By Greg A. Marshall
If you are the coach of a youth team (or planning to be one), you should share these thoughts with the parents on your team. You may want to prepare a handout with your coaching philosophies and distribute them at your pre-season team meeting.
Before a parent signs a up a child to participate in a youth sports activity, the parent must answer a couple of questions about the child's role in the activity as well as his own
A. Make sure your child is ready for Youth Sports.
Obviously, this is the most fundamental element of whether you and your child enjoy the youth sports experience. Many children play sports simply because their parents want them to play. Children WANT to please their parents, so naturally they will usually do what their parents wish whether they want to or not.
Ask yourself:
1."Does my child even WANT to play an organized sport?"
2. Is he/she physically/mentally ready for an organized sport?
If the answer to either of these questions is no, it is better to wait until next year, simply because of the level of interest and safety concerns.
B. Assuming your child is ready and wants to play, what must you, as a parent do to help get them ready to play?
Long before the first practice, spend some time in preparation. Begin by making the experience a fun and learning one. The best way is to begin teaching without the child even realizing that he or she is being taught - so it doesn't become "work." For example, to get ready for the baseball season, indulge in the pure enjoyment of "having a catch" with your child. This is great fun for you and your child, and will lay the foundation for many enjoyable hours later on. In "having a catch," you are teaching the proper way to catch and throw the ball. As your child's skill level improves, you (and they) will begin making more difficult throws and catches.
In addition to "having a catch," playing "wiffle ball" is a great (and inexpensive) way to begin developing batting skills. Developing the hand/eye skills necessary for batting is vital to success and satisfaction. Take a moment at the outset to demonstrate the proper grip, batting stance and swing. Don't allow yourself to become frustrated if it takes awhile for your child to grasp the concepts you present. That is the surest way to kill the desire to learn.
Whatever you do, give lots of praise and encouragement when warranted. The surest way to speed up the learning process is to praise when your young player gives solid effort and executes a procedure well. They will work extra hard to earn more praise. If they struggle, take a break, get a treat, and come back later. Sometimes a little time off does wonders.
Greg A. Marshall is the creator of Teeball-To-A-Tee.com, a unique website offering excellent teaching and coaching tools for coaches and parents of very young baseball enthusiasts. The resources on the website are designed for the parent or prospective youth coach who is overwhelmed at the prospect of starting from scratch. The website and materials offered are full of practical advice to help youth coaches from the very first day of practice. http://www.teeball-to-a-tee.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Greg_A._Marshall
Showing posts with label sports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sports. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Bring Out the Best in Your Youth Sports Team by Setting the Example
By Greg A. Marshall
Bring out the best ... in your youth sports team, in yourself, and in your team's parents. So, how do you do this? By setting the example - in the way you coach, the way you think, and the way you behave. We all hear the horror stories of coaches whose bad examples of preferential coaching treatment, poor sportsmanship, and negative attitudes seem to hold sway on youth sports.
But it doesn't have to be that way. You CAN be the coach who sets a positive example in these and other areas. What's more you can lead by example, showing the way for other coaches and parents to see your positive demeanor and honorable character as a yardstick for themselves, perhaps. Even if your behavior doesn't change another coach's style of coaching, at least you will always be able to know that you conducted yourself in an honorable and sportsmanlike manner.
Certainly, if nothing else, you can be the best possible example for your team's players, parents and "extended family." If your players see you as a coach whom they can trust - who conducts himself honorably, and treats the team fairly, they will respond to you better in the long haul. What's more, they will move on from your team and carry some of those attributes to their next team and allow them to develop their own sense of fair play and "best behavior."
This works for parents as well. Those parents who tend to behave poorly during a game will be more likely to temper their behavior if they observe that you keep yourself under control. Even if they don't change their behavior long term, they will generally be motivated to "tone it down" by the rest of the parents on your team "buying in" to your style of coaching. This encourages the parents to be more mindful of their attitude and actions than they might normally.
But the best possible result? It may cause a youngster to stop and think, "I'm going to play fair because my coach does."
And THAT is well worth the effort.
Greg A. Marshall is the creator of Teeball-To-A-Tee.com, a unique website offering excellent teaching and coaching tools for coaches and parents of very young baseball enthusiasts. The resources on the website are designed for the parent or prospective youth coach who is overwhelmed at the prospect of starting from scratch. The website and materials offered are full of practical advice to help youth coaches from the very first day of practice. http://www.teeball-to-a-tee.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Greg_A._Marshall
Bring out the best ... in your youth sports team, in yourself, and in your team's parents. So, how do you do this? By setting the example - in the way you coach, the way you think, and the way you behave. We all hear the horror stories of coaches whose bad examples of preferential coaching treatment, poor sportsmanship, and negative attitudes seem to hold sway on youth sports.
But it doesn't have to be that way. You CAN be the coach who sets a positive example in these and other areas. What's more you can lead by example, showing the way for other coaches and parents to see your positive demeanor and honorable character as a yardstick for themselves, perhaps. Even if your behavior doesn't change another coach's style of coaching, at least you will always be able to know that you conducted yourself in an honorable and sportsmanlike manner.
Certainly, if nothing else, you can be the best possible example for your team's players, parents and "extended family." If your players see you as a coach whom they can trust - who conducts himself honorably, and treats the team fairly, they will respond to you better in the long haul. What's more, they will move on from your team and carry some of those attributes to their next team and allow them to develop their own sense of fair play and "best behavior."
This works for parents as well. Those parents who tend to behave poorly during a game will be more likely to temper their behavior if they observe that you keep yourself under control. Even if they don't change their behavior long term, they will generally be motivated to "tone it down" by the rest of the parents on your team "buying in" to your style of coaching. This encourages the parents to be more mindful of their attitude and actions than they might normally.
But the best possible result? It may cause a youngster to stop and think, "I'm going to play fair because my coach does."
And THAT is well worth the effort.
Greg A. Marshall is the creator of Teeball-To-A-Tee.com, a unique website offering excellent teaching and coaching tools for coaches and parents of very young baseball enthusiasts. The resources on the website are designed for the parent or prospective youth coach who is overwhelmed at the prospect of starting from scratch. The website and materials offered are full of practical advice to help youth coaches from the very first day of practice. http://www.teeball-to-a-tee.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Greg_A._Marshall
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sandlot Baseball.. A Distant Memory.
When was the last time you drove through an American neighborhood and witnesses a group of kids playing a game of pick up baseball?
While I didn’t realize it at the time I consider myself fortunate when I was growing up to have a ball field five minutes walk from my house. When I was a kid I remember riding home on the school bus getting my homework done so I could ride my bike to “The Park” right after I checked in with Mom. During the trip I would prepare myself for the daily selection which determined if you were picked to play with the big kids on the big field or if you were sent down to the so called “minors game” which was played on the grass field with the younger kids. It was baseball until sundown. And when school was over in mid june.. it was baseball sun up to sun down.
Every day you honed your skills and perhaps dealt with the harsh reality that you needed to improve to play with the big kids… and this drove us to improve… on our own… without $45 per half hour instructors and Elite baseball camps. We learned from the older kids, from the pro players we watched on TV, from our little league coaches, from our older brothers. We learned by playing… every day… without parental supervision.
Our neighborhood would challenge other neighborhoods to games. We'd ride our bikes to the visting field and play for bragging rights. The older kids would captain us and would decide who pitched and who played what positions. It had sort of a perfect harmony to it now that I think back about it. We went to bed each night thinking about the next day's game. And if we weren't playing hardball we were playing whiffle ball or pitchback ball.. or countless other baseball related games we made up.
I don’t know when this type of baseball “experience” became extinct in our country but it seems to be long gone. For one, planned neighborhoods generally don’t have a ball field as part of the master plan. In order for most kids to play ball they have to be driven to a ball field. I guess this closed the door on sandlot pickup games and made way for the purely organized baseball life today’s kids experience.
In today’s youth baseball society the adults make the rules, evaluate talent and pick the teams. The kids are merely participants who have no real say over what positions they play or who they play with. Maybe I’m in the minority but I think there’s something to be said for kids picking teams and playing the game on their own. Baseball is a survival sport… back in the day those who fended their way through the maze of peer pressure to be part of a “big kid” sandlot game earned and learned something truly unique.
I wish we as parents would slap ourselves in the face and remember the great life lessons we learned during those pick up games. No.. I don’t want to abolish organized baseball.. but bringing back “kid baseball” as part of the experience would go a long way to help mold and shape well rounded kids with not only baseball skills but life skills.
Coach Bob
http://youthbaseballblog.blogspot.com/
While I didn’t realize it at the time I consider myself fortunate when I was growing up to have a ball field five minutes walk from my house. When I was a kid I remember riding home on the school bus getting my homework done so I could ride my bike to “The Park” right after I checked in with Mom. During the trip I would prepare myself for the daily selection which determined if you were picked to play with the big kids on the big field or if you were sent down to the so called “minors game” which was played on the grass field with the younger kids. It was baseball until sundown. And when school was over in mid june.. it was baseball sun up to sun down.
Every day you honed your skills and perhaps dealt with the harsh reality that you needed to improve to play with the big kids… and this drove us to improve… on our own… without $45 per half hour instructors and Elite baseball camps. We learned from the older kids, from the pro players we watched on TV, from our little league coaches, from our older brothers. We learned by playing… every day… without parental supervision.
Our neighborhood would challenge other neighborhoods to games. We'd ride our bikes to the visting field and play for bragging rights. The older kids would captain us and would decide who pitched and who played what positions. It had sort of a perfect harmony to it now that I think back about it. We went to bed each night thinking about the next day's game. And if we weren't playing hardball we were playing whiffle ball or pitchback ball.. or countless other baseball related games we made up.
I don’t know when this type of baseball “experience” became extinct in our country but it seems to be long gone. For one, planned neighborhoods generally don’t have a ball field as part of the master plan. In order for most kids to play ball they have to be driven to a ball field. I guess this closed the door on sandlot pickup games and made way for the purely organized baseball life today’s kids experience.
In today’s youth baseball society the adults make the rules, evaluate talent and pick the teams. The kids are merely participants who have no real say over what positions they play or who they play with. Maybe I’m in the minority but I think there’s something to be said for kids picking teams and playing the game on their own. Baseball is a survival sport… back in the day those who fended their way through the maze of peer pressure to be part of a “big kid” sandlot game earned and learned something truly unique.
I wish we as parents would slap ourselves in the face and remember the great life lessons we learned during those pick up games. No.. I don’t want to abolish organized baseball.. but bringing back “kid baseball” as part of the experience would go a long way to help mold and shape well rounded kids with not only baseball skills but life skills.
Coach Bob
http://youthbaseballblog.blogspot.com/
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