Making the leap from rec to travel baseball - 11U season

[loshjott]

Fellow youth baseball coaches, I'm hoping this can become a semi-active thread to share hints and suggestions about coaching a new travel baseball team. Myself and a few other dads/volunteer coaches took our 11U sons from our local rec league to start a new travel team. We held tryouts in the fall and did a full winter of indoor workouts, and have a solid squad, but virtually none of the players have experience beyond a rec level. 
 
I'm looking forward to a fun and very challenging season that hopefully will build toward a more competitive team in the next 2-3 years as the kids move toward high school.
 
My first question for more experienced coaches - what is your pre-practice/pre-game routine for stretching/jogging/throwing, etc. How important is stretching vs. light jogging and light throwing? How long does it take to get through the routine? 
 
Thanks!

 

[Doug Beerabelli]

Where are you located?   Are there any local training centers or places where there are people who give lessons or clinics?   In cold and wintry CT, there are a decent amount of indoor facilities run by guys who played fairly high up, and who will offer both clinics and private lessons.   Talk to one of these guys to see if you can bring them in to run a practice, or to work on particular areas in a group lesson setting, or things like that.   Some of these guys will offer coaches clinics.

 

[loshjott]

Yes, thanks. We've done "professional" training all winter and now looking forward to real outside practices. I'm in Maryland where 95% of the time we'd be outside by now but this year we're still digging out...

 

[Rsox4life]

A good rule of thumb is "warm up to loosen up". Don't stretch until you have a little heavy breathing going or some light sweat. It's a good time to work on stealing and getting a lead and base running while you are warming up too. Have a coach act like a pitcher and have the boys get steal jumps on him. Have them go through a throwing progression starting from a knee and working up so they throw with a purpose. So many bad habits are made when kids throw and just go through the motions.

 

[twothousandone]

Our travel baseball program is loosely affiliated with the high school team (a HS assistant coach selects the travel coaches and teams, but with oversight from the volunteer LL staff). The claim is that everyone learns the same things, does the same warm-ups, etc. year after year right through HS,. Perhaps your local HS or Jr. High coach would be willing to at least offer an outline of the warm-ups they do, and you can take it as is or modify it for 11 year-olds? 

 

[loshjott]

Thanks guys, this is all good advice. Actually, it's making me realize maybe I'm not as unprepared as I thought because I'm doing much of this already, including linking with our HS, which is simple because my two older boys played/play there now. Honestly the toughest part may be preparing the parents for the increased level of time commitment from rec to travel. 

 

[DeJesus Built My Hotrod]

Thanks guys, this is all good advice. Actually, it's making me realize maybe I'm not as unprepared as I thought because I'm doing much of this already, including linking with our HS, which is simple because my two older boys played/play there now. Honestly the toughest part may be preparing the parents for the increased level of time commitment from rec to travel. 

 
I am late to this thread but I think the bolded phrase is one of the toughest aspects of a travel sports program.  
 
The other issues that arise in travel, depending on how the team is structured (for profit/paid coaching vs volunteering which is how you are structured) relate to where kids play in the field as well as playing time.  Because travel teams are essentially self-selected groups of avid players, the parents tend to be very passionate about not only the sport but what positions the kids actually play and how much playing time they get.  
 
Youth travel baseball rosters are ideally around 12 or 13 kids so that means two to three kids are sitting even if you bat ten players (extra-hitter or EH).   Add to that that many of the kids who were their rec/LL team's primary SS/P/C and you have a lot of potential for dissatisfaction around positions and playing time.  Our organization is a not-for-profit and the founder is pretty clear that its his way or the highway in terms of positions and playing time. This model works but he isn't the best communicator so we have run into issues with parent expectations from time to time.  My view is that you need to have an equally firm leadership coupled with regular and clear communications about where kids (and parents) should expect to play and how much time they should expect to get.   The latter, of course, will be a function of ability, commitment etc and the degree to which your team weights these things should be communicated as well.  I have made this statement in this forum before but the kids often know where they rank on the team whereas I have seen far too many parents who aren't realistic about their kids' abilities.  Parental delusion is far too common in kids sports.
 
Finally, we have found that for-profit or paid coaching structures tend to fail because parents who can or opt to pay extra either can (or expect to) influence decisions around positions and playing time.  This creates a nasty political environment around something that is, at its best, supposed to be fun and character building for kids.  As such, I think if you want to build a program that is viable for the next few years, I would stick with the volunteer structure.