So this summer, I finally did something I have always wanted to do...
I helped coach a Little League baseball team!
It's always been one of my dreams to someday coach a Little League team of my own, and this past summer I took a step towards that dream by helping out with a local team as an assistant coach. One of my coworkers has a young cousin that was playing this year, and he called up his coach and asked if he needed any help coaching, and he said he would love to have help! so I thought it would be cool to check it out and see how I liked it. Just let me say that I had a blast!
I decided to help coach this year instead of taking on my own team for a few reasons. First, I did not think I could commit to the amount of time required to be a head coach. I travel for work sometimes on short notice, so I didn't think it would be fair to the kids for me to have to miss games or practices if I were not in town. And second, I wanted to gain some experience working with a seasoned head coach so that I could learn the ropes from him. And our head coach this year is a really great guy. I have learned a lot from him about how to teach and interact with the kids just from watching and being around him. It has been a real treat to see the kids respond to his methods and to learn the fundamentals of the game.
So the league is actually called "First Pitch" league, since this level of play is the first year that the kids actually get to pitch to each other. Though, there is a twist to the rules. The coaches pitch for the first 3 innings and then the kids pitch for the last 3 innings. Of course, the kids are kept on pretty strict pitch counts and innings limits so that they don't hurt their young arms. The age group is 7-8 year-olds, so you can imagine that some of these kids have not played very much (if at all), and sometimes they don't even know the basic rules of the game or how to do simple things like throwing and catching the ball. It's amazing the sort of "skills" that you take for granted, and you forget that kids don't know how to do things like catch and throw unless they are taught. And you can really tell which kids have parents that work with them at home, and which kids don't.
While our team was about average in the win-loss department (we won about half of our games I would say), most of the boys are pretty good kids. I enjoyed getting to know them as people even more than I enjoyed teaching them the game. And it was really cool to see them progress throughout the course of the season. Some kids who couldn't even make contact with the ball in early practices were hitting line drives by the end of the year. It just amazes me how much the human brain is capable of learning in a short span.
And in getting to know the kids, you learn their individual personalities and talents. And we had some interesting ones this year! We had one kid whom the coaches called "Charlie Hustle" because he went 110% on every play. We had three boys who showed pretty good pitching talent, so I'm sure we will focus on developing that next year. And we had a few kids who could really hit. One in particular was an absolute masher at the plate. He was even intentionally walked a few times! Naturally, his favorite major league player is Joey Votto.
I think I am going to try to help coach again next year, hopefully with the same team. We plan on keeping this group of boys together for the most part so they can grow and develop together as a team. So I can't wait until next season, when the boys will be another year bigger and stronger. And hopefully, we can teach them even more about the game I love.
I helped coach a Little League baseball team!
It's always been one of my dreams to someday coach a Little League team of my own, and this past summer I took a step towards that dream by helping out with a local team as an assistant coach. One of my coworkers has a young cousin that was playing this year, and he called up his coach and asked if he needed any help coaching, and he said he would love to have help! so I thought it would be cool to check it out and see how I liked it. Just let me say that I had a blast!
I decided to help coach this year instead of taking on my own team for a few reasons. First, I did not think I could commit to the amount of time required to be a head coach. I travel for work sometimes on short notice, so I didn't think it would be fair to the kids for me to have to miss games or practices if I were not in town. And second, I wanted to gain some experience working with a seasoned head coach so that I could learn the ropes from him. And our head coach this year is a really great guy. I have learned a lot from him about how to teach and interact with the kids just from watching and being around him. It has been a real treat to see the kids respond to his methods and to learn the fundamentals of the game.
So the league is actually called "First Pitch" league, since this level of play is the first year that the kids actually get to pitch to each other. Though, there is a twist to the rules. The coaches pitch for the first 3 innings and then the kids pitch for the last 3 innings. Of course, the kids are kept on pretty strict pitch counts and innings limits so that they don't hurt their young arms. The age group is 7-8 year-olds, so you can imagine that some of these kids have not played very much (if at all), and sometimes they don't even know the basic rules of the game or how to do simple things like throwing and catching the ball. It's amazing the sort of "skills" that you take for granted, and you forget that kids don't know how to do things like catch and throw unless they are taught. And you can really tell which kids have parents that work with them at home, and which kids don't.
While our team was about average in the win-loss department (we won about half of our games I would say), most of the boys are pretty good kids. I enjoyed getting to know them as people even more than I enjoyed teaching them the game. And it was really cool to see them progress throughout the course of the season. Some kids who couldn't even make contact with the ball in early practices were hitting line drives by the end of the year. It just amazes me how much the human brain is capable of learning in a short span.
And in getting to know the kids, you learn their individual personalities and talents. And we had some interesting ones this year! We had one kid whom the coaches called "Charlie Hustle" because he went 110% on every play. We had three boys who showed pretty good pitching talent, so I'm sure we will focus on developing that next year. And we had a few kids who could really hit. One in particular was an absolute masher at the plate. He was even intentionally walked a few times! Naturally, his favorite major league player is Joey Votto.
I think I am going to try to help coach again next year, hopefully with the same team. We plan on keeping this group of boys together for the most part so they can grow and develop together as a team. So I can't wait until next season, when the boys will be another year bigger and stronger. And hopefully, we can teach them even more about the game I love.
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