Building
a New Team from Scratch
Your child wants to play baseball and you
are willing to coach a team. But, you discover that there is no organized
baseball program in your community. What do you do? Where do you
start?
A good place to start is the YMCA or your community recreation department.
If your community is large enough to have a youth baseball program and does
not, you may want to start a program. In that case either the YMCA or recreation
department can be a valuable ally in your efforts. Starting and running an
entire league is beyond the scope of this topic. However, if you can get
several teams started, then a league and program of your own will not be
far behind.
If your community is not large enough to
have its’ own baseball program you will need to play outside the community.
The recreation department should be able to give you information on what
baseball programs are in place in surrounding communities. If there are teams,
or even better, leagues, in surrounding communities, then you can be assured
that the team you build will have other teams to play
against.
Assuming that there is one or more, communities with youth baseball
teams near yours and ideally a league in which your team may play you can
take the next step. Get schedules for play, age rules, financial requirements,
number of games in a season, and other administrative details involved with
playing those teams. Talk to the league administrator to insure that your
team will be allowed to play in that league. Some communities will allow
only teams from their community to play in their league. Others will allow,
and sometimes welcome, teams from surrounding communities. If you can play
in a league, do so. One or two games per week, usually in the late afternoon
or early evening will be good for your team.
Another good resource would be administrators of youth baseball programs
in your state. There are a number of organizations that organize and administer
baseball throughout the country:
American Amateur Baseball Congress
(AABC)
www.voyager.net/aabc
Babe Ruth
Baseball
www.baberuthbaseball.org
Boys & Girls Club of
America
www.bgca.org
Dizzy Dean Baseball,
Inc.
http://dizzydeanbbinc.org/
Little
League
www.littleleague.org
PONY Baseball, Inc.
www.pony.org
T-Ball
USA
www.teeballusa.org
United States Specialty Sports Association
(USSSA)
www.usssa.com
YMCA
www.ymca.net
Use the phone book, Internet and other sources to find one or more
of these associations in your area.
Contact them to gather additional information on schedules for play,
age rules, financial requirements, number of games in a season, etc. If the
organizations sanction tournaments in your state they will be able to give
you a list of tournament directors whom you can contact to see if your team
can participate in one or more tournaments.
With this information in hand you can develop
a preliminary plan for your team with schedules, number of games, financial
requirements, etc. This will be necessary when you begin the process of
recruiting players for your team.
The number one resource you need to build a team is PLAYERS.
No matter what other resources you have at your disposal you will not be
able to do a thing unless you have players. To begin the process of selecting
your team it is a good idea to have a meeting of prospective players and
their parents to explain what is involved in playing baseball. You can usually
get a meeting room at the YMCA, recreation center or a school. Publicize
the meeting well, through the newspapers, schools, YMCA and recreation centers.
Don’t be discouraged if your first meeting is not attended well. It
takes time, effort and lots of “stick to it ness” to start a baseball
program. Go over all the information you have, such as the season schedule,
when and where you will practice and play, how many games the team will play,
the financial commitment required to play, fund raising opportunities for
the families, etc. Answering parents and players questions can go a long
way to getting people comfortable with you and your mission and help you
get some enthusiasm going for baseball.
One example of a handout with items you may want to consider using
is
A
Season Overview which is
available at:
http://balltips.homestead.com/BallTipsA37s5O.html Modify the handout, with
dates, locations and financial information, etc. appropriate for your situation
and it will provide a page to give to potential players and their parents
for their reference. Prospective
team members will feel much more comfortable if they understand what is involved
in committing to a team.
You will need to decide how many players
you want on the team. With nine, or sometimes ten, players on the field at
one time I believe it is wise to have thirteen to fifteen players on the
team. In general, competitive teams, with skilled and committed players will
carry smaller rosters, 10 to 14 players. Recreational teams, with less
commitment, should carry larger rosters, 12 to 16 players. The tradeoffs
are these. On teams with smaller rosters players will play more and playing
time is a major component of player satisfaction. However, a small roster
requires that all players be at all games so as to prevent a forfeit due
to an insufficient number of players. With larger rosters there is more
flexibility of moving players around and allowing players to miss some games,
but when all players are present each plays less. However, this does allow
for the occasional absence of a player and still leaves you with players
for every position. Another factor to consider is how much experience the
players have in baseball. Those with several years experience generally know
what’s expected and are likely to stay committed during the season.
Those with little or no experience may become unhappy during the season and
leave the team, thus a larger roster to start the season is a good idea.
As a general rule, recreational players are more likely to miss a game or
two during the season than competitive players who should have a greater
commitment to play all the time.
All things considered, I believe a good compromise is to start with
13-15
players.
If there are more kids who want to play than you plan to put on the
team, one way to select the team is through tryouts. Schedule one, or more,
tryouts depending on how many potential players are available and how much
experience they have in baseball. At a tryout you observe players fielding,
throwing, hitting and running and use these observations to select the team.
The benefits of a tryout for you, the coach, are that you should be able
to pick the best players for your team and give the team the best chance
for success.
The drawbacks of a tryout are that some kids,
sometimes those with the most potential, will not be chosen, will leave unhappy
and perhaps drop out of sports. If you are trying to put together a competitive
team, with winning as an objective, a tryout is useful. If you are more
interested in simply getting a group of kids together to have enjoy playing
baseball, and participation is an objective, a tryout is not only unnecessary,
but may be counter productive.
If you decide to have tryouts feel free to
use these resources:
A
Tryout
Registration form:
http://balltips.homestead.com/BallTipsZ01t7X.html
A
Tryout Evaluation
sheet:
http://balltips.homestead.com/BallTipsZ02o8Y.html
Once you decide which players you want on your team contact the parents
and ask them if their child would like to play. More than likely you will
find that you have enough players interested and your team is formed. You
are now ready to begin your coaching career.
Reprinted with permission
from:
A
Youth Baseball Coaches Tool
Kit
