quote:
Originally posted by wraggArm:
Asking purely out of ignorance, here...Why would a HS coach get down in the weeds with an individual player's mechanics, or whether you like/dislike/or even care about any of the area's hitting instructors?
Just having watched effective and less effective coaches over the years from outside the fence...
It seems like the most effective HS coaches focus on player evaluation, roster selection, in-game playing style, game prep, line-ups, etc., and not so much individual player development. With such a short season, there's so little time to develop a player anyway. At least in the big HS's, it seems like the consistently winning coaches leave development up to the players and parents, and just assume that everyone is taking care of instruction.
I don't think that is true at all. As a HS coach, my primary focus is player development. I coach in the largest class in MO. We do have 2 or 3 guys take private lessons, but most of them rely on us for development. It is very expensive to take private lessons, so we are doing our players a disservice if we want them to develop through those means.
Also, very few of our parents played HS baseball. The knowledge is limited. Therefore, it is left to us to see their development through.
We have workouts 6 x a week in the fall and winter, practice or play 7 days a week in the Spring, then play 55 games in the summer. Almost every kid in our program goes on to play college baseball (10 of 11 the past 2 years).
I have lurked/posted for 5 years on this board, and the negative comments toward HS coaches have increased dramatically during that time. There are good and bad HS coaches...there are also good and bad private instructors. Most parents cannot tell the difference, but when you are paying somebody, and they tell you what you want to hear, you will always side with the private instructor.