My Coaching Philosophy
For those of you who have been as Bash with me the past few winters, or who have checked out the travel team website, you are probably familair with my coaching philosophy. For those of you who have played with me for two years now, hopefully you are also familiar. In case, however, any you of you are not, I wanted to let everybody know. While there is a much longer post about my philosohpy on the travel team page, in a nutshell, it can be summarized as follows: Talent is Overrated. Simply, these kids are too young to have any idea who are good ballplayers. We may know who can play the game right now with some degree of skill, but that does not mean much. What is important to me is not the talent of the player, but the player's willingness to work hard and learn -- effort can never be overrated. We only learn from our mistakes, and baseball is a game of failure (fail 70% of the time at the plate and you go to Cooperstown as one of the best hitters ever). It is the only game I know of where we keep track of, and officially score, mistakes - we call them errors (maybe tennis and the so-called "unforced errors" would be another). Everything we do, whether in practice, pregame, post-game and off-season is designed to get the kids to want to work hard to learn the game - not not fear making a mistake. Baseball is singularly the most "mechanical" of the major sports. Being a good athlete is great, but unless you learn the mechanics of the game, even great athletes will fall flat on their face. Swinging a bat, throwing a ball, fielding, pitching, all of these skills have certain mechanics that we look for. Some kids at this age have the body control and coordination to learn to do those mechanics faster than others. What is important is that the players work hard to learn those mechanics not that they have them mastered at 8. The mechanics, and almost only those mechanics (with the minor exception being defensive positioing) are the things we will focus on for the entirety of the season. I could go into more detail about the whole "talent is overrated philosophy," and to some extent I have on the travel team webiste. So, if you want to know more about it, please look there.
Coaches too make mistakes, and I learned a great deal from last seson, and I plan to put that learning curve to work this season. So a few points about the season:
1. Playing time - I will make every effort to get every kid as close to equal playing time as possible. The league requirement is 3 innings and 1 at bat for every kid -- assuming a 6 inning game (for those new to pee wee, 6 ining games are a rarity....). That is the minimum. Hopefully, I can make sure that by the end of the season, every child has played more than the minimum. I keep track of the stats, and you will be able to see them on the site, and included in those stats will be innings played. Obviously, when kids miss games, their IP (innings played) will be less than those who do not. In addition, with 15 kids on the team, 9 positions and, hopefully, 6 innings per game, some kids will be on the field in some game. I hope to have that somewhat even out over the season, but I also feel that I owe it to the team as a whole to make sure that if the game is close, we give outselves a shot at winning by making sure our most competitive players are where they need to be. To that end, I usually have the strongest kids on the field in the first (being a starter is something to incentivze kids and reward those who work hard) and at the end of the game.
2. Positioning: One area where I reprimanded myself last year for not being on top of the situation until half way through the season was positioning. I will make every effort to get all the kids a chance in the infield, with a few caveats. I happen to love the outfield, but I know at this age, many players get terribly bored out there. The only caveats are these: (1) the first inning and last inning: as noted above, I want to incentivize kids to work hard and learn, and in close games I owe it to the team to try to win (if the game is out of control, positively or negatively, the last inning caveat does not apply). So there will likely be a few players who start every game and possibly be in key positions at the end of the game. Otherwise, every player will get his/her shot in the starting line-up, and hopefully a start or two in the infield, but certainly they will all play the infield even if they do not start there. (2) Safety: because the kids are still young, and there is a huge disparity in skill between some of them at this age, some positions prsent a safety issue for kids who are not yet ready to play those positions. I know all the kids want to play first base and pitch. At this age, those are glamour positions. However, we have some kids who can throw very hard, so if a kid struggles with catching, they can get seriosuly hurt playing first. The last thing I want is to put a kid out there who has a hard time catching a ball in flight only to see him/her get drilled in the head by a ball Boki threw across the field. Same goes for pitcher. Pitching puts a great deal of strain on young arms. If your child does not yet have the proper throwing mechanics, i am not going to put him/her on the mound because it is bad for his/her arm. Obviously we are going to work in practice to improve everybody's throwing mechanics, but until they have a good throwing foundation, I am not willing to accept responsibility for hurting a child's arm. Catcher: another speciality position. Any child that is brave enough to put the tools of ignorance on their body can play an inning there if they want. However, if they keep turning their head when the batter swings or when the ball comes close, they wont catch again until they break that habit. It is far too dangerous, even with all the equipment. (3) Success: I want to put the kids in a position to succeed, so while you may want your child to play shortstop instead of second, if they cannot make the throw to first from short, then they are not in a position to succeed. The more they succeed, they will gain confidence, and the more confidence they gain, the more willing they will be to risk failure - try hard at the expense of possible failure. I do not want any child on my team to fear failure. Failure is inherent in baseball more than any other sport, and we only learn from it, so I want them all to have the confidence to risk failing. Again, i do not care if they make an error every single time, it is what they do after that error that is important. So, with those caveats in mind, my goal is to make sure the kids all get a shot in the infield.
3. Player Rules: The only real external factor I look at (other than whose turn is it to start/play) to evaluate playing time is whether the kid follows the team rules. The rules are simple (this is a house league, afterall): listen, try hard and have fun. These rules are board and vague enough to cover just about every learning opportunity that may occur during the course of a season.
4. Parent Rules: These issues have never arisen in my years at Hamlin (with one exception), but we have new families with us every year, I have heard horror stories from other coaches and the competitive nature of everybody naturally increases as the kids get older. So, for those reasons, we have to have a few rules for the parents as well: (1) only players and coaches in the dugout during games. Keeping the kids focused at this age is hard enough, but it is even harder if their parents are in the dugout. My suggestion is to bring a chair, find a shaddy spot with a good view and enjoy the game. And, if your child leaves the dugout for any reason without permission from the coaches, please send him/her back. (2) No negative comments at all. Again baseball is a game of failure so all the kids are going to make a ton of mistakes. We only learn from our mistakes and I want them to have the confidence to try hard things that will likely result in failure. So, if your child strikes out, makes a crucial error (or any error), etc., please do not reprimand him/her. He/she knows they made a mistake, they do not need any reminders. As long as they learn from the mistake (even if they make it 1000 more times), then it was good thing. (3) playing time/positioning complaint: if you have a complaint about playing time or positioning decisions, your child must raise it with me first. The first time a parent raised this issue with me (last year was my first), he felt his child should have played more than 3 innings in that game. Little did he know that his child asked to sit for what would have been his 4th inning of that game. So if your child wants to play more/different positions, they can raise it with me. They will all tell me they want to pitch, so I know they have the cofidence to do it. (4) try to be on time and give me advance notice if you will miss a game. As I said above, we want to give everybody equal playing opportunities during the season. I will usually set the lineup and the starters the day before. I will look at the stats, see whose turn it is to play, see who has earned a start/another start, etc., and then make the lineup. Unfortuantely, 3 minutes before game time, as the kids are taking the field, I am missing 2 starters because they are not at the field yet. I then have to juggle the batting oorder, positions, etc. To make everything easier, try to be at the park3o minutes before each game. The kids need that time to get loose, and I need that time to see who is present for the game. (4) get involved. Feel free to bring your glove to any practice and jump in and help. At this age, the more coaches the better. They lose interest quickly and need to be told, over and over again, how to do things properly.
That is realy about it. This will be my third season at Hamlin, and I am really looking forward to the season finally starting. Chicago wintes are long and ugly, but summers at Hamlin make it easier to survive.
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