This much is clearly obvious when coaching, you will make tough decisions. What needs to be most obvious is that those decisions needs to be focused on what is best for the TEAM. When any decision is being made the coach must always be concerned with what is best for his team in the short term and try to balance it with what is best for the long term. I have faced this recently with the Legion program that I am coaching. As a coaching staff we need to narrow the squad down to 16 or 17 players for this summer. The difficulty comes from the process or narrowing this number down. First off tryouts were clearly more difficult than I had thought. Getting a good look at players in the field as well as at the plate is a difficult thing to do with only a couple of hours to spare. Decisions need to be made and I find myself dreading the idea of telling a player that he is not good enough to play on my team after only seeing him for 4 hours and potentially 40 swings again...
As much as the team struggled, slogged, and lost throughout the season I knew that if we played our best heading into the playoffs that we had a great chance to compete and challenge the higher seeds in the playoffs. It wasn't easy to get to this point in the season, but I believe that the team is peaking at exactly the right moment. After coaching for a couple of seasons I find myself being more and more honest with the ability of players on each of my teams. I feel that when the season breaks and the teams head into the grind of the year it becomes pretty clear whether the team has talent or not. From the get go with the Junior Legion team that the talent was there. The key would be putting it all together. One of the biggest obstacles that the team had to overcome was something that I did not anticipate at all, staying focused, positive, and alert. Throughout the season the team struggled to put together big wins sometimes falling 1-2 plays short of victory. Throwing strik...
Happy Monday everyone hope that everything is going good! Today's thought includes looking at building a sports program from the bottom up. I know the occasionally I like to focus on struggles that I am encountering and share them with everyone. As an assistant coach I find it difficult sometimes to try to fit in or find my way. This isn't a social thing but more of a finding where you fit in the team or coaching "tree." For instance I find that when varsity coaches are looking at their team they seem to put a greater emphasis on the varsity level (Often times rightfully so). Especially early in the season this is a great time for all three levels to really get acclimated to the whole program. Whether that means learning or reviewing tactics or schemes or even plays that might pop up. This might be valuable time for senior or even upper class men to show or teach the underclassmen different things. (Hopefully this goes beyond the field and relates to them perso...
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