We could have called this the "You're Not Alone" Survey. What we founding interesting is the number of coaches (and players) who considered the same problems as most important. And while there where definitely shifts in priority as team-ages advanced, there was much common ground among all groups.
Clearly aspects like 'mental' focus mattered more at older ages once the basic physical skill sets are no longer as much of a challenge. But we also noticed some odd shifts. There were times when a teachable skill might become a problem again as players (and coaches) advanced from one age group to the next. There could be other factors but it got us to thinking that it might have something to do with the increased challenges of a jump in field size or other aspects of the geometry of baseball. That is now another Nose 2 Nose in 2005.
The first two pop-up choices below show the difference between what coaches see as tough and what players think their coaches do/don't know or teach well. (You can draw your own conclusions.) The remaining graphs show some of the specific challenges in each skill set.
There were, of course, many other possible tough teaches in each category and a lot of teh comments received focused on those. Perhaps we will do a fllow-up survey in the future including some of these concerns.
Other suggested 'Tough Teaches'...
- How to stay mentally on baseball, knowing the situation, and how to get your team up into the game.
- Teaching game situations
- Getting players to give their best at all times during practice, and in games.
- Parents who try to 'coach' during practice
- How to hit the outside pitch to the opposite field.
- Player motivation and ownership of learning process
- Keeping practices fun but focused.
Comments from voters...
The most difficult thing to teach as a coach is respect. Respect for the opponent, the umpire, the fans and most of all the game itself. With so little discipline in their home/school lives, youngsters come to play baseball with the same 'attitude' and this to me represents, by far, the greatest challenge for most 'non-elite' program coaches. - Bob Shipley
Basic attention span grabbing techniques for my teams (6-8 year olds). I have some fun drills and games, but more always help. Also ways to get them to remember and/or pay attention more. - Len Gilbert
Keeping the travel team together from year to year. There are so many distractions and competition with other sports at this young age (soccer, lacrosse, football, etc) it can be a challenge to keep the kids interested in the offseason. - Scott
One of the hardest things that I have found is the ability to keep all kids active all the time, at practice. #1 getting a good practice field. #2 Knowing which parents/coaches will be there at which time (to help). #3 Planning a practice which invovles all available coaches/parents. Most of the practice schemes I see on webball involve 7 or 8 players. How do I keep 12 players active, with an unknown amount of coaching help at each practice? - Richard Jones
As coaches we can read all the books, watch all the videos and draw from our own playing experiences to help teach our players but there will always be gaps in our knowledge. Personally, my ability to read how the middle infielderss are performing motions at full speed and teaching catchers how to call a game are the hardest. Why? because I have the least experience in those areas so most teams I've been involved with had someone better qualified to coach those areas than I. - Mark Balzer
A pregame warmup ritual to follow every game to be good and loose, to include stretching, surgical tubing stretches, short warmup throwing drills to increase to further distance like on one knee, stride stretch phase to full distance etc. - Jeff latham [Jeff, WebBall is working on this now.]
For me, as a coach, the most difficult thing is dealing with players that do not want to learn or think they already know it all. Teaching/instructing is the easy part, getting the players that struggle to change is the difficult part. Sometimes their unwillingness to change may come from their parents, but the bottom line is the players themselves must have the desire to improve, which includes trying something different if they are struggling. - Ed Sly
For baserunning, I think the hardest thing to coach is situational running, particularly from 2B (especially reading/reacting to fly balls w/less than 2 outs; tag or half way). From an outfield perspective, the hardest thing to teach is routes (both ground & fly balls) and bases to throw to w/runners on. - Ron Moore
I think I run better practices than most I have seen but invariably there are times when drills don't work out like I thought they would. My pet peeve is practices where kids stand around waiting for their turn. Station drills help on this but any specifics that you can offer will help. - Ken Martin [We try.]
The mental part of the game is a huge challenge. Not just teaching kids what to do, but getting them to believe they can and will be successful. They have to know they can hit, throw strikes, make a difficult play before they produce the evidence that they can. - Ken Botelho
Hitting instuction just doesn't seem to stick. I'll spend 30 minutes with a kid and correct his swing and he'll be successful for a while and then two weeks later he's back to his old poor swing habits. Why? - Curt Horning [WebBall: The short answer to 'why' is that brains are getting rewired constantly as kids grow; that combined with growth spurts creates an unstable learning enviroment.]
As a select team coach, I know that dealing with some parents can be difficult. All the players on our team are talented, some better than others. To take a kid who might have played shortstop and convince him and his Dad/Mom that he will be playing in the outfield is sometimes a challenge. - [name withheld, in case one of his parent's reads this]
Backing out of the batters box. There are now tons of restrictions regarding what is allowed. I have tried using soft balls, but most of the techniques my coaches used when I was growing up is now called improper by our league. - Michael Ice [We have yet top see a kid fall over a bucket in practice, but...]
Each year it is a challenge for me to get the kids playing with a good attitude about the game. I have been involved with coaching baseball at all levels and motivation for me has not been difficult. I do understand that it is more daily attitude and game attitude as to winning and losing. I have been very successful over the years and one might say don't fix it, however, I believe in always improving my coaching. I would like to feel somewhat comfortable that I am doing the things that need to be done to be successful, but in recent times feel it is more about how good a player is when he comes to play for me more than what I can and will teach them. I want that competitive edge of never giving up from my players as I feel as a coach. - Coach Augustine [Great answer, coach, I think you have just defined what it truly means to be a coach.]
