Coaching and Youth Sports

Our opening day was March 2nd, so we start a lot earlier than you guys. We did have it moved because of rain and our first game got canceled, but that’s pretty rare here

 

We have evals on 3/16 (which is unnecessary and too damned late,) and draft 23rd. I think our first game is week of 4/22 with the season running through middle of June. I expect it to rain us out approximately 23 times, which means we will have to play 11 games the final week to get the season in before 7/4.

 

Yeah I probably won’t have another game rained out the rest of the year. Our last game is May 30th. We had tryouts in January

 

I just really, really want that Saturday game and throwing him increases chances.

 

So in a week my team has gone from hitting everything to half the kids missing everything

 

I have a kid who was there for first time last night (been sick with flu) that runs the kid spartan races but is scared of the baseball.

 

Hit him one time to show him I doesn't hurt

 

Took care of that last night, albeit not on purpose. And it didn't work.

We have the dad who realizes his son needs to toughen up a bit. He's not a brute or anything, pretty normal guy actually, just realizes soemthing like this would be good for his son.

 

There’s a kid on my team who his dad said got afraid of the ball becuase his fall coach hit him too many times. The guy is an awful pitcher. Kid doesn’t seem afraid now though. I’d have the dad play catch with him with wiffle balls or compressed baseballs and work his way to hard balls

 

There was a kid on my flag football team who the first 4 games would literally hold himself and not move he was so afraid of contact. First game he was crying. By the last game he at least would run.

 

This kid played in a church baseball league last year. It's pretty obvious he didn't get any actual coaching. With him and one other we are bare bones learning how to throw a baseball.

 

Man that’s crazy at that level. I had a kid last year who’s dad was Australian and he didn’t even know the basic rules. He’d run to third base and stuff. He also wasn’t very athletic. I got lucky this year. My biggest problem is kids being out to lunch rather than baseball skill. i do have a kid that throws sidearm though.

 

My other kid actually played fall ball and had a good baseball coach, who apparently focused on winning instead of teaching his team anything.

 

it's funny you say that. my kid who was afraid of the ball was on the team of one of the best managers in the league (in my opinion at least). he's also a manager for his older kid and i think just stretched too thin and maybe didn't coach down to the younger kids level. he's really not supposed to manage two teams, but the league let it slide because they were short managers for one of the divisions.

 

Preaching bat safety bat safety. Don’t swing unless you are in the box. Bat down, bat down. My own son takes a practice swing on deck and is 3 inches from being fatherless and hitting me directly in the head today at practice.

 

Alyssa Milano’s son is on one of the teams in my nephew’s division. Might have to attend some more games

 

Sometimes they just get better coaching at home.

 

They listen to the other coaches

 

Dros & Card (or anyone else) -

Do you guys allow a runner to use a stiff arm in flag? I’m talking about full-on stiff arming, where the runner can put his hand on the chest / face / shoulder of a defender and shove them to the ground, and not “flag-guarding” (where a runner attempts to shove / swat a defenders hand away from her/his flag to prevent being tackled?

Knox County is discussing some rule changes, and one is to allow stiff arming in flag (and which I wonder if it’s a good idea or not), and so I just want to know what y’all allow.

Also, do you guys require flag players to wear soft shell helmets / hard foam shoulder pads? We’re moving to that this year, too.

Just helps to know what others are doing, particularly from those who I know aren’t crazy / play in terrible leagues.

 

This. I have kids on my team who struggle to keep their “dad” as being separate from their “coach”. Sometimes they tune them out, like it’s their dad telling them to take out the garbage or turn Fortnite off. Others go to pieces when coach yells at them to do something better, on the field....like they’re in trouble at home. It’s getting less and less as they get older, but early on, it was rough having a domestic dispute on the practice field or during game. For the most part, we try to keep coach/dad and player separate, as much as we can (coaches don’t coach their kid, or tend to their injured child during practice or game, etc.). It’s not a hard and fast rule, by any means, but some separation was necessary, and has been good.