Flaw of HS coaches and why their programs don't win

I can provide an opposite approach. Sometimes coaches end up in their state baseball Hall of Fame without having any real coaching skills. They have what I call one year of coaching experience twenty-five times over.

They're in large classification programs with so much talent streaming through they  can’t fail. I played for a coach like this soph year of high school before moving away. He made wrong decisions on who should start. It just didn’t matter. The Legion (no travel then) coach corrected who should start.

In the high school my kids attended it was a large classification high school that sucked in most sports for years. The parents owned the coaches. Who knows what went on behind the scenes.

A new AD came in, fired all the lackeys and developed winning programs in every sport. The new coaches were scouting talent and making sure future potential high school players were on a developmental track going back when they were twelve years old. One of the new coaches sales jobs was convincing quality athletes they didn’t need to leave for privates and Catholics anymore.

So, I think I understand where you’re coming from.   Sorry, I can't narrow it down to just coaching flaws...it is much more than that.   My two oldest sons went to a different high school that was perennially a .500 team while my youngest son’s team was always making a deep run into the state tournament.   The difference in coaching was dramatic as was the available talent at each program.  It was as difference of night and day and it was very obvious.   Here is a small list on the major differences I observed.

• Expectations – As I mentioned above, the expectation for the very good team was to make a deep run into the state tournament. The players felt it, and they did not want to disappoint their coach or teammates.  The average high school team knew they weren’t going anywhere in the post season so it became all about padding your stats to make all-metro honors at the end of the season
• Playing time competition – For the very good high school program it was very much like a college team. If you were a starter, you were under intense pressure to produce and not make mistakes.   The coach had the benefit of always having a deep bench and player options.   I saw kids get pulled for missing their 3^rd base coach signals.   There was accountability.  Your head was in the game or you were out of the game.  The average high school team did not have a deep bench, so the HC did not have the luxury of making changes.   Never saw accountability with the average high school program.
• AD Support – Pretty straight forward. You guessed it, the AD at the very good high school was always involved and engaged making sure the baseball program had everything they need.  Not so much at the average high school as their focus was football and basketball.
• Parental Support – Huge parental support for the well coached high school team, however parents never approached the coach during practice or games. Parental discussions with the Coach were off the field if they happened at all.  He was definitely not a fan of parents until he got to know you.  The average high school team had no boundaries whatsoever.
• Leadership – Coach to captains and captains to players. Captains were the eyes and ears when the well coached high school coach was not around.  The average high school didn’t have formal captains, which led to players trying to do things on their own.    Coaching turnover was a major factor.  The very good program had the same Varsity and JV coaches for a long time.  The average high school program was constantly turning over coaches for various reasons.
• Success breeds more success. Alumni from the well coached high school came back to see how the current program is doing after they’ve graduated.  Never saw alumni come back to the average high school unless they had a younger sibling playing.
• Resources & Focus – Many players on the very good team played on high level travel teams because Mom & Dad could afford it, and it was a ticket to play in college. The players on the average high school team were more focused on football, played less travel overall as a team, and didn’t have the financial resources of their cross county rival.

Just my experience.  Many times I've wondered what if my older kids had played for their "home school" under this very good coach.   They elected to go to the other high school for academic reasons, but I can't help to wonder.

@HSDad22 posted:

here is a baseball topic for all to add your thoughts...

Why HS coaches and programs fail in my opinion..

The inability to develop players, teams and ultimately programs.  The over reliance on already developed players or superstar athletes, but often that means they've hit their peak and are the best they are ever going to be by 9th grade, so by the time they are playing varsity, they aren't that good anymore comparatively to other teams in the league.  No baseball IQ growth.

Above does not mean the superstar who is dedicated, just the majority of what makes up the rest of the team.  Any player who wants to be good needs to do it mostly on their own.

The teams part comes on not fully grasping that run prevention by solid defensive strategy and execution  (ie limiting damage) is probably why the best teams are the best teams and that needs to be practiced.  Tired of hearing coaches yell, "you should know this by now" when a player isn't in the right spot and missed taking a cut, or forced a player to throw elsewhere, etc.  when the coach never practices team defense.  So I guess they are relying on other coaches to have taught it, Travel ball doesn't often practice this stuff because the focus is individual development (hitting, fielding, pitching) not team defense, Plus fields for travel programs are hard to get for week day practice..  so if you want a good High School program, you better practice it, because reality is most of the kids haven't had it drilled into them.

Should the player know where they should be at this age, yes, do they, sometimes, are they able to do it automatically in the heat of a game, not without practice.  Especially when kids are playing one position today and another tomorrow during the same season.  When players become spectators on the field rather than taking care of their responsibilities, that's a coaches fault.

Sorry, just tired of watching our HS program get excited over another (or actually rare in the past 10 years) .500 season,   There have been a lot of good players go through this program (good not great), but they are the only reason the teams have gotten 9-10 wins in a season.

After reading your OP, wouldn't the exact argument be made that the "flaw" is with travel ball coaches?  Why do you think that teaching fundamentals are the sole responsibility of high school coaches?  If parents are spending big money on TB programs, shouldn't a part of the results of spending such big money be a well-rounded player who has been drilled throughout the summer, fall, and winter on fundamentals? 

@CoachB25 posted:

After reading your OP, wouldn't the exact argument be made that the "flaw" is with travel ball coaches?  Why do you think that teaching fundamentals are the sole responsibility of high school coaches?  If parents are spending big money on TB programs, shouldn't a part of the results of spending such big money be a well-rounded player who has been drilled throughout the summer, fall, and winter on fundamentals?

That flaw is certainly an issue with travel ball coaches as well. This wasn't a travel ball vs high school post.

What I was saying is that some HS coaches often simply think the kids should know everything already and hope that the TB coaches taught them, rather than making a point to practice defense themselves.  I was simply stating TB is more focused on individual development as winning games hardly matters since it's all about 1 showcasing for college or 2. money grabbing.

High school coaches should be concerned with their HS team and the development of their program, not rely on others to teach the kids defensive strategies and positioning.  They should have a defensive philosophy  and understand what defense to use in what situations and teach it and practice it so it's executed correctly.  The coach should be able to relay the defense to the catcher who relays it to the team.  A coach shouldn't rely on kids individually knowing it as it is a team defense, if they don't work on it with their team, it won't be run effectively.  One kid out of place ruins a double cut, etc.  A coach certainly can't hope everyone does the right thing when the situation appears.  That just means they aren't a coach, they're a spectator.  A bucket sitter.

Around here travel ball even for the best programs, is indoor winter (hardly the environment for team defensive practice) and season games, there aren't enough fields to get out and actually practice during the week.

What I see more than anything else is a lack of teaching the game. I see HS coaches not teaching and I see travel ball coaches not teaching. All I see is reps. Lots of reps at HS practice in particular. But no teaching as part of the reps. No correcting the mistakes. The teaching moments are everywhere but they are ignored. Travel ball is even worse because they often don’t practice at all. They only get game reps. Kids are not being taught fundamentals and they are trying to figure out how to execute on their own. They don’t know good technique to lay down a bunt. They don’t get good secondary leads. They take their eyes off the baseball while a play is still live. They have no approach to hitting. They don’t know what situational hitting is. On the mound they just throw as hard as they can. No idea how to pitch. And every year I see more kids that don’t throw well. Generally because they have not learned how to internally rotate the elbow and lay the forearm back. All of these things used to be taught - starting in LL. But back then a team would practice 2 to 3 times more often than they played. That’s not even true in HS anymore. In HS it’s typically 2 games and 3 practices per week once the season starts. So bottom line is that kids need more practice and less games. And the practices need to be full of teaching. Good luck finding that!

@HSDad22 posted:

That flaw is certainly an issue with travel ball coaches as well. This wasn't a travel ball vs high school post.

What I was saying is that some HS coaches often simply think the kids should know everything already and hope that the TB coaches taught them, rather than making a point to practice defense themselves.  I was simply stating TB is more focused on individual development as winning games hardly matters since it's all about 1 showcasing for college or 2. money grabbing.

High school coaches should be concerned with their HS team and the development of their program, not rely on others to teach the kids defensive strategies and positioning.  They should have a defensive philosophy  and understand what defense to use in what situations and teach it and practice it so it's executed correctly.  The coach should be able to relay the defense to the catcher who relays it to the team.  A coach shouldn't rely on kids individually knowing it as it is a team defense, if they don't work on it with their team, it won't be run effectively.  One kid out of place ruins a double cut, etc.  A coach certainly can't hope everyone does the right thing when the situation appears.  That just means they aren't a coach, they're a spectator.  A bucket sitter.

Around here travel ball even for the best programs, is indoor winter (hardly the environment for team defensive practice) and season games, there aren't enough fields to get out and actually practice during the week.

I don't disagree with most of this.  I would state that there are many posts on this site that want HS coaches to be bucket sitters and not coach their player.  I've defended HS coaches for most of my time here being one for a few decades.  I do see coaches like you mentioned and shame on them.  However, I also have seen a growing trend where players what to tell their coaches that they have their private coaches whom their parents pay money to that they will listen to instead of the HS coach.  In my program, that wouldn't have gone well for that player. 

We are fortunate in my area to have a lot of facilities that enable fielding and fundamental coaching space for defense. 

The irony of this topic is that my daughter visited last night to get her notebooks on team defense and situational defense.  She/we have all of that stuff broken down.  I warned her to remember to never give that to anyone else.  One year, I was going to be the super coach and handed notebooks to all of the players in my program.  Unfortunately, for me, some of those players took those notebooks, didn't turn them in at the end of the year and moved. 

I would like to say that I'm sure there are bad coaches whose teams never win.  But there are also good coaches whose teams don't win much - maybe every few years, maybe whenever they have a D1-quality player or three.  In smaller towns, high schools get what they get.  Sure a good coach will get more out of those random players than a bad one will, but the goal can't just be "winning" - it has to be teaching about discipline and work ethic and improvement and love of baseball.

The closest our coaches get to teaching anything is re-posting tweets on the team page.  But then again I don't expect much.  Last night I watched the coach, down 2 runs in last inning, with a man on first and no outs, call a bunt.  If it had been executed, I wonder if he would have bunted him to third and then hoped fora sac fly with 2 outs.

HS Dad;

In my 1st year of Coaching. It was a Summer team in Santa Rosa and we played in the "strongest" League in California.

The Coaches were former Pro players, Pro scouts or JC Coaches. Our team won 6 games and post 20.

After each game, I asked the visiting Coach to speak to our team. They were all sharing with info.

Next year, we finished with a .500 record. In one game I was "thrown out" by the umpire. My SS took over as Coach and they won the game.

Bob

This is such a broad topic that it can be taken in any direction. But as @anotherparent stated above. Good coach doesn't always= winning, Same as bad coach doesn't always= losing

At the end of the day the old line rings true "it is not the Xs & Os, it’s the Jimmies and Joes”

Schools that consistently bring in talented players (for whatever reasons) win. Those that don't usually lose.

@DaddyBaller posted:

This is such a broad topic that it can be taken in any direction. But as @anotherparent stated above. Good coach doesn't always= winning, Same as bad coach doesn't always= losing

At the end of the day the old line rings true "it is not the Xs & Os, it’s the Jimmies and Joes”

Schools that consistently bring in talented players (for whatever reasons) win. Those that don't usually lose.

usually a school can bring in talented players because there is a coach who knows what to do with them.  We have the opposite problem, any kid with talent, their parents send them to one of the two local private schools.  Sometimes before 9th grade, sometimes after one year of playing.

@HSDad22 posted:

usually a school can bring in talented players because there is a coach who knows what to do with them.  We have the opposite problem, any kid with talent, their parents send them to one of the two local private schools.  Sometimes before 9th grade, sometimes after one year of playing.

This was an issue the new coaches had to combat as they turned programs around. At one point in time there were three players from the same class living in our district who ended up in the NBA. A fourth was a starter on a good Notre Dame team. He went on to play overseas. Only one top level player stayed. He was too academically inferior to get into the privates. In high school he was the best player of them all on an AAU team. Imagine them all at the same high school at the same time for three or four years.

When my son finished 8th grade he had two offers to privates. Our high school was top ranked academically. He passed. Both schools came around the next year with offers. One suggested he repeat 9th grade.

My son was the top player in middle school. He desire to stay at the high school may have reversed the trend for baseball. His three years of varsity were a second and two conference titles following eighteen losing seasons in twenty-one years.

What happened to the athletically gifted, academically inferior basketball player? He went PG. Then he flunked out of an A10. Then he flunked out of a PSAC. He gave up on college and went into product distribution.

One night at dinner my daughter started laughing out loud at the dinner table. She was on the girl’s team in high school. A bunch from both teams were shooting around together before practice. The one thing she could do was compete in HORSE with the guys. An assistant coach had played at Cincinnati. The athletically talented kid dribbled in and did a between the legs, 360 jam shot. He turned to the assistant and challenged he could never do that in high school. The assistant responded, “I did something you haven’t done in high school. I became NCAA eligible.”

I don't have enough experience to make any generalizations, this is the first year I've really been paying attention. The range in baseball IQ across the local teams surprised me. Regardless of talent level some teams were just more locked in mentally, while others seemed distracted. I assume that's on coaching.

I have a ton of thoughts on this subject...

Full disclosure, I think my kids coach sucks as a communicator, talent evaluator, leader of young men and just as a human in general.

With that being said.....He actually coaches a decent ballgame and does a good job teaching fundamentals.

Now one thing I will give a little bit of grace for the coaches of today is that they are probably coaching the generation with the lowest baseball IQ in the history of the game.

These kids ( including my own) don't watch baseball the way we did. I have seen more jaw dropping stupid plays in 3 years of highschool baseball then I have in a lifetime of watching the game.

Now a lot of that falls on the coaches as well, but many of these kids are bringing nothing to the table.

The recurring incident that is taking years off my life every time I see it for our team and our opponents are the egregious swings on 3-0 counts in 100% take pitch situations.

We are talking down one run in the last inning, we are talking bases loaded with 2 outs. Countless times when there was no excuse for the player to not know it was in the best interest of the team to take a pitch they swing and have no clue of time, score, and situation

And the icing on the cake is always the gobsmacked coach at third base that can't believe his kid missed a  take sign.

How about this coach? ....Just yell "You're taking!!!!"

Sorry.....I needed to get that off my chest. 😁

In my area, most of the talent ends up at the private schools. There are a couple of large public schools with a history of success and putting kids in the pros and top D1's, and they compete for national championships.

My son's HS was a private school that churns out 5 or 6 college players a year. My son's coach his first three years was awful. Everyone felt the team was loaded and the best record during that time was 12-12. The school fired the coach and hired a guy who was known to be very competitive with a very weak private school roster. The new coach guided the team to a 24-3 record and set a school record for wins.

I just watched a pretty good team try and save their ace for game 2 in the playoffs..... needless to say they didn't make it to game 2....

@ReluctantO'sFan posted:

I just watched a pretty good team try and save their ace for game 2 in the playoffs..... needless to say they didn't make it to game 2....

That’s a hard one to understand. Can’t assume anything. Same thing happened to Dallas Jesuit 8ish years ago when they had Kyle Muller (now in MLB). Made it to the final 4 in Austin and chose not to throw Muller in the semifinal game - and got bounced.

"Daddy Baller"

Do you live in a College town? Is a Pro Team near you?

Maybe you and several parents could organize a "Committee" of concerned parents to "EDUCATE" the Coaches.Be "pro active" to achieve your goals of baseball program improvement.

Plan a seminar at the local "ball field" invite the Coaches to attend.

Bob

@ReluctantO'sFan posted:

I just watched a pretty good team try and save their ace for game 2 in the playoffs..... needless to say they didn't make it to game 2....

My son's team just pitched their ace in the 1st round regional game, vs a team we were 3-0 against this year (2 seed vs 16 seed). I was glad they did, 2 of the games with them were relatively close, and no reason to take chances. Luckily we had a huge 1st inning & could get the pitcher out early enough to go again in Round 2.