Who is your son's Primary coach

My son never had a primary coach. He had a high school coach, a travel coach, a hitting instructor and a pitching instructor. Whoever had him in the moment was in charge. The high school coach offered to help with college recruiting. My son thanked him for the offer. He told him he would tell the coach if he was needed. My son told the pitching coach he didn't want to pitch in college. The hitting coach was an assistant on the travel team. 

 

There were never conflicts between coaches. As you will often see in posts, produce and coaches leave you alone. The high school coach knew nothing about pitching. The travel coach only cared that my son ate up excess innings. The high school coach and the hitting coach hated each other. but my son was producing. He was left alone.

 

if you consider the coach responsible for recruiting the primary coach it would have been the travel coach. I never saw it that way. I expected my son to respect whomever was coaching him in the moment.

I have to say there is just something about a high school coach and playing high school ball in my opinion.  Not too long ago playing high school ball was the goal - starting to think about the next level but high school ball garners more focus for now.  I will say the high school coaches do not attempt to provide every kid hands on instruction and so they may not be viewed as the primary source for instruction.  As this relates to another current thread, you will run across some differences.  We happen to have a wonderful high school staff who are all pretty knowledgeable.  Had some early conflicts but that has transformed into conversations when approaches differ.  My kid has benefited from hearing these slightly different approaches and talking through the differences - has given him a much deeper understanding of some skills.  The high school coach may be more focused on winning games but there is something to be said for competing for a spot to help win games - as opposed to putting one's self in the best light to get to the next level.  Gotta enjoy the current level to the fullest while you can. 

My son's high school coaching staff provided a lot of hands on instruction. My son said everything they taught he had already learned from his 13u to 16u travel coaches. The major hitting adjustment he made after soph year was handled by a hitting coach. The 17/18u team was mostly for showcasing rather than instruction.

Our son had a GREAT HS coach and played in one of the top travel programs in the country with their own GREAT coaches.

 

But I don't think there's any doubt he would call his HS coach his "primary coach."  Was his coach for 5-7 months out of the year depending on if he did any summer ball with him and his mentor in school, on the field and backing up what mom and dad were teaching about life for 12 months of the year.

I would say it is my kid's travel ball coaches.  The way HS is set up in IL, you just can't spend enough quality time with the players.  So even in the winter, when he was barred from the open gyms due to basketball, he worked out with his travel coaches. 

I would say not his high school coach at least the varsity coach.  Provides very little hands on help in developing the players from what I have seen.  The JV coach is a little better.  Of course I don't think to highly of our V coach but think very highly of our JV coach.  My son had a hitting coach and has a pitching coach and would look at them as more of his primary.  

High School coach for me. I'm in Texas, we have a baseball class(7th period). Basically with our High School coach from late August to the  first week of June.(full school year) Select team is only together for 8 to 9 weeks (summer).

Does it matter?  What does primary coach even mean?  I think part of our problems arise from labeling coaches - HS or Travel.  There actually needs to be two labels put on coaches - good or bad.  Who cares if they are HS only or Travel only?  There are great for each one and there are terrible for each one.  Each has their own guidelines and restrictions put on each one that help or hinder what they can do.

 

Once we move past "that guys is only a _____ coach" then we can get down to getting better.   Sometimes there is a pettiness that comes with this site about HS coaches that is just infuriating.  Yeah there are some bad ones and there are some great ones but vast majority are good guys who will help your kid get better if you let him.  Same with travel coaches - some terrible, some great and most are good guys who will help your kid get better.

 

End of the day it's up to the kid if they want to get better.  If all they do is workout during the HS season they will not be good enough.  If all they do is workout during travel season they will not be good enough.  Only person that can make it happen is the kid.

Exactly coach2709.  I'll add that it only mattered that my son learned whatever coach was teaching.  Whether it was his high school school coach, travel coach, youth pitching coach, college pitching coach or other players on his teams.  He had a great supporting cast that brought out the best in his abilities and strategies on the mound.

 

He learned a new pitch in college his freshmen year from a senior. They all contributed in some way.   It was up to my son to listen, practice and implement what he learned in games and to adjust as necessary on his own.....you know you have a great coach when the coach doesn't have to coach  JMO.

coach2709,

 

Couldn’t agree more! Whether they have the ability or not isn’t the point. In a team environment, in my experience it’s pretty darn rare for a head coach to have the time to do a lot of individual work. I suspect that more often than not, players who go to a private coach will have the same experience my son had. He got more individual time in one lesson than he got in a whole season on his HS team. He did get a lot of individual attention on one of his travel teams, but they had 2 top notch pitching coaches at every practice, so the HC never stuck his nose in. In essence it was like a private coach environment, not a team environment.

 

If you go to a GP, s/he’ll be able to do a lot of good things, but that won’t be the person you go to for open heart surgery. It’s not that one is “better” than the other, it’s just that they each have their own area of expertise.

 

I'll tell this story and bow out of this discussion because I can't see it going very well for HS coaches.  When I was early in my head coaching career in KY my guys starting going to this baseball business that provided instruction.  They tried to hide it from me (not sure why since I had never told them they couldn't go) until I told them it was fine because the guys at this place knew what they were doing.  In fact I went a couple of times with a couple of my pitchers to catch them since they knew ahead of time they weren't going to have any catcher ahead of time that night (no chance of that happening now unless they want to get a forklift to help me get up).  Anyway - the point of my story is that I got to be a much smarter coach, and dare I say it, as smart as a travel coach after my guys started going to this business.  They would come back after their instructions with this place and tell me almost everything we did in HS practice is was just like what they were doing with this place.  Might have a slight twist to it or different way to phrase things but basically the same thing.  Amazing how much smarter I got after that.

I hope that my son's primary coach will be himself. Any good coach seeks to make himself replaceable, so as he ages, I want him to be his own hitting/pitching coach and take the lead on figuring out how to get better.

       
       

+1

I was just thinking the same thing before I got to this reply.

       
       
There are times I wish there was a love it a thousand times button, this is one of those times.  My son and I look at his video together.  We have discussions.  Some things his body allows him to do and some things it doesn't.   We work together to figure out how his body can figure into a good set of mechanics.  Its his dream and his career or lack thereof.  I tell him that all the time.  So much information out there now.  Not sure we need all these instructors.  I am all about paying for a fitness instructor.  Baseball instruction?  Not so much.  When an instructor pops up who puts a 90mph guarantee in writing then I will consider it, til then most of them (no not all) are laughing all the way to the bank.  And one more thing the vast majority of travel 'coaches' are just parents who think they know more than the other parents.  And a lot of the travel coaches of older travel teams are former college/pro players who slide through on reputation and don't study the game.  Like the x files...  trust no one!

I knew my kids were getting it about hitting when they asked, "In the next game could you look to see if I'm doing -x-. I feel like I am."

I'll add that the player HIMSELF has to be COACHABLE!!!  There are kids on 2017s HS JV team that wouldn't let themselves be coached up and they ended up on the bench or near the bottom of the batting order by the end of the season.

 

2017 on the other hand, bought into what they were teaching and finished playing every game and batting North of .450 from the 3 hole, and got a promotion to V for the postseason.   

When he was younger it was me, when he got in his early Teens me and his instructors, by the time he was 16 it was primarily him.  Others offered suggestions, spoke about the process but my son chose what he would and would not do based on the Education he received listening to a lot of great instructors and knowing his own body and abilities.

Originally Posted by Coach Bob:

I'll add that the player HIMSELF has to be COACHABLE!!!  There are kids on 2017s HS JV team that wouldn't let themselves be coached up and they ended up on the bench or near the bottom of the batting order by the end of the season. …

 

I was wondering how you came to the belief that there were players who weren’t COACHABLE. It isn’t very often coaches will discuss PT with anyone not on the coaching staff, let alone someone not their child, so I’m assuming you were one of the JV coaches. Is that true? If it is, can you give some examples of them not being coachable?

As a showcase/travelball coach, I view my players' primary coach to be their HS coach.   My job is to help the player get better while I have him.  All coaches should work together to help the player achieve whatever goals the player has set.  

 

As with everything, there are varying degrees of quality.  Some showcase coaches aren't very good.  Some are very good.  Same with high school coaches.  If all the coaches involved truly care about the player, the designation of "primary coach" doesn't matter.

I would like to think me (dad) would be primary coach. That goes for all dad's who have kids in sports. Not to say we need to undermined our kid's other coaches, but I'm willing to bet I spend more one on one time practicing/training/drilling my kids than the HS coach. With that being said, the landscape has changed quite a bit over the past couple of decades. The HS coach (outside of parent) used to be main coach in my day. Then we had summer league coaches but the league was put on by our HS. Fall was more of a loose time to stay in shape. I'm not sure I was ever "coached" in fall. It was simply 'get out there and play' mentality.

 

As a coach, I know I have had kids who looked at me as primary coach, and some would say their hitting/pitching instructor would be theirs. Didn't matter to me as long as we were all on the same page. If ever a player started with "Well, my hitting/pitching coach told me to do it this way..." I would always respond with "Why?" I wanted to make sure they knew why they were doing what they were told to do.

Since my son has been in HS-  never had a "team" coach be it HS or Travel that have done much in the way of instruction in regards to individual skills (hitting or catching). Almost all of his "skills" coaching has been though hitting instructor or catching coach. 

 

I would consider those his primary coaches. His Travel coaches have done well in instructing and teaching team skills and strategy.

 

We have a lot of good HS coaches in our conference  - but unfortunately ours did very little in the way of coaching/instructing/teaching.