Posted by: Richard Schenck () on Fri May 31 09:58:45 2002

So, what do you folks think of coaches who have that opinion? I've heard it from two this year, one who is known nationally, and my jaw just about dropped.
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> The thing I've noticed in the past is that the quality of coaching in youth sports is very inconsistent. Some, if not most kids, are never taught proper fundamentals. I've always told my own kids that NO ONE knows their potential, that potential is something one discovers on his or her own, though intensive training and hard work. And also, the "fun" comes after the hard work. Most kids never get to the point of "fun", because of poor adult leadership and poor training, in my opinion.
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> But my daughter has not hit well the past two seasons, still wants to play baseball (there are no women's leagues that I know of, so it means completing with the 13-14 yo boys), and my son has just about lost interest in baseball after two losing, mediocre seasons. (His team managers in the last two seasons ended team practices after about the fourth week of the season, with predictable results.)
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> Maybe my kids don't belong in baseball. But as long as they want to put out the effort, I'll never stop trying to give them the opportunities.
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> Am I wrong?
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> Regards,
>
> Scott B.
Scott

The lack of good youth league coaching is an epidemic. Many kids start to play baseball because its the American thing that parents do with their young. Everyone starts baseball at an early age. Yet very few progress to their potential. Why? Because the coaches are the parents who played to a low level without getting any formal instruction themselves. They can only teach what they know which is very little if anything. The hitting advise they continue to give is atrocious. Go to a practice and the kids get no throwing instruction. I was fortunate enought to have had a father who was excellent at teaching throwing. I loved it and developed a very good arm through throwing throwing and throwing. I became a very good catcher with a very high caught stealing ratio. I was very hungry for the game and the knowledge to learn how to hit. Unfortunately, may father didn't know hitting like he knew throwing. I was all-confernece catcher 2 years in high school with a very average bat. I played DII baseball and was all league one year with a poor bat. I played fastpitch softball and struggled at the plate for several years. I finally learned through 30 years of trial and error and many many mistakes how to hit a lick. I'm now 47 years old and insist on providing my sons better leadership than my generation provided me. It is still difficult with the amount of disinformation given by respected parents/poor coaches. It's time for a revolution of people in the know to take our kids from these well-meaning yet distructive youth league coaches. You had to dig far and wide to come up with quality hitting instruction in the past. The internet is helping but unless the kids find out about it they will turn to some other sport or activity. Hitting is a diffult thing to do. But when my generation was young you could field a youth league team and have a quality defensive player at every position. Each able to throw the ball with authority. Go to a youth league practice today and you won't see the kids throw more than 10 -15 throws and none of them are with good mechanics. There is no distance throwing, no training. The big kid pitches because he throws harder even though he lacks throwing mechanics. Todays coaches, including 95 out of 100 high school coaches are afraid of teaching mechanics. All they do is pick their nine best, put them on the field, and teach them cut offs from the outfield. My oldest son, an outfielder, in 4 years of high school did not have 100 fly balls hit to him. He should have 100 per week if not more. The infielders work out consists of pregame infield practice. They should have 100 ground balls per week if not more. Why do coaches do this? Laziness, lack of committment and fear of failure. For a coach to teach a kid fundamentals he first has to know them. Then he has to teach them. Then they have to be received by the student. And then they have to be game tested. There is a lot of failure on the path to success and only a few people are willing to deal with failure. Very few of them are coaches
For a coach to stick his neck out and say this is the way to do it, teach it, demand it, and then see some kids not progress is common. That failure leads to the coach giving up on the effort he put in rather than accept the fact that the kid just couldn't get it and go on to the next prospect. You have to have a passion for teaching the skills and very few coaches do. It's easier to manage a game and to get good at that than to put the hours in with your kid to make him a better hitter, shortstop, catcher, whatever. They think they can win by hiding their individual faults by being better at the team aspect. Because of this their ship is built on a soft foundation and it collapses when the other team exposes your weakness. Coaching should be more teaching the skills and less managing the game. Who will stand up for the kid????