I got my start coaching JV Baseball. Like many of us many times in life I felt I was a better coach than my boss and I felt I knew my team better than my boss. But the fact is I was not the boss. And I never wanted to do or say anything that was going to undermine the boss's ability to actually be the boss of his program.
So what I did was work the heck out of my players. ID what they needed to work really hard on and focus more time on those things. Teach what the HC wanted me to teach. Instill in those players what the HC wanted me to intill in those players. I spoke frequently with the HC and we discussed the players I had. We talked about the needs of the program and where he and I saw the player's future at the varsity level. If that was 1B then thats where I put most of the focus on learning at. If it was multiple posistion's the player played multiple posistions. Etc etc.
I knew which line up and at what posistions these guys were at gave my team the best chance to win. But I also cared more about their development and how that development would give them the best shot and playing when they got to varsity. So my #1 priority was to prepare them for the posistion or posistions that would help them get on the field at the next level "varsity." #2 to teach the game to the best of my ability and prepare them for the next jump in the game "varsity." #3 Instil in them the things that the HC of the varsity was going to want to see them do. #4 Try and win as many games with all of this in mind as I could.
I have seen JV coaches undermine the varsity coach with "winning" being the JV coaches #1 concern. The JV coach is competitive like most coaches. He wants to win. He wants to compete. He wants to have his own team. He wants to build his own team. The bottom line is this is not what the program needs as its priority from the JV program. The JV program is where the players are developed for the next step.
We never won a JV championship. We won multiple Varsity championships with the same players that never won JV championships. Our players got better from year to year. The same guys that were beating us as freshman and sophs we were pounding as Jr's and Sr's. So we must have been doing something the right way.
The JV coaches job is to prepare his players for the next level of play. His job is to do what the HC of that program needs him to do. If Billy is your best mif and playing SS will give his JV team the best chance to win does he play SS? Or does he play CF where he will be the next starter at the posistion the next season when the starting CF graduates and the SS returns for his Sr year? Or does he work at both posistions in practice , play mostly at the posistion he will NEED to play next year CF , while also getting work at SS where he might need to play as a SR , SS?