2/3 of the season, pretty much even across the board. Don't be a dick, it's just youth baseball.

Freed Roger
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Re: Coaching Kids

Post by Freed Roger »

A coach yelling at my step-daughter and our friend's kids soccer team -age 4-5ish.
RUN KIDS! RUN! Wait ref, WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL HANDS ON THEM?! THAT WAS HANDS! ...RUN KIDS OR YOU DON'T GET A TREAT AFTER THE GAME

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thrill
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Re: Coaching Kids

Post by thrill »

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Leroy
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Re: Coaching Kids

Post by Leroy »

I admit I didn't like my baseball coach, but he did try to play everyone. I was always in the outfield though, and couldn't judge a fly ball to save my keyster. As I got older, and the older kids left my last year had me at first. I loved playing there, but was still kind of a no hit 1b. I always wanted to play second , wishing I had the arm for short because of Ozzie but I didn't.

One year, this coach couldn't make the championship game. They pulled some guy to coach that day. We were getting killed but he was patient. Eventually we started crawling back. For our last at bat we asked what the score was and he told us we were down four. We rallied for three runs and felt like crap. Turns out he lied and we actually tied the game. Ended up winning in extras. I'll never forget that roller coaster.

My worst coach was a hoops and baseball coach. He would yell and cuss all of the time. He was a fantastic college basketball and baseball player, but had no idea how to teach a rag tag bunch of high schoolers how to understand / play the game.

M1IRONMIKE
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Re: Coaching Kids

Post by M1IRONMIKE »

I coached both girls and boys in all age divisions and the one tip I have for any aspiring youth coach is have a sense of humor and realize the kids have one too. Kids will do and and say the damndest things. One time in a girls basketball practice in the 6th grade I had the girls running laps. We were getting ready to play the best team in our conference and as they were running I was shouting out little inspirational tidbits to them about the other team and why they had to work hard to beat them. Things like "St. Agnes is undefeated," St. Agnes won their last game by 20 points," St. Agnes beat us in overtime last year" etc. After i finished shouting out one of these brilliant phrases my little point guard shouted out "St. Agnes has a better coach then we do" I nearly fell down laughing

As far as how to deal with players of varying degrees of ability I always tried to find at least 1 thing that a kid who, for lack of a better word, sucks, does well and really hammer that home to him. I had a kid one year who was not a very good baseball player but he was fast as hell. I would always just re-enforce that to not only him but the rest of the team. He was a typical tough ass northend kid when he 1st came to the team but he had a bit of a attitude, was lazy, and didn't want to work. By telling him and everybody else how friggin fast he was he started feeling real good about himself and in no time I had a kid who was working hard, getting confident, and putting forth a maximum effort. He still sucked but at least I didn't have that attitude cancer on the team.

jim
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Re: Coaching Kids

Post by jim »

Keep it simple. I mean really simple. It doesn't do any good to teach a group of 10 year olds how to run a double cut but not teach them to throw. At that age they should learn to throw and catch the baseball properly, field the ball properly, and swing the bat properly. Don't worry about kids not being in the right position for a cutoff or whatever, just the very basics.

It's amazing how HS kids can get to that level and still not know how to throw and catch a baseball.

M1IRONMIKE
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Re: Coaching Kids

Post by M1IRONMIKE »

jim wrote:Keep it simple. I mean really simple. It doesn't do any good to teach a group of 10 year olds how to run a double cut but not teach them to throw. At that age they should learn to throw and catch the baseball properly, field the ball properly, and swing the bat properly. Don't worry about kids not being in the right position for a cutoff or whatever, just the very basics.

It's amazing how HS kids can get to that level and still not know how to throw and catch a baseball.

so true.....feet positioning too...It drives me crazy to see a kid in high school take a cut and not get his feet in the proper position to throw to whatever base he is going to.

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Hungary Jack
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Re: Coaching Kids

Post by Hungary Jack »

I had this "coach" in Little League who pretty much told us to scrimmage while he sat in the dugout and read the paper. He made us run around the outfield a few times. Once he suggest wearing my socks a bit higher.

Probably explains why I sucked at baseball.

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