Highly Successful Baseball Coach Switches to Softball

Is the softball program a loser (or mediocre) presenting a new challenge?

RJM posted:

Is the softball program a loser (or mediocre) presenting a new challenge?

Yes it is.  plus he has three soft ball playing daughters, approaching high school age.

SluggerDad posted:

RJM posted:

Is the softball program a loser (or mediocre) presenting a new challenge?

Yes it is.  plus he has three soft ball playing daughters, approaching high school age.

He's accomplished everything you could as a HS baseball coach and now he gets to coach his daughters playing softball. Life is very good for that guy. BTW my kid's team has played at their yard.   Lot of D3 and even D2 colleges don't have as nice a facility. Or as many fans at the game.

SluggerDad posted:

 

Yes it is.  plus he has three soft ball playing daughters, approaching high school age.

I think we have found the reason, good for him. Assuming he is able to communicate with girls and make the necessary adjustments to how they need to be coached. My guess would be he will do a great job with the program.

I've coached softball to 18u Gold and baseball to 16u. Here's the difference.  If you chew out a boy the rest of the team is relieved it isn't them. If you chew out a girl you're ticking off an entire group of girls.

Having coached both, I found the girls and the game of softball to be more challenging to coach.  The game is so much faster and there's little room for individuality.  The cookie cutter approach is the quickest way to success.  Every coach I ran into was doing the same exact drills, teaching the same exact swing, etc.  

My daughter is five years older than my son. Upon my return to coaching as a parent I coached softball five years ahead of baseball. Being a baseball guy I taught rotational hitting and driving the ball. Through sheer ignorance I was ahead of my time.

RJM posted:

I've coached softball to 18u Gold and baseball to 16u. Here's the difference.  If you chew out a boy the rest of the team is relieved it isn't them. If you chew out a girl you're ticking off an entire group of girls.

one of many differences and good one. a simpler thought would it be more or less complex  to coach 18 young men who generally have a similar thought process as you do or 18 young women who a similar thought pattern to your wife....again this is a general thing and your wife may be the most awesome level headed lady ever but - but which do you think would be more complicated?

old_school posted:

RJM posted:

I've coached softball to 18u Gold and baseball to 16u. Here's the difference.  If you chew out a boy the rest of the team is relieved it isn't them. If you chew out a girl you're ticking off an entire group of girls.

one of many differences and good one. a simpler thought would it be more or less complex  to coach 18 young men who generally have a similar thought process as you do or 18 young women who a similar thought pattern to your wife....again this is a general thing and your wife may be the most awesome level headed lady ever but - but which do you think would be more complicated?

If you can't figure it out for yourself I'm not going to tell you.  

I know this one guy who was fairly successful as a baseball coach who switched.  LOL

I can only tip my cap to y'all.  When my daughter was 12 and one of her teammates managed to cry five times between the start of her AB and reaching second base, I knew I was not equipped to coach girls.

cabbagedad posted:

I can only tip my cap to y'all.  When my daughter was 12 and one of her teammates managed to cry five times between the start of her AB and reaching second base, I knew I was not equipped to coach girls.

 

The only crier I had was a 7/8 boy. He got over it. While girls are different they are more mature, more focused and adult like at an earlier age than boys. I never looked at a team of 16u  girls, shook my head and thought, "what a bunch of morons."

Speaking of crying, my boy's coach (drafted out of HS but wound up playing football on a national championship team) said that he cried once in baseball.  When he was 7, after his first AB in his first game, he picked up his bat and went up to hit again only to be told he had to wait until it was his turn in the line up. 

I have to admit, I cried like a baby the first time I ever lost a wrestling match.  I was undefeated in 7th and 8th grade.  But I lost the first match of my high school career.   I was absolutely inconsolable. Couldn't believe that I had lost.  Couldn't bear the thought that I had lost. 

And believe me,  my high school wrestling coach was not exactly ready for that reaction. 

I had a college catcher who was very good.  He started as a grad assistant in baseball and then later became the head softball coach at a division 1 program.

I saw him recently and asked if he wanted to get back in baseball.  He said, no, this is too much fun.  It's much easier to coach and win games. The best baseball players can get too concerned with themselves and their future.  The girls give it everything they got and this is as big as it gets for most all of them.  Their thought process is always about the team.

I think Clint Myers at Auburn is a great example of a former baseball player and coach switching over to softball and being VERY successful!  

We're all (mostly) anonymous here so I'm going to admit it -- if I'm channel surfing and there's a softball game on the Pac12 Network and a baseball game on the SEC Network, I'm a little more likely to watch the softball game for a while.  Just more going on, especially if you're only stopping for a couple innings.

Please don't tell anyone my secret.

Granted I haven't coached baseball in 4 years since I've become AD but this past spring I helped coach our softball team.  There were three reasons why I made the move 1) we had to hire a new HC early in the fall semester and had to get someone who had NO experience coaching softball.  It was our girls basketball coach so wasn't a complete rube.  So I wanted to help her as much as I could with overall baseball / softball strategies that matched up.  2) we have a crazy parent who I knew would eat her alive if given the chance.  He was the reason why our previous coach gave it up.  I wanted to be on the staff to head him off as much as I could so he couldn't ambush her.  I let her handle the rest of the parent issues but this guy was my job.  Ended up having to make him come to school and meet with me and the principal to let him know if he didn't change his attitude and actions (he came into the dugout screaming at the HC and other AC before I could get over there) we were going to ban him from campus.  3) I just wanted to coach again.

I was truly amazed at how hard the girls worked and it was a great experience.  But needless to say some of their conversations made me turn around and walk away very quickly.  

CoachB25 posted:

I know this one guy who was fairly successful as a baseball coach who switched.  LOL

Can you believe one head coach that I know coached 7th grade girls basketball for a year or two?  Haha

Bulldog 19 posted:

CoachB25 posted:

I know this one guy who was fairly successful as a baseball coach who switched.  LOL

Can you believe one head coach that I know coached 7th grade girls basketball for a year or two?  Haha

Yeah, and it killllllllllllllllllled me!  Everyone plays and everyone plays every quarter.   I must have aged 10 years doing that. 

CoachB25 posted:

Bulldog 19 posted:

CoachB25 posted:

I know this one guy who was fairly successful as a baseball coach who switched.  LOL

Can you believe one head coach that I know coached 7th grade girls basketball for a year or two?  Haha

Yeah, and it killllllllllllllllllled me!  Everyone plays and everyone plays every quarter.   I must have aged 10 years doing that. 

Well I was thinking of another head coach... He's a little smaller than you ��