John Saunder's "The Coaches Corner"

Coaches Corner

This article was originally published by John Saunders at the Seven Oaks Park Web Page. The Seven Oaks Park Web Page was the first Dixie Youth Baseball website that I visited and was the catalyst which prodded Mark & me to develop this website. When you visit his site you will see where we obtained the idea for the overall layout of our website. I can't say enough about how nice John was in allowing us to reprint his "Coaches Corner" here. The Seven Oaks Park Dixie Youth Baseball League is located in Columbia, South Carolina. Their phone number is (803) 772-3336 and Fax number is (803) 772-3336. If you like what you see on our site you'll love what John Saunders has done at the Seven Oaks Park Web Page. If you really like what you see e-mail a message of thanks to John at saunders@scsn.net .

Coaching is a privilege. Your kids deserve your best effort.

Once you get to Major A and Dixie Boys A, you will, for the most part, get coaches who have coached before, sometimes for many years, and by and large do an excellent job.

Below the Major A level, in T-Ball, Coaches Pitch, Farm League, and Minors there is, from my observation, great disparity in the quality of coaches. Some are really good. And some, well, I don't mean to hurt anybody's feelings or step on any toes here, while I think all of these coaches (usually Dads) mean well, the simple fact of the matter is that many of them could use some help! There is a big difference between having played baseball (and knowing a lot about the game) and being able to teach baseball to kids. Those are two entirely different things.

I've been coaching since my son was in T-Ball. I'm a much better coach now than I was when I started. I expect in another ten years, I'll be an even better coach. I had a couple of advantages that many beginning youth league coaches don't have. 1) My dad was a high school coach. So, I grew up around coaching as a kid. 2) And one of the really good Major A coaches, Mike Parker, took me under his wing and taught me a lot of what I know about coaching youth league baseball.. What follows are some suggestions for those coaches who would like to be better youth league coaches.

Read books on coaching youth league baseball

Some of the books that have found there way to my bookcase over the years include:

The Little League Guide to Tee Ball ($6.95)

Managing Little League Baseball ($11.95)

Little League Drills and Strategies ($11.95)

Youth League Baseball by Skip Bertman (Head Coach at LSU) ($12.95)

Winning Baseball Drills by Baker & Cole

Baseball Drill Book by Gordon Gillespie and James Peterson ($14.95)

Baseball Playbook by Ron Polk (Head Coach at Miss. State) ($24.95)

Watch video tapes on coaching baseball

Some videos that I can personally recommend are:

Teaching Kids to Play Baseball by Jerry Kindall is an excellent baseball primer. ($19.95)

The Baseball World Instructional Series of tapes are all excellent. ($29.95 each)

The Dusty Baker Hitting Series of tapes is everything you need to know to teach hitting. ($29.95 each)

The Pitching Edge Video by Tom House ($29.95)

I order just about all my books and videos from USA Coaches Clinics at 1-800-COACH -13 and Sykos at 1-800-932-2534. Get in touch with them and get them to send you a free catalog.

Attend baseball clinics:
The best way to learn anything is to hang out with people who know more about it than you do. Four (South Carolina) clinics that I can personally recommend are:

Jerry Martin's Hitting Camp held during the Christmas Holidays. For more information contact Jerry at 749-3177. My son, Link, has attended the past two seasons, and he's a better hitter and I'm a better hitting coach because of Jerry's camp.

The Gamecock Pitcher and Catcher Camp. This year the camp will be January 11-12, 1997. For more information contact Jerry Meyers at 777-7913. After two days at this camp, you will know the basics of pitching mechanics and catching mechanics. You will be exposed to some of the best high school and college baseball coaches in the country. You'll get a bunch of great drills to teach the mechanics of pitching and catching.

The South Carolina High School Baseball Coaches Meeting. Last year it was held at the Adam's Mark downtown in late January. It was a great clinic. Coaches from USC, Clemson, The Citadel, Winthrop, and Virgina Commonwealth University were all there. Having the opportunity to ask questions and discuss pitching mechanics with the Clemson University coaches (I mean these guys had two pitchers drafted in the first round of the amateur draft this summer. So they KNOW pitching!) during one of the breaks was an absolute head-rush for a youth league coach like myself. This year the clinic will be January 17-18, 1997. Contact Coach Eddie Hill of Rock Hill at (864) 981-1300 for more information.

Charlie Assay's Coaching Clinic at BC High School. Youth league coaches from CWC, Pineview, Lexington, Midlands, Seven Oaks were all there. Charlie and his staff do a great job with their clinic geared specifically for the youth league coach. For more information contact Charlie Assay at BC High School.

Before the start of the season, make a list of what you want to teach during the pre-season and during the regular season. Then, once you know how many pre-season practices you've got, schedule your practice time to cover the things that you want to teach. Remember -- Frequent review is very important for the youth league player. I have a Technical Skills Checklist that I get down at the start of every season to plan my practices by for the upcoming pre-season and into the regular season.

Spend time watching the practices of a youth league team with a good coach. Baseball practice is more than hitting infield/outfield and batting practice. You can learn a lot by watching a well-run practice. Watch a lot of youth league games. Teams that are well-coached in practice do the little things in ball games to win. They can execute the bunt play, or bunt defense, or hit the cut-off man, or pull off a double steal. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If you see a team do something that seems to be working better than what you're doing -- Copy it!

When the all-star tournaments start in July, get out and watch how they practice and play. Major A all-stars begin practice July 1 and the games begin about a week later. If you haven't watched any Dixie Youth all-star games, do yourself a favor and see some this summer. Some of these teams are so well-coached, it's scary.