Pray for Rain

The June, 2007 edition of Pediatrics, the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, has an article that every coach and parent should read about the risks of and treatments for a child’s physical injuries from overuse and overtraining….and their mental injuries from burnout. The article is written by a pediatrician for the benefit of other pediatricians, but it’s easy to read and informative for lay readers as well. Full Citation: Overuse Injuries, Overtraining, and Burnout in Child and Adolescent Athletes, Joel S. Brenner, MD, MPH and the Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness, PEDIATRICS Vol. 119 No. 6 June 2007, pp. 1242-1245 (full text / PDF version).

The bottom line is that kids should take a break from practice and training. Some of the specific guidelines are to:

•   “[Provide players] at least 1 to 2 days off per week from competitive athletics, sport-specific training, and competitive practice (scrimmage) to allow them to recover both physically and psychologically”;
• “Advise athletes that the weekly training time, number of repetitions, or total distance should not increase by more than 10% each week (eg, increase total running mileage by 2 miles if currently running a total of 20 miles per week)”; and,
• “Encourage the athlete to take at least 2 to 3 months away from a specific sport during the year.”

The article is a terrific resource. If you’re running a team or a league, you might want to copy it and distribute to all of your coaches and parent.

This post sponsored by SailModel.Com.

So here’s a quick and easy way to get your kids moving, running and having more fun at practice (see Thursday’s post ;-).

Start with any “line-up drill” — you know, these are the ones in which you ask the kids to ‘line-up’ and take turns doing something — but use two lines, with one coach or parent running each line. Make the lines parallel to each other but about thirty feet apart. Rather than asking each player to go the back of his or her own line after their turn, tell them to go to the end of the other line. This keeps the team in constant motion, reduces the time they have to wait, and gives them the opportunity to learn from each coach.

This post sponsored by Gizimo.com.

When I first started coaching five years ago, it never would have occurred to me to run high energy practices — for five- and six-year olds — but this year I noticed that the more I worked the kids at practice, the more fun they had. Somewhere around the mid-season point this year, I ran a practice that started with us running the bases, then running the perimeter of the field, and then moving immediately into a series of fast-moving drills that had the kids constantly in motion. At the end of the hour, not only did they want to keep practicing, but they were grinning as they asked for more drills and more running games.

I’ll spend more time on this idea of “high energy practices” as I write up a few additional model practices for this website. My experience this year has definitely changed the way I think about practices.

This post sponsored by Wondrous.com.

I’m sure the idea of “negative attention” is a very old one for school teachers, and perhaps many parents, but as a baseball coach, I first learned this a few years ago when I was conducting batting drills with one of my players. Here’s the story.

One day when one of my assistant coaches was running fielding drills with the team in the main field, I decided I would pull one kid at a time to work on hitting. Each kid would hit 10 balls from a T into a chain link fence, and I would work with him or her on the proper stance and swing. I told them that they each would “get to hit 10 balls cleanly from the T.”

When it came time for my best hitter to take his swings, he appeared to be in a deep baseball funk. His bat struck the T time after time. He couldn’t seem to get his swing right. His feet were in the wrong position. His bat wasn’t even coming close to the ball. I was stunned. In the games, this was my best hitter…by far. Why was my coaching making him worse? After spending 10-15 minutes with this one kid (all the others averaged about 3-4 minutes), I told him that I was going to have to move on to the next batter. I gave him three more swings, but “Even if you hit the T,” I told him, “I need to move on.”

BAM! BAM! BAM! Three of the best hits from anyone all day.

I’m not sure whether he was conscious of it or not, but he obviously had been playing me for the extra attention. Looking back on it, it was almost sweet. This terrific 7 year old kid, who didn’t have a father at home, had been messing up to get extra time at the plate…and extra time with the coach.

It’s a lesson I’ve tried to remember.

This year, at the very last game, I assigned the kids’ their fielding positions for the inning (in T-Ball, we rotate positions every inning) , and I asked them to run out to their positions after we counted to three. “1-2-3, Angels!” All of the kids ran out but one girl lingered behind…and told me that she didn’t know where shortstop was. Could I please take her there? I was sure she was seeking attention, so I told her that if she didn’t know where shortstop was, after an entire season of 12 games, she needed to stay in the dugout. She ran straight to shortstop.

What’s the lesson here? What these experiences have taught me is that the kids really crave attention from the coaches. And while each of the coaches with whom I have ever worked has been happy to give that attention, it’s important to give it at the right time and not at the expense of the other kids. When my best hitter wanted extra hitting attention, I asked his mother to bring him to practice early, or stay with him late after practice, so we could work a bit one on one. And I heaped praise on my lost shortstop after she came in from the field. I’ve tried to listen to what the kids are really saying though, despite what their words might suggest.

This post sponsored by sailmodel.com.

“Angels!”

This year I’m coaching T-Ball again. I forget where I read it, but one of the baseball books I read during my first year of coaching reported that 5- and 6-year olds have a three minute attention span. This is important to remember during the slow parts of games. Here’s an easy trick I adopted to bring them back to baseball.

Before every practice and game, and at the end of every practice and game, I ask the team “Who are we?” And the kids shout the name of our team. After a few times, they grow accustomed to the question and know what to do what I say “Who are we?”

So now during the games, when I want to keep the kids from catching bugs or building dirt castles in the infield, I ask the question “Who are we?” It’s better than shouting instructions or reminding them to pay attention.

This week is all about getting the kids ready for their first game. Half of the team played, those experienced 6-year olds, played T-Ball last year, but for the other half, this may be their first time in a game situation of any kind. So far, our practices have consisted of drills, but no game simulations. That changes today.

Here’s the schedule for Week 3’s Practice….

4:00-4:10. Name Game, Stretches, Warm-ups and Base Run. This is the last week we will run the “name game” at the start of practice. Most of the kids know each other by now, so we’ll make this time shorter than usual. We’ll follow the name game with a few minutes of stretching, some light calisthenics, and a “snake run” around the field. (In the snake run, I run in crazy loops and turns, and they run behind me, following my path. At this age, the “snake run” is a game; they don’t realize they’re running laps and exercising!)

4:10-4:30. Simulated Game. We have ten players on our team. For this session of practice, I’ll divide the group into two equal sides, 5 and 5. On the defensive side, we’ll have a pitcher, first-base, second-base, shortstop, and third-base. No outfield. I’ll use some of the older siblings or parents who attend practice to shag balls hit to the outfield. The other five will bat around twice and run the bases. In this simulated game, I only ask the defensive players to do one thing: field the ball and throw it to first base.

4:30-4:35. Water and Bathroom Break.

4:35-4:40. Base-Running Tag / “Monster” Game. This is a repeat from last week, but the kids always love it.

During the games, we want the players to move from home plate to first base, and base to base after that, as fast as they possibly can. This game of “tag,” or the “monster game” as we sometimes play it, uses home plate and the bases as safety zones and everything in the base paths as places whether the player can be “tagged”…or gobbled up by the monster. I’ve found that this game is fun for the kids, regardless of their ages or abilities, and teaches the youngest kids the principle that they need to get to the base, their safety zone, as soon as possible.

4:40-5:00. Hitting Game. I’ll place cones at various distances away from home plate. The closest cone will be 1 point (to play with older kids, call it a “single”), the second cone will be 2 points (”double”), the third cone will be 3 points (”triple”), and the fourth cone will be 4 points (”home run”). Each child will hit two balls off the T, and we’ll keep score as a team, week to week. I like this game because the only thing we track is the team’s point total. As we play this game again at various times during the season, the kids can measure their progress. We usually double the team’s first score within 6 weeks.

5:00. End of practice. As we do every week, we’ll end each practice with a short review of what we learned and some things to practice during the week.

After Practice Note: Most weeks, whenever I’m not pressed to get home or head back to the office, I stay around practice an extra 15-20 minutes to let anyone who wants to do so take extra batting practice.

Anytime I coach one of the instructional divisions of Little League, I try to make sure that each child plays every position a couple of times during the season. At the beginning of the season, however, I only play the most experienced players at First and Second Base. This isn’t a competitive issue; it’s a safety issue. Children who haven’t learned to react to a quick throw to the base are just as likely to have the ball hit them in the face as land in their glove. By the fourth or fifth week of the season, everyone is usually ready to play any of the hot positions of the infield. Over the course of a season, it all evens out.

I’m sure there are many alternatives for creating online team calendars, but for the last couple of years, I’ve used Trumba. I create the calendar and update it as necessary, and the parents can subscribe to it and receive email alerts about upcoming events and schedule changes. It makes the life of the coach or team parent much simpler.

In our league, each coach is responsible for creating a team banner. For most teams, it means collecting money from the parents and ordering a banner from one of the many online shops. (I’ve used both Banners USA and Zaavy.com in the past, with good results.)

One year though, I didn’t get my act together in time for opening day and ended up buying a large canvas tarp from Home Depot and a set of brightly colored water-based paints. I painted the team name in the middle. Then each child painted his hand, made a hand print on the canvas, and painted his name below the print. It may have been the best banner of all. The kids had a great time doing it, and the costs came in substantially below the cost of a ready-made banner.

This week is my team’s second official practice. As I did last week, I thought I’d blog my tentative outline for tomorrow’s practice. For the parents on my team, this should help you follow what we’ll be doing, and for those of you reading from elsewhere in these United States, I hope it gives you some ideas for things to do with your own children.

Here’s the schedule for Week 2’s Practice….

4:00-4:05. The Name Game. The kids are still learning each other’s names. In this game, the kids gather in a circle, facing each other. I move around the circle and, in turn, place my hand about six inches about each child’s head, who then jumps up, hits my hand and shouts his or her name. Two or three times around the circle, sometimes in order, sometimes at random, and the kids usually have learned their teammates’ names.

4:05-4:10. Stretches, Warm-ups and Base Run. Little League emphasizes the “Three Fs”: fun, fitness and fundamentals. We’ll try to get all three in during this short set of stretches and calisthenics.

4:10-4:20.”Goalie.” In the “goalie” drill, I’ll place two orange cones about ten feet apart and ask a player to stand between them, as “goalie,” while I roll balls toward the space between the cones. The job of the “goalie” is to block the ball with his or her glove, or body, and keep the balls from going through the “goal” framed by the orange cones. Each player will be asked to block 10 balls. If we have extra volunteers from the ranks of the parents, we’ll run two “goalie” stations at the same time, so the kids can have extra repetitions and won’t have to wait as long for their turn. This drill teaches the player to keep the ball in front and not let it pass, even when the ball isn’t fielded cleanly.

4:20-4:30. “Alligator” / Fielding Ground Balls. Just like last week, I’ll teach the kids the proper technique for positioning themselves to receive and field a ground ball. Most of the training manuals refer to this position as “alligator,” where the glove hand is the bottom jaw of the alligator and the bare hand is the top jaw. Bring the jaws together on the ball. We’ll break up into teams of two and have the kids roll and field the ball in pairs.

4:30-4:35. Water and Bathroom Break.

4:35-4:40. Base-Running Tag / “Monster” Game. During the games, we want the players to move from home plate to first base, and base to base after that, as fast as they possibly can. This game of “tag,” or the “monster game” as we sometimes play it, uses home plate and the bases as safety zones and everything in the base paths as places whether the player can be “tagged”…or gobbled up by the monster. I’ve found that this game is fun for the kids, regardless of their ages or abilities, and teaches the youngest kids the principle that they need to get to the base, their safety zone, as soon as possible.

4:40-4:50. Hitting. We’ll review the proper batting stance, how to select an appropriate bat, and safety rules for using bats in games and at practice. Each player will hit 10-15 balls off the T.

4:50-5:00. Hitting Game. I’ll place cones at various distances away from home plate. The closest cone will be 1 point (to play with older kids, call it a “single”), the second cone will be 2 points (”double”), the third cone will be 3 points (”triple”), and the fourth cone will be 4 points (”home run”). Each child will hit two balls off the T, and we’ll keep score as a team, week to week. I like this game because the only thing we track is the team’s point total. As we play this game again at various times during the season, the kids can measure their progress. We usually double the team’s first score within 6 weeks.

5:00. End of practice. As we do every week, we’ll end each practice with a short review of what we learned and some things to practice during the week.

After Practice Note: Most weeks, whenever I’m not pressed to get home or head back to the office, I stay around practice an extra 15-20 minutes to let anyone who wants to do so take extra batting practice.