One rainbow!

I have two: one for the rec league level and the other for older players. First, the rec league "rainbow."

At about the time that my son was beginning to play baseball, I was asked to join our rec league's board. The board was a collection of mostly parents who concentrated on a single sport; so, I was asked to join the baseball group comprised of about 4 others.

At the time, our rec league baseball teams were coached almost exclusively by dads. Some of the dads were very good coaches, while others left a lot to be desired when judged by their ability to teach the game's fundamentals and get the developmental process off on the right foot.

Up until that point, our rec league had been the runt of the division litter. In our 28-year history, we'd NEVER won the district tournament; qualifying us for the state tourney. 

The guy who was in charge of our board's baseball group said to the rest of us as I came on, "If we do nothing else, we're going to provide uniformly good coaching for our kids. At this age, that's objectives one through three."

But, how were we to go about it if we continued to be subject solely to our dads' voluntary efforts? The answer for us came from our city's professional workforce. A number of us worked in professional settings, and we knew young associates who had played baseball. Most had played baseball in college.

So, some of us went back to the workplace and recruited these mostly twenty-somethings to come coach. Most were delighted to have this to do after work and on Saturdays.

Once we'd recruited enough young professionals, we discreetly pulled a handful of dads aside. We explained to them that we were supplementing the coaching ranks with some young professionals; that we'd no longer need as many dads and their assistance was no longer required. Sure, we lost a couple of players to other rec leagues because their dads insisted upon coaching; but, what we gained in response was a thousand times greater than what we lost.

Having retained the dads who were good coaches, we put together coaching teams. In some cases, a dad would serve as the head coach; assisted by a twenty-something. In other cases, the roles were reversed. In a couple of cases, we had both coaches from the young professional group or the dads' group.

After teaming the coaches up, we took advantage of a local MLB player who teaches the game extremely well to conduct some quality coaching instruction. 

The results? Absolutely amazing. Much better than any of us had imagined going into it.

The kids loved having the younger coaches involved, as did the dads who coached with them. Meanwhile, the young coaches thought it was a blast.

The quality of instruction skyrocketed, and we became known almost overnight as THE rec league to be a part of if the goal was to learn how to play the game well and have fun at the same time.

...and something else happened. Our kids got much better and became more interested in the sport. The All Stars had always been an afterthought for our league; something to do if the family didn't have a conflicting vacation scheduled. Suddenly, the kids were going home; making sure that their families weren't scheduling conflicting vacations.

...and after the experiment's second year, we rolled through the division tournament and became the first All Star team from our league to play in the state tournament!

P.S. The quality has continued to this day. I learned just today that this one rec league had five of its former players playing in the 2013 College World Series in Omaha: three for NC State and 2 for North Carolina.

(Second "rainbow" to come a bit later.)

Love that story Prepster.  We had a similar situation and did some things too...different, but also in the end effective.  Similar results.

Many of my very best memories with our sons were in local rec ball.  I am so happy that it was still considered a 'fun and good thing to do' when they played. Those were great...GREAT times in our life.

Great topic justbaseball! I found this site late by most standards, after 2013 sophomore year. I read as many posts as it pertained to my son's baseball career. If it had not been for this site I believe things would have been much different. At the time, my son was not a flame thrower, but a big lefty. I was encouraged to get him to a PG event so he could be measured by someone else, other than his father, local coaches and his peers. That first event changed my son dramatically. He saw his competition and realized that he had to work hard to get to the next level, and that he did.

I was also encouraged to get him on a travel team like NorCal, he had the chance, but was told by his local coaches that they could the same in terms of looks and opportunities. Some of his friends didn't listen to the locals and played for NorCal. All of them are committed or are playing in college right now. 

The rainbows I like to share, listen to others who have been there, get to the best PG Event possible and play for the best Travel program in your area.

Because of this site and a little bit of luck, my son is now playing fall ball at a DI school. 

Many thanks to all that post here! Long live HSBaseball Web!

justbaseball,

Thanks for posting that, those things always make me feel good.  Truth is without Jerry there is no Andy, so thanks again.  Actually without you there is no Erik. So thank yourself and your wife of course.

When it comes to baseball, I never ever lie about anything.  I'm far from being an admirable person, I just know I can't afford to lie when it comes to baseball. Being wrong is OK, being wrong on purpose is no good.  With that in mind, Perfect Game worked out fine because of your son, not because of us.  Him and many others I've had the enjoyment of watching and following over the years is one of the biggest rainbows in my life.

I think you and I share another big rainbow!

I'm just grateful my kids loved every sport they played from the time they starting playing rec ball. They always had the passion to be the best players they could be. By high school, softball and baseball became year round passions with personal commitment to go further even though they still played other sports. The road had bumps. They never allowed the bumps to be excuses.

Our rainbow story was that our son found a great travel program (Tri-State Arsenal), the second part (pot of gold) was that the Arsenal allowed him to play up and pitch in a PG Northeast Qualifier when he was 14.  A few weeks later he was invited to the PG Underclass National Showcase and the ride of a lifetime began...happy to say it's still going :-)

Our rainbow was Coach Mike Roberts (now deceased) who ran the Florida Pokers.  Each year he took his travel team to Omaha, son went twice and each time he came back he told us he was going to play there one day, it was so inspiriting for a young player hoping to play D1 baseball.

And he did go and play!

If you have never been to Omaha, put it on your bucket list.  Take your boys, it's a once in a lifetime experience, mine was able to experience it 3 times.

Fun topic!

I have to admit.  I thought there would be many more 'rainbows' than potholes.  Actually, I'm sure there are...so I'm gonna bump this up and tell our 2nd rainbow...the one for our younger son.

I've talked about this before, our younger son's "rainbow" was his HS coach.  Different than the one above...different school.  But I believe his HS coach is the best HS coach in America.  Bill Hutton at Archbishop Mitty HS in San Jose.

Every year our son improved as a baseball player...especially during the season when Coach Hutton and staff had him 5-6 days a week.  He got better in school too with Coach Hutton as a math teacher and keeping a good eye on him.  And our son got better as a person with some awesome day-by-day mentoring.

Coach Hutton helped in any and every way with colleges including making and receiving phone calls.  Met with us to create a plan and then helped execute it.  Always open to reasonable conversation about virtually anything and everything.  He worked with us to merge his summer schedule with our son's travel team (which included our son only working on hitting while pitching exclusively for travel team).  All he asked for was 'communicate' about attendance and availability.

He was a 'dream coach' for us.   

Coach Hutton is well known.  He once (2010) coached the West team in the AFLAC/Perfect Game All American Game...and his 2010 team ended the season ranked #1 in the nation by PG as well.  I know from talking with him that he regularly receives phone calls from the top coaches on the West Coast about not only his own players, but others in the area.  Now thats respect!

As our son was graduating my wife and I were driving down the road one night and I asked, "Well, do you think this was worth the $$ we spent on this school?"  I continued, "Certainly the baseball was terrific!"  Her response, "Yes I do and thats because this school...and Coach Hutton...have done a fantastic job of reinforcing our own good values but also in promoting tremendous communication skills with us, his parents."

Couldn't agree more.  Nice job Coach and AMHS!  

One rainbow and best rainbow for me is simply on those long car rides to and from games and tournaments. Both as a family (sometimes as many as 7 of us) and those times when it was just me and my son. That happened withh all 3 boys, it also happened with my daughters and basketball (the youngest daughter is 12 so we are still doing those rides ). simply getting to know them as a person a little better.

Jeremy (my 2014) and I were on our way home from Cleveland Ohio last summer after the last tournament. 4 hour ride. It was just he and I as it had been for last couple of years for away tournaments due to my wife's job.

We both know that next summer will be different, he will still be on his summer team, one more away tournament, but it will be different somehow or at least we think so. So this felt like the last baseball trip, it may very well be in fact. We spent almost the entire trip reflecting, reliving, telling stories, great triumphs, great defeats, people we had met along the way, teammates, coaches, friends and competitors from other teams. We laughed, we cried. It was a great day. 

I agree with you, Coach Hutton is a class act. I've met him on several occasions, son's HS team played against him once,in a non conference game. We were amazed at the way he ran his baseball program.

Justbaseball. I'll send you a PM and share something that was forwarded to me from Coach Hutton.

Having had the pleasure of spending several days in San Diego with Coach Hutton a few things really stood out to me.

First of all, he absolutely loves the game.  He loves the kids who play the game.  He has outstanding knowledge of the game.  But most of all, it was a lot of fun just being around him and talking baseball. Everyone on our staff would share those feelings. He is one of the good guys!

So often on this site we hear complaints about "bad" coaches.  Truth is there are a lot of great high school coaches around the country.  It is refreshing to read something about one of them.  We all know there are some bad ones, just like there are good and bad players, umpires, teachers, etc., but it gets old listening to all the complaining.  

Life is too short to spend valuable time bitching about everything.  I love the positive stuff and there is a lot of it out there. Though I will say this... Anything with the word "RAIN" in it makes me nervous.