HS Winter sports athletes and tryouts

Let me be the first to ring in on this. For those parents on the board I do not discourage multiple sport athletes at all. I have never cut a kid or told a kid he can't play baseball if they play another sport. With that said....

Your job as a coach is to be fair to your program. Your job is not to be fair to player's who do nothing in the off season to get ready for baseball. Our first baseball game is March 25th at that point it becomes about wins and losses. I know someone will be shocked and tell me I am a bad coach for saying that but it is true. That is why they have league championships, playoffs and seedings for the playoffs. I do not ever take into account if a kid is a multiple sport athlete. I give them a try out and if they are not ready that is not my problem in the slighest. Today during base running my assistant coach said the following during steals, "Guys in two weeks coach does not have the time to take a chance or a risk on a guy who is not ready to succeed. He only has time to put the best nine guys on the field because at that point it is about wins and losses." Now he meant that towards the specific drill but I had already seen this thread and thought about it. It is not our fault if a kid wants to play multiple sports and does NOTHING to prepare for the season. It is not our fault to deliver a "fair assessment". What is unfair about cutting a kid who is not ready? Right, wrong, or indifferent in this day in age if you are going to put down a bat and ball for a few months that is a you problem and I do not owe it to you to give you a "Shot" once wins and losses are on the line. At that point I owe to the other player's who have busted their butts for months to try to win a game.

I have been thinking about developing what I call the Miracle style of cuts. From the movie the Miracle.

For example
There are 25 guys now on March 25 I will only carry 15 guys on the team. Our first game is March 25 so until March 25 anybody can be cut at any time.

quote:

Originally posted by IEBSBL:
Let me be the first to ring in on this. For those parents on the board I do not discourage multiple sport athletes at all. I have never cut a kid or told a kid he can't play baseball if they play another sport. With that said....

Your job as a coach is to be fair to your program. Your job is not to be fair to player's who do nothing in the off season to get ready for baseball. Our first baseball game is March 25th at that point it becomes about wins and losses. I know someone will be shocked and tell me I am a bad coach for saying that but it is true. That is why they have league championships, playoffs and seedings for the playoffs. I do not ever take into account if a kid is a multiple sport athlete. I give them a try out and if they are not ready that is not my problem in the slighest. Today during base running my assistant coach said the following during steals, "Guys in two weeks coach does not have the time to take a chance or a risk on a guy who is not ready to succeed. He only has time to put the best nine guys on the field because at that point it is about wins and losses." Now he meant that towards the specific drill but I had already seen this thread and thought about it. It is not our fault if a kid wants to play multiple sports and does NOTHING to prepare for the season. It is not our fault to deliver a "fair assessment". What is unfair about cutting a kid who is not ready? Right, wrong, or indifferent in this day in age if you are going to put down a bat and ball for a few months that is a you problem and I do not owe it to you to give you a "Shot" once wins and losses are on the line. At that point I owe to the other player's who have busted their butts for months to try to win a game.

Yup.

I have actually become increasingly frustrated with the multiple athlete as our program as gotten better and better. It is not that I do not want them out there, I was a multiple athlete and I wish my son to be. However, most that I run across do nothing to prepare for the next season and then they get their feeling hurt when they are on the bench and their parents point the finger at us. For instance, I had a player make a very elite travel ball team. The mom of another player said, "Why did my son not get an opportunity to try out for that team?" I said "Ma'am you son has not picked up a baseball or bat for 5 weeks because he is playing JV basketball. If I sent him to that try out he would make himself look like a joke." She did not know what to say. This year I allowed the basketball player to participate in winter ball games. All three are leading the team in errors. Now I do not know how you guys run your programs or the issues with your school. I have already placed in my rules that for next year in order to play off season baseball you must be at the field 3 days a week. Throwing Program all 3 days, 1 day defense, 1 day offense, and any pitcher must throw his bullpen to throw on Saturday. I know some people will tell me I am going to burn the kid out and this is not fair to him. I am done caring about him or the kid and I want to only care about the group.

quote:

I am done caring about him or the kid and I want to only care about the group.

No you're concerned about your program and how you do. "The group" that makes up the school is less important.


When I was in high school, the kids cut themselves through poor behavior. Our coach did not and he wasn't concerned about how long it took basketball players to get there. He knew that the longer it took for basketball players to show up, the better the school was as a whole. If you were a basketball player, you weren't a "problem child" that he wouldn't want around.

Coaches must work together. As coaches continue to force specialization, the multi-sport athlete will continue to disappear.

AND injury rates will continue to climb.

Thanks for feedback so far..
IEBSBL, I certainly agree that it is up to the player to be prepared coming in and we have no problem making the necessary decisions for those that are not. For us, some do and some do not. This year, most of the winter sports kids have done a decent job throwing and hitting on their own. Our school does not allow kids to participate in team practices for their next sport while their current sport is still going on.

Our first game is Feb 25, with a scrimmage even earlier. We just got basketball players after a playoff loss yesterday. Had they won a few more, we would have started games without them there yet. I would be interested in hearing more specifics as to how coaches handle things like cuts and squad splits before you even get the winter sports kids or after games start and those kids come in and take spots. How do you handle logistics challenges like having kids pay for spirit packs and/or being given uni’s only to be cut later (you may have to choose a squad before you know what you have coming out from winter sports)? How do you decide what squad to start them out on if you only have two days to see some of them before your first scrimmage? How are you managing the disruption of several waves of winter sports kids, trying to fairly and quickly evaluate them, while maintaining a productive practice for the rest of the team?

I don’t have a problem with starting into games without them and can’t blame them if their winter sport is extended by playoffs (In fact, I congratulate them and welcome the winning experience they bring in). I don’t have a problem cutting the kids who fell behind the baseball pack by choosing to play the other sport/s. It’s just dealing with the logistics related to some of the timing issues.
I think we do pretty well with it but would love to hear additional feedback, experiences and approach from others.

I am at a school that is small enough that we do not have to make cuts. We get basketball and so c cer kids at 3 different times after we have start baseball. We let it know to those that start baseball from the first day that others will be coming out. If we have a winter sport player that is better that a varsity player we may move a varsity player down to the jv team.

As far as passing out equipment, I give varsity level players their practice gear before the first after school practice and game gear the day before our first game. Sub-varsity player do not get any issued gear until the day before the first jv game. The reason for this is that we have several lower level kids quit the first 2-3 weeks and with winter sports coming out it just seems to work out better that way. Also, if I know I have a varsity level player in a winter sport, I will get with him ahead of time about his sizes for equipment.

Here is how we run our program starting at the end of spring. Coaching staff sits down and chooses the top 18 players within our program. We invite these players to participate in our summer program which lasts for 12 games. These game will he no way conflict with other sports. The only reason we allow players to opt out is to play with an outside team that we consider above our level of play. If a player opts not to play he automatically is placed onto the JV roster. We sit down after summer baseball and go through the same process at the end of September for our fall roster. Anyone who opted out over the summer is not included in the fall roster. We end our fall playing in a tournament in the Desert. We then redo the process and once again create a roster going into January.

To more specificcaly answer your questions here we go.
How do you handle logistics challenges like having kids pay for spirit packs and/or being given uni’s only to be cut later (you may have to choose a squad before you know what you have coming out from winter sports)? We create our varsity roster in December. The players that are bubble players between Varsity and JV have them pay for the JV spirit pack. At this time we also have our first tryout for lower levels. We keep both of these roster at 12-14 for the purposes that we will have another lower level tryout once Winter sports end.

How do you decide what squad to start them out on if you only have two days to see some of them before your first scrimmage? They will always start lower level until they are ready to go. Once the JV coach tells me they have caught up I will then place them within Varsity practice and give them an oppotunity to compete for Varsity job. This however is what I would do with any kid if the JV coach says that a kid has surpassed JV and there is a need at the varsity level.

How are you managing the disruption of several waves of winter sports kids, trying to fairly and quickly evaluate them, while maintaining a productive practice for the rest of the team?
I does not bother me at all. When younger players come out we do not slow down for them we continue to push on and they are forced to catch up. The only thing we will do to aide them is to make sure they are in the same hitting groups in order to teach them at the same level.

The bottom line is at our school the Varsity kids know that if they don't roll out competing at the right level they are on the bench. Younger players know they go directly to JV and will stay there until I need them.

Here is what I have learned and sometimes it is difficult for HS coaches to do. I am very upfront and honest about the whole process. At one time I wasn't and it created a lot of problems for me with parents. I have a friend who is a very succesful travel ball coach and I helped at one of his try outs and listened to how he spoke to the parents. He was very honest to a fault about expectations. As soon as took that road I have watched the problems fade away.

Thanks guys for some perspectives that I can glean from where our situation allows.

At our school, there is one round of cuts at the start of the season. Then there is another round of cuts after the winter sport athletes come out. Surviving the first round of cuts does not guarantee a spot on the team.

The winter sport athletes are not allowed to practice with the baseball team until their winter season ends. This year, there were only a handful of winter sport athletes who tried out for baseball so it wasn't a big issue. But I can see how it would be difficult if a large percentage of the team was joining late.