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Parent Seeks Softball Coach For Child
by Dave
Thursday, January 19, 2006
 Unless your daughter's t-ball team has a girl on it whose father is Mike Candrea and he's coaching the team, if you are going to get serious about softball, at some point you are going to seek out private coaching. Even if mom is a four time all-America player or dad did a stint with the Baltimore Orioles, getting someone from outside your immediate family will probably be in your daughter's best interests. Let's face it, kids just don't listen all that well to parents to begin with, but when it comes to a highly technical skill like diamond sports, that statement manifests itself in ugly ways. But if you have come to the conclusion that you need to find a private coach, what are you to do? The purpose of this piece is to discuss some of the common sense approaches to finding a coach and starting a private coaching relationship.
The type of coach you seek and the amount of money you should expect to spend varies with a girl's age, skill level, and your ultimate goals. If your daughter is 13, she has already played travel ball for 3 years, and you are trying to get her aligned so as to obtain a college scholarship, your approach is obviously going to be different from the parents of an 8 year old graduating from t-ball into a 10U rec league. My hope is that if your 13 year old is that experienced, you probably don't need to be reading this. But if you still need guidance, breeze through the first few paragraphs of this and work your way down to the end.
Beginner LessonsIf your daughter is just graduating from t-ball or has played just one year in a soft-toss junior rec league, the first thing I would advise you to seek out is a batting clinic. I say soft-toss not because many leagues encourage something short of real windmill pitching but because at the first level of town recreational ball, real pitching is often not frequently found. I suggest batting as the first kind of instruction because hitting the ball well enhances your daughter's experience of the game and encourages her to move on to other skills. Perhaps your league offers batting clinics as part of the overall program. Unless your league is better than the typical one, these are probably not very good. often these are taught by well-meaning but misguided fathers who teach hitting the way they learned it - in a manner not suitable for eventually facing fastpitch windmilling. Those who are not all that experienced in methods of hitting fast pitching teach girls to cock their back arm up or take big, aggressive steps before swinging. You can't blame these well-meaning pseudo-coaches, that's the way they were taught. Instead of relying on parent-volunteer, league coaches, check the local batting cage businesses to see if they offer clinics for girls your child's age. If they do, give them a try. But don't expect huge benefits because these are often only marginally better than the league clinics.
Your local batting cages probably sponsor hitting clinics with fairly large classes. These should cost you about $20 for each one hour of lessons. You need to observe what is going on in class to decide if you want to continue with the clinic so be prepared to stay. This is not your free hour to run and get your dry-cleaning. Softball lessons are not a modified form of baby-sitting so you can be freed up for a while. Make sure you judge whether your kid gets enough attention, that the instruction is reasonably good, and that your daughter is having fun. If your daughter is lost in the shuffle, if the instructor his or herself seems to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of kids, if your daughter is not kept on task by someone using means other than yelling, this is probably not something you want to stick with.
Lest I forget, often these clinics lead you to believe that you must sign up for eight or ten weeks. If you ask enough questions, I believe you will find that they will allow you to participate on a trial basis - you can attend the first lesson and see if it is for you. Some clinics will not allow this and I could tell you to shy away from them. But really what I advise is to at least ask if your daughter can participate on a trial basis. If she can, take advantage of this.
Aside from being able to function OK as a batter, the way to softball enjoyment at early ages involves several basic skills like throwing and fielding. If you ask questions of other parents or the instructors at the batting cages, you will probably find general clinics for more basic skills. Give these a try and see if your daughter makes any progress. These should involve groups of girls and will probably cost about the same as the group batting instruction.
Advanced BeginnerOnce you have reached the limits of what you can get out of group instruction, it is time to start considering what's available in terms of private instruction. Make no mistake, one on one instruction is the best way to really improve. Most likely you will hear discussions about private instructors while sitting in the stands watching games or while you are shuffling your feet at group instruction. When you hear such discussion, pay attention and even go over and ask these folks questions. Nobody is more willing to talk about lessons than somebody whose kid is in lessons with a good coach. Sometimes local batting cages will offer private lessons. Ask them. Also, those wishing to find pupils to teach often advertise in the classified or community section of your local paper. Give some of these a try if the price seems reasonable enough but be prepared to seriously evaluate the cost-benefit relationship. Your daughter will not get lost in private lessons the way she might in group instruction. But if the teacher is not a good fit, she may not enjoy it as much. If you are going to pay top dollar, you want her to enjoy it and improve quickly (at least at first).
Private lessons cost much more than clinics. You can expect to pay anywhere from $15 per half hour to over $50. The lower end is somewhat rare but I'll get to that. Generally fixed places of business have huge overhead costs so they typically charge more for private lessons. From what I have seen, the going rate for private lessons at a fixed place of business is around $30 - 60 per half hour session. The cheapest are not usually the best but sometimes you can find tremendous bargains.
One way to find a reasonably inexpensive private coach is to solicit high school players in your area. I hope you take the opportunity to catch a high school game or two with your daughter. I've said often that watching high school ball is a great way to enhance a girl's enjoyment of the sport and learn a little about the pace of the game when it is played well. If you do get the chance to see local high school games, take note of whether there is someone from your immediate neighborhood who plays. Then ask them if they would be interested in teaching your child some basic skills for money. If you don't recognize anyone, approach the coach and ask. If that doesn't seem to be a possibility, check to see if the local high school offers clinics - many do. If they do, sign your daughter up and when she goes to it, stay and look around for girls who seem to be really good instructors. After the clinic, approach one and ask her if she is interested. Give her your phone number if she says no just in case she changes her mind. At one of these clinics, you should be able to approach a high school coach and ask her if she knows of anyone. By now hopefully you have found a couple people interested.
Keep in mind that these girls practice a lot so making money for the little things in life is not something they get much chance to do. Besides, teaching someone the skills of a sport they love already is a far better option than slinging burgers at McD's or stocking shelves at Wal-Mart. But do yourself a favor, don't try to take advantage of a high school girl's lack of business experience. Offer her at least double the minimum wage or the current rate for baby sitting. Ask her if she would do it for $15 or $20 per hour. You'll never be able to find decent coaching for less than this. If she wants more, you may have a very wise teenager on your hands and maybe you ought to stay clear of her. If she agrees to say $20 per hour and you are extremely pleased with the instruction she gives your daughter, don't be afraid to tip her by handing her a $50 every now and again because you "just don't have anything smaller." To be clear, give her a tip, if she is good at coaching your kid. The relationship you forge with this teenager could result in your girl enjoying the sport far beyond your wildest dreams.
Intermediate LessonsMy choice of Beginner, Intermediate, etc. is really arbitrary. When I say beginner, I mean somebody who has never experienced even group lessons before. The "intermediate" level in this context does not really mean lessons for an intermediate player. What I mean is lessons for someone who is somewhat serious about softball, probably beginning to play travel ball, and knows they want real softball instruction. Here you need to use your growing network of softball friends. While you are suffering through three-games-a-weekend-day under the hot sun, take note of the best girls you see on your kid's team and ask the parents if she has ever had any private lessons. Ask them about the instructors, why they think their kid has benefited so much from it, and how much they pay. This is probably all you really need to do to find high quality instruction and you can stop reading this now!
When you began experimenting with private lessons, I told you to find a coach who enhances your child's enjoyment of the game. Early on you must find someone who makes it fun. And this remains true at the "intermediate" level but there is one modification. What you are looking for at this point is somebody who makes it fun AND makes your daughter want to work harder at the game. This is tough to put into words but suffice it to say that some coaches make a student want to practice lots more than others. The really good coach makes it all part of a bigger game where the winner is the kid who improves the most. Good coaches feed off of kids who are working hard at their game. I once watched a coach who drove my kids like sled-dogs in a pitching instruction. I wondered what my kids thought of this experience and when I asked them, I was pleased to find that they really liked it. She could get ten times more out of my kids than I could ever hope to and make them think it was fun while they were being treated like slaves.
Along this same vein, I have an observation I would like to put forth. You don;t have to agree with me on this point. I won;t take offense if you think I am wrong. It has been my observation that when it comes to working girls hard to improve their game, female coaches have an advantage over men. I don;t know why exactly this is but I postulate that it has to do with the types of relationships girls have with other girls vs. the types they have with males. Girls just seem to be more willing and able to push other girls than men can or do. Men can make excellent softball coaches (eg. Mike Candrea) and many are quite good at getting girls to work hard. But my observation is that more girls are able to get more girls to work harder. Take it for what it's worth.
When you decide to go for a "real coach" for your "intermediate lessons," after you are sure your daughter is having fun and working hard, you want to see the logic in the skills her coach is teaching her and in the instructional progression. Fundamentals are always something you want to see. Heck, world class athletes spend incredible amounts of time doing what we might think of as basic skills like hitting off a tee, fielding slow grounders with good form, or breaking down throwing or pitching motion into the most basic steps. But along with an emphasis on fundamentals, you also want to see more advanced skills being worked in periodically. Any kid will get bored with doing the same thing over and over again even just once a week or every other week. A good coach will use fundamentals as a springboard to other skills rather than a fence with which to enclose your daughter.
Also, you want to see your private coach teaching elements of the game beyond the mere skills. If you are going for batting instruction, you want to see your coach discussing mental aspects of hitting in between drills. If you are going for pitching instruction, you want your coach to discuss a bit about what it feels like to be standing in the circle in an important game and how your daughter might approach pitching a big, tough hitter or a really good team. If the instruction is general or positional (other than pitching), you want to hear your coach talking about how to deal with tough situations or other things along those lines.
The cost of "intermediate" private lessons will tend to be on the upper end of the $15 - $50 per half hour scale. It all depends upon your ability to find a coach with whom you and your daughter are comfortable and who gives you what you are looking for. If you can't afford these prices, I suggest holding back and focusing on the high level camps which can be found at many colleges. There is no reason to make yourself poor and crazy because you can't afford the one good coach you are able to locate. Instead plan what your budget can afford and look into the better camps.
Advanced LessonsI explained "intermediate" so let me do the same for "advanced." When I write about advanced lessons, I mean you have already experienced real softball instruction from a good instructor and now you are looking to take it to the next level because you expect your daughter has a real shot at making an "A" travel team, competing at the PONY nationals, and maybe even obtaining a college scholarship to play softball. I recently spoke to someone who sought out a coach to teach a girl who wanted to become a high quality catcher. She had been to some camps at a Division I university and decided to contact the head coach of the University team to get her input. The coach responded to her question by asking, "would you consider using me?" That's right, the head coach of a major softball program at a Division I university was willing to coach her daughter who was just in junior high. And she is now coaching her for a very reasonable rate.
College coaches are an excellent resource for locating good coaching. They are tuned into a whole network of top level coaches. If they aren't interested in doing the actual coaching, they may know that a member of their staff is interested in coaching children. And if nobody on their coaching staff is looking for pupils, they may still be able to tell you who the best coaches in your area are. I would suggest carefully crafting an e-mail to a coach explaining what your daughter's level is, what you are looking for in coaching and what your goals are. Don;t rattle off a message filled with spelling errors and ramblings about your darling daughter or your desire to make her into the next Michele Smith. Take your time and write it like you were writing to your most difficult high school or college English teacher. Keep it brief but say what you want to say. Don't specifically ask if they are interested in coaching your kid. Ask them for advice and if they are interested, they will let you know.
Finally, whether you are looking for a way to stretch your budget or if you are seeking really top level coaching, take a scan through the internet and seek out the numerous softball camps most universities offer. Almost every college or university, from junior colleges to Div. I WCWS teams, has a softball camp of some sort. Find a school which is competitive in at least its league and hopefully one which is known to have good coaching. Sleep-away camps are fine if your daughter is mature enough to handle it. I think 13 is a good age to give that a try. Before that age sleep-away is probably a little too ambitious.
Look for camps which specialize in the type of skills you want your daughter to learn. If your daughter is interested in playing short or third, find a camp that breaks infielders and outfielders apart most of the time. if it is pitching instruction you seek, find a camp which has routinely drawn top pitchers. Whatever you do, make sure and check the reputation of whatever camp you send your kid to.
ConclusionSoftball players are made not born. There is some degree of natural skill as you can't teach someone to break 5 seconds in a 40 yard dash but you can teach good sprinting form. You can't teach a windmiller to throw above 60 mph but you can teach her to get the most speed possible out of her body and how to get motion and hit targets. You can't "teach" world class hand-eye coordination but you can improve it. Great coaching is the key to not only improving one's game but also enhancing one's enjoyment of any sport. Unfortunately you will not find many great coaches in little league clinics or even travel ball. Besides, if you want your daughter to really improve, she is going to need one on one instruction at some point. The key to success in this regard is you, the parent, using your God-given brains and working hard to find a high quality coach who is an appropriate fit for your daughter.
Permanent Link: Parent Seeks Softball Coach For Child
 
Softball With A Triple-Shot Of Espresso?
by Dave
Monday, January 16, 2006
I like Espresso. I like softball. So anything that purports to combine the two just has to be good. That's what attracted my attention to an article in the Auburn (California) Journal. But what the heck is arena softball?
According to ArenaSoftball.com, the game is played on a field with regulation infield encircled with a tight net which causes balls to careen all over the place. there is only 40 feet of outfield so every fielder can throw runners out. There are no foul balls - everything remains in play - so no long boring innings of waiting for a batter who keeps fouling them off.
According to the article in the Auburn Journal, the variety played there provides for scoring for both the offensive and defensive teams - runs are scored in the normal fashion but the defensive team gets a half point per out. There are homerun panels in left and right center. Everything else is in play - and rather than 3 outs, each team gets 16 pitches per offensive turn. Players get 7 to 10 at bats per game but then again, you don't get to work the pitcher since your side only gets 16 pitches.
The game was invented by Sacramento's Greg Joseph who has a patent pending on the new sport. It is very obviously a fast game which provides the opportunity to stay in shape in the off season but is quickly drawing attention in its own right.
If you have any information about arena softball you'd like to share, please e-mail us and we'll be happy to publish it.
Permanent Link: Softball With A Triple-Shot Of Espresso?
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