My concern is that kids are learning that your statistics matter more than the team’s. If you go 4-4 and your team loses by 8, you did good. If you go 0-4 and your team wins 3-1, you did poorly. This form of affirmation can only lead to further problems as that player progresses through the ranks and gets to higher levels. I’ve seen this type player in minor league baseball. The team is up by 5, they strike out, they come into the dugout and throw their helmet and break their bat in the hallway because THEY are struggling.
Category Archives: Athlete Development
A curriculum based approach to youth baseball -Part 1
When you drop your child at school, you expect him to learn the things needed to progress to the next level. In school, they call each level a grade. To move on to third grade, you need to show competency of second grade requirements. These requirements are tested and developed with strategies and lesson plans. Parents trust teachers know how to develop those second grade skills. So why are sports different? When a parent drops a kid off at youth baseball practice, how do they know the coach is capable? Teachers go to school for education and continue to learn their craft. Coaches sign a paper and are in charge of such development with possibly no education. It is the wild wild west. Your son or daughter may know as much about the sport at the end of the year as they did to begin. Now, one year older, they move up to more difficult levels. Are they ready?
Improving the way your team prepares
Youth sports continue to grow at an incredible rate year after year. Instead of recommending that kids play multiple sports, we only seem to add more games to the schedule and make it mandatory to stick to one in order to stay in the rat race. More games during the year means more practices, more at bats, more innings pitched. On top of that, it’s getting ridiculously competitive at the youngest levels.
Building your own house
As a coach, I’m drawn to using analogies as a way to describe the complex nature of developing athletes. For some reason it provides clarity finding connections with seemingly unrelated things. On the one hand, coaching athletes SHOULD be simple. We are servant leaders there to help reach their potential, right? As well all know, it’s never that simple. Psychology, anatomy, physiology, kinesiology and communication are some of the many things we need to understand to be effective
Peak Sports Performance 