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This post highlights a few parts from my free Coach’s Quick Start Guide.
You can get that here.
This is me, David Grossman, and my family. Over the years I’ve learned how important it is to get parents on the same page with you at the beginning of the season.
Getting parents on board at the beginning of the season and supporting what you’re doing is one of the most important things a youth coach can do.
Without the parents behind you and believing in you, you’re fighting an uphill battle.
That’s something a lot of new coaches don’t realize.
It’s also something coaches with experience sometimes don’t realize. They can’t understand why the season always seems to be one long rollercoaster ride of chaos.
How Parents Can Help
Just talking to parents, and letting them know your plans for the season can often help a lot.
But parents can also be a great help during practice.
Young kids get bored easily, and so the way to combat that is to KEEP PRACTICES MOVING FAST.
The key to a fast moving practice is to get a LOT of parents to help. To do that you need to be clear in the initial e-mail to parents.
Below is a sample email you can use as a basic template.
Once you send that out, I strongly recommend an opening season pizza party for all players and parents to attend.
Ideally you can talk to the parents for about 15 minutes and go through the agenda.
The key thing to emphasize is that you want players to return next year and that you need the parents to help out at practice for that to happen.
Initial Email to Parents
Below is the sample email you can send out to parents. Obviously modify it as you see fit or as your league requires.
This e-mail sets the tone for the year, so you should work on it.
Once you send the email out, I strongly recommend an opening season pizza party for all players and parents to attend.
Ideally you can talk to the parents for about 15 minutes and go through the agenda.
The key thing to emphasize is that you want players to return next year and that you need the parents to help out at practice for that to happen.
Here’s the email:
Dear Parents of (Team Name if you have it),
I am the coach of your team. My goal is to make it so your child has a lot of fun, learns a little about baseball, and absolutely plays again next season.
I would like to invite you to a season opening Pizza Party at my house where we’ll go over all the odds and ends for the season.
We will practice once a week for one hour, and I’ll make sure we start on time and end on time.
Please come to practice and wear exercise clothing so you can help out with the drills. Baseball really is different from soccer, for example, in that one coach and a ball can do useful things. With baseball we need multiple assistants to have real success.
At the Tee-ball level it’s crucial that we have as close to a 1-1 parent-child ratio as possible so that the kids will get the attention they need. You absolutely do not need any baseball knowledge. We just need to maximize quality repetitions in order to teach the basics of fielding, throwing, and hitting. The more the kids learn the more they are going to want to play next year.
We are going to need the following coordinators so please be thinking about these when you come to the meeting.
ASSISTANT COACHES — I plan to have several, so please volunteer.
SNACK COORDINATOR — Someone has to be in charge of who brings snacks after the games — for kids this is a very big deal. The most frequent question during the game is usually, “Hey, what are we having for a snack?”
FUNDRAISING COORDINATOR — This person will deal with all the fundraising needs of the league.
TEAM PICTURE COORDINATOR — This person will deal with sharing pictures and with handling the team photo for the league.
RSVP COORDINATOR — This person will make sure I know who is coming to each game and practice. We’ll have a web site up and running that allows you to easily click YES or NO if you are coming, but we need someone to make sure people click on YES or click on NO.
I’ll look forward to meeting all of you.
Sincerely,
YOUR NAME
Parents Meeting Agenda
Below is a basic agenda that you can cover in the Parents’ Meeting.
As suggested before, a good way to do this is to have a pizza party for all the players and parents. But of course that’s up to you.
- Goal for the Season: Want players to return next year. (This is my goal every year.)
- Coach’s Background: Talk about your background and why you are coaching.
- Schedule: Talk about where games are, when they will be, practices, etc.
- Equipment: Talk about equipment players need — i.e. a glove (bats are usually not needed as they’re provided by the team).
- Practice at home: Talk about what parents need to practice at home — usually some whiffle balls are very good and tennis balls. They can do some of the same drills that the kids will learn at practice.
Volunteers Needed:
ASSISTANT COACHES — Tell them you plan to have several, and ask them to please volunteer.
SNACK COORDINATOR — Someone has to be in charge of who brings snacks after the games — for kids this is a very big deal. Most questions during the game will be, “Hey, what are we having for a snack?”
FUNDRAISING COORDINATOR — This person will deal with all the fundraising needs of the league.
TEAM PICTURE COORDINATOR — This person will deal with sharing pictures and with handling the team photo with the league.
RSVP COORDINATOR — This person will make sure the coach knows who is coming to each game and practice. You can work out how you want to keep track of that.
It’s often a good idea to have a website where people can do that online. Your league may provide one.
If not, there are other solutions out there. For example, you could use Google’s online calendar and having people RSVP to an event you set up. You can learn more about that here.
Or there are other websites that let you set up events and invitations with RSVP capabilities.
Of course, there’s also always just email. You could send out a bulk email to the team and have people respond that way.
Whichever way you choose, it’s often a good idea to have a reminder go out to parents. People get busy and forget to do things like this.
Quick Start Guide
As I mentioned, I’ve created a more detailed Coach’s Quick Start Guide as well as additional email tips to help you get started. It includes a guide on running practices, drills to use, checklists for practices and gamedays, how to handle pregame activities, bench management tips, base coaching tips, and more.
It’s all free. You can get it here.
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