Anyone on the BY ever coach softball? Primarily high school level softball? I'm a teacher and I was just asked by my athletic director to coach JV softball and I said I would consider it. Any advice? I watch baseball occasionally but I don't really have a clue how to coach baseball/softball.
First thing, get someone who can teach pitching. If they can't coach full time schedule as many pitching clinics with your kids as possible. If your pitcher is missing outside call T/O go to the mound and tell her to pitch to the catcher's glove and tell the catcher to move the target inside. Simple but it works. Also, work withyour catcher endlessly on blocking balls in the die\rt teaching them to move their body and not reaching with their glove. It will end up saving a lot of runs. Remember that you can't coach every player on every pitch. I still umpire girls softball and see it all the time and the kids will just tune out your voice.
The other things I see all the time are bad tags and poor slides. Teach the girls to slam the glove down in front of the bag. Too often they get the all in plenty of time and then wait for the runner who slides underneath the tag and is safe.
Sliding is a rough one to teach because it was something that you never thought about and just did it. Not so with girls. Generally the girls don't get their weight back enough. I found that by teaching them to throw their arms up and back that it helps a lot.
As Papaduke said teach how to defend the bunt and also teach the bunt (bat angle at 45 degrees). Other than that, practice situation softball so the kids learn how to throw to the right base. You will lose to better teams but you can steal some wins by having your kids play smart.
One other thing :batting practice. It sucks because only a few players are paying attention. Try breaking the kids up in smaller practice groups so everybody is doing something. This is a good time to work with your catchers blocking balls. In teaching batting I found that a modified Charlie Lau theory is the easiest way to teach weight shift.
I played through college and coached for a long time. I found that the most important thing in coaching kids is building confidence. You have to find a way to make them feel good about themselves even to the point of making them cocky. Yell at them for screwing around but not for screwing up.
Good luck. I think you will really enjoy coaching. I know I did.
