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8U Tournament Ball?
by Dave
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
What's all this I hear about 8U tournament softball? Well, I don't know what you've heard. I can only tell you what I've seen which is a few games at a single tournament. But I must say, if you have an eight year old, it is definitely worth looking into.
IntroductionFirst of all, I am aware that some of the big, important fastpitch organizing bodies like ASA and Pony have 8U levels. I can't say that I've ever seen high level play at this age. Actually, I'm not really sure it is worthwhile to seek ought high level play for 8 year olds. I really doubt there is much benefit to be gained from looking to step up your eight year old's game by competing with the best players from around your area or the country.
I had two kids play 8U recreational softball. That was almost as much fun for the parents as it was for the kids. A coach pitched and each side batted through their lineup with the occassional out being made. If a girl overran a base or just kept going all the way around the bases, nobody stopped her even to suggest that she stay in one place for even a moment. At the end of my eight year old's last season of innocence, she proclaimed "this was fun but I wish we played with real rules like 3 outs."
I recently discussed the creation of an 8U tournament team with a fellow who is starting a "travel" program which spans 8U to 18U. I asked him if he ever watched an 8U tournament before. He said no, "but can you imagine how well these girls will play after a couple of years!" I suggested to him that if his goal was to put together a really good 12U or 14U team sometime in the future, when these 8s were that age, his efforts would be wasted if he focused all his attention on making this year's 8U team as good as it can possibly be. If on the other hand, he wanted to provide an opportunity to 7 and 8 year olds to have a rip-roaring good time, by all means, go for it with the 8U team.
The Play8U tournament ball of the variety I've seen is different than other kinds of play for a number of reasons. The most obvious difference is a coach pitches. That's necessary because there are very, very few kids at 8 who take pitching lessons. It is next to impossible to find a kid that young who can consistently throw strikes.
The coach pitches something like 10 pitches to each batter who can either strike out swinging, hit the ball into play, or use up their ten pitches at which point they are out. It is the batting team's coach who pitches to his own team. The defensive team has a pitcher and she is a valid fielder on ground balls but her primary purpose involves something else. When a ball is in play in the field, the play can be brought to an end at any time by throwing the ball into the pitcher. When she has possession of the ball within the pitcher's circle, runners have to go back to the last base they were at unless they are more than 50% of the way to the next one. One of the umpire's primary duties is to ensure that runners return to the correct base. There is usually a run per inning rule so the thing doesn't get out of hand. Typically there are time limits. I do not recall whether there was a game run mercy rule at the tournament I watched but I do not believe there was.
The level of play at tournaments like this can vary quite a bit. Some teams consist totally of 8 year olds who obviously have been practicing quite a bit. They make most routine outs quite easily. They hit the ball fairly hard and run the bases like they know what they're doing. Other teams are far less practiced and rely upon the inning run rule to get their at-bats. There is a full spectrum between these tow extremes.
The girls themselves seem to be having a tremendous amount of fun regardless of whether they are well in the lead or impossibly far behind. All the usual cheers you might expect from an 8U softball team are evident. And if there was one aspect of the game which every single team I saw excelled at, it was those cheers. The fun hardly stops there. If the kids have been coached reasonably well, then they are able to make a few outs, get a few hits and generally be competitive enough to not feel as if they are slaves being abused at the hands of cruel masters.
parentsOne thing I found disturbing at an 8U tournament was the seriousness of the players' parents. If I turned my face away from the field and didn't know the age of the players, I would have thought I was watching an 18U game. They were so nervous and serious that you would have thought their children's futures were riding on the outcome of this game. I'm not sure why they were so tense rather than enjoying this for what it was - a great memory they will forever cherish - but you can't stand in judgment of another person whose kid is out in the field. I would have preferred to hear some laughter or other signs of enjoyment. It was a little too easy to picture the kids of these "sports parents" burning out of fastpitch before they ever saw real quality play.
I urge you to enjoy your kids' softball play at all age levels. Nowhere is this more important than in the 0-9 age range. Take pictures and video and make mental images. You'll never enjoy anything quite as much as you will these years regardless of whether your daughter ever makes a play or gets a hit. This is as fun as life gets. Please enjoy it. Don't get tense. The outcome of a single 8U game or tournament has no bearing on anything else in the Universe.
CoachingI think the key to enjoying this level of the sport is finding the right amount and kind of practice for 8 year olds. I've coached this age group before and it is as tough as any coaching assignment you can imagine. The kids are fairly easily distracted so you've got to keep things moving. You need several stations just like with the big girls and you need to keep the girls moving to new skills at a good pace. But it is definitely the most basic fundamentals which should be stressed. The fielding of a ground ball and basic throwing are skills which should fill most of the practice time. And get parents involved to help you run the various stations.
I think the amount of practices you conduct is dependant on too many variables to list. Two a week for three weeks should allow you to cover the bases. More weeks will make your team better but you want to make sure you have some sort of games so it doesn't become too much of a grind. More than three practices a week seems like it might be excessive. An hour and a half should be just about right. An hour is OK but you won't get through enough skills. Two hours is just too long.
The way I would structure practice is to begin with fundamental throwing drills. I like to work things from the end of the throw backwards. I have all the kids get into three lines and put something in front of them like a lose base. I tell them all to kneel down on the base and throw the ball 15 feet by wristing it - snapping the wrist only. Each kid does 5 - 10 of these and then we move to the next drill - throwing on one or two knees. Then I stand them up and have them straddle the bases they were just kneeling on and throw without stepping. The throwing distance depends on how many practices you've had. I woiuld start with 20 feet and then move back to 25 and so on, ultimately trying to reach 50 feet, perhaps even 60.
At each stage I try to stress sound fundamental throwing skills. If parents can populate the catching part of each of three stations, I spend my time doing the actual instruction. I look for the kids needing the most instruction and work most closely with them but also take time to give pointers to those who need the least amount of instruction.
After these three drills, I have the girls stay on one side of the base with both feet and then step over the base with the front foot while making the throw. Next, we kick away the bases and I have the catcher/parents roll the balls to our girls and have them field an easy ground ball. As practice season progresses, I have the balls rolled progressively harder and then we move out to fielding lightly tapped (hit with a bat) grounders. One good way to do this is to start the girls out in a line at second base. One player moves over to the seond baseman's position, fields a grounder and throws to a parent stationed at first base. Then let them field one at the SS position and throw to first. Then move by third. I haven't identified a first baseman yet so a parent catching the throws keeps practice moving along. After we work on catching ckills, I judge who is the best catcher on the team and regardless of any other needs, this is my first baseman - that's probably the single most important position in 8U ball. After about three or four practices, I have her catch the throws to first and put a parent in back of her just to retrieve the balls.
We work on catching skills by using the same three lines we used with throwing and ground balls. I like to use softees for this so if a girl misses the ball, she won't get hit, hurt, and begin to fear it. You can also use tennis balls to teach catching skills. A lot of what is learned at this age has more to do with seeing a thrown ball than it does with hand-eye coordination of making a catch. A young player needs to see a lot of balls thrown to her before she begins catching them with any regularity.
Within a few practices, some of the girls will begin catching just about anything that is thrown near them. At this point, you can start to have the girls throw to each other. But use softees for the first several times and don't simply line up your girls in two lines and have them throw to each other. You need to be able to supervise more than that allows. Have two sets of girls play catch at a time so you can watch over them. Have plenty of balls so this drill doesn't break down into a game of running after the lose ball. Leave the over thrown ones rolling around the field, you can pick them up later.
After you have gone through a complete list of these kinds of drills, I suggest you set up various stations with a parent at each and perform the same drills simultaneously. Have each girl complete the circuit two or three times before you move to something else, like batting.
Batting practice must be fit into your practices too. Here your emphasis should maybe be a bit less on the perfect stance or swing than it is on just having lots of chances to see a pitched ball and take a hack at it. That brings up perhaps the most important aspect of the offensive 8U game. Whoever is going to pitch in the games should be the one pitching at practice. Believe it or not, all of us forty somethings lob the ball in via a slightly different method. When I coached at 8U, the kids could usually hit off of one particular coach but not the others. That's your pitcher for games! And the pitcher you choose doesn't necessarily have to be the one who pitches slowest - kids don't always hit the slowest pitcher best. If I'm not mistaken, in tournaments, the coach must pitch within a range of distances from homeplate. I believe it is something like 30 - 35 feet. It isn't nearly as easy as it sounds to pitch well from 30 feet to an 8 year old. Coaches who will pitch need as much practice as the kids do!
To conduct a good batting practice, you should have a station for hitting off the tee at which you will work the basics like stance and taking a decent, fairly level swing without spinng your body around like an ice dancer. Soft toss should fit into your regimen as well. Keep in mind that you can use whiffle balls for these kinds of drills and that allows you to use maximum use of your practice space assuming you can get multiple batting tees and parents to help in the cause. Then it's time to move on to "live batting practice." As I said, you want to designate a coach who will pitch in games and have that person do most of your live hitting instruction. &nbs-p; And work towards keeping all the girls involved in practice so they aren't just standing around waiting for their turn to hit. You can run some of your multiple stations for fielding or hitting off the tee, have a few kids in the infield chasing hit balls, and a couple kids out in the outfield with a parent practicing ground balls or weak popups (thrown by parent).
I would suggest you try to get in some inter-squad scrimmaging to give the kids a feel for what the games will be like. Have at least a full infield, including a kid playing the pitcher position. Use live game rules and have the kids run the bases just like they will in games. If you are smart, you can create balanced practices for your 8U tournament team which will be almost as much fun as the games.
If you are setting out to coach an 8U tournament team, I suggest you figure out exactly how much practice time you have and then structure a complete practice season intended to cover all the basic skills and leave enough time for 3 full scrimmages before you get into a tournament. The early practices will mostly consist of throwing and defensive drills with just a little time for batting - perhaps none at the first practice. You'll want to take the most time with the drills you do first and then as you get into practice number 2 or 3, you'll see that you need progressively less time for these drills, leaving you more time for drill sets number 2 and so on. Eventually, you'll get through all the drills including basic batting off the tee within the first hour of practice leaving you a half hour for scrimmaging. Then you'll break up the drills into stations and be able to fit perhaps 45 minutes of scrimmaging into an hour and a half practice.
Finally, if you coach an 8U tournament team, please do not set out to make these girls into the best they can be or try to set them up to bve really great when they are 10, 12 or 14. The best you can hope for with girls this age is that you improve their fundamental skills a bit and make them want to play again next year.
ConclusionAnd if you are the parent of a 7 or 8 year old kid who has just been approached about the possibility of participating with a tournament team, don't worry that things will be too serious. 8U tournament ball is not a miniature version of 18U tournament ball. It can be a tremendous amount of fun assuming the coaches and other parents have their hearts in the right place. If you need to get in the right frame of mind, go watch a game in which your kids are not playing. That's what drove it home to me.Labels: youth tournament teams
 
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