I feel like some coaches may be reading this as they’ll soon be new coaches for the fall. Thought I’d talk about the best new messages to a team. I know one coach that always said “I’d love to hear your thoughts on player substitutions and playing time — AFTER THE SEASON.”
There is merit to it, but I guess I’m a glutton for punishment and like to really talk about this stuff throughout the season so I always said, come to me and don’t let things fester.
Over time I think the shorter the message to the team the better. So in an email it might be “HI, I’m your coach, I can’t wait to get started, here’s the times for practices and the games and please plan to HELP as much as possible at ALL practices, if at all possible bring workout clothes and help me out on the field.”
Impressing on the need for help will make it so you can really generate A LOT of reps at a practice.
Now what to say to the players. Have them do some relay races before ANY conversation. They love running and they need to be a little tired before they can focus. If you just start in with a big speech they’ll just lose attention and the time is wasted.
Make sure you do some running first, then have them get on one knee and look at you. Then say “Hi, I’m your coach and I’m here to make it so you have a lot of FUN playing baseball and I want everyone to PITCH in a GAME and everyone to HIT in a game and I want you to SUCCEED so you KEEP PLAYING — and I want you to learn how to work as a team and I want you to PLAY AGAIN NEXT YEAR. End of speech, tell them you have a detailed plan for EVERY minute of every practice and all they have to do is follow the plan and try their best all the time.”
Please please please keep the speeches to kids short. Remember they have been in school all day, they are finally outside and in the sunlight and they want to have some fun. Make it fun — figure out what they like best and make sure that’s in every practice and keep the intensity and speed of practice going all the time. No standing around, no thinking about what we will do next. None of that. It doesn’t take a thousand hours to prepare for practice, but if you don’t do at least 10-15 minutes the night before, you are counting on chaos at the practice.
Best of luck and let me know how it goes.
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