How to Develop a strong 8u program

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Jul 27, 2021
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Softball and Baseball will not be included in the 2024 Paris Olympics, but it is expected that it will be included along with softball, in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics due to popularity in the United States.
 
Apr 2, 2015
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Woodstock, man
9. hitting instruction by Mike Candrea and Sue Enquist.

That's a hard no for me. This is bad/destructive instruction from 20+ years ago. You will ruin a generation of swings.

hitting-linear-sue-enquist-instruction-animated.gif
candrea.PNG
 
Last edited:
Dec 2, 2013
3,410
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Texas
Hey Orange Socks. I just started umpiring for the rec league again. This year we are interlocking 10u with the next town over. We just started 2nd half of the season. Interestingly the boards agreed to implement something pretty close to your suggestion starting this weekend.

Sounds like you have some fans in Santa Clara County, CA!

@Orange Socks

The pitcher can walk 2 batters, after that the coach would come out and assume the count. If there are no strikes, coach gets 3 pitches, 1 strike-2 pitches, 2 strikes-1 pitch. This actually sped up the game. The opposing coach didn't become friends with the pitcher. Hi kid! It's me again. Give me the ball, because you can't pitch strikes. Pitcher feels bad. No more! By the end of the season, the coach may only have to pitch 1 or 2 times in an entire game. Pitchers starting getting better. Those kids that can't swing a bat, got on base with a natural walk.
Great to hear!!! We had some stupid rules back in the day. No stealing of home, one base on an overthrow, blah blah. I told them if give them the rules as the game is supposed to be played they will figure it out. Reduces parent outrage when they don't even know the rules too.

I hope it works out for y'all.
 
Jan 22, 2011
1,610
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That's a hard no for me. This is bad/destructive instruction from 20+ years ago. You will ruin a generation of swings.

hitting-linear-sue-enquist-instruction-animated.gif
View attachment 25434
I agree 100pct that Candrea's and Enquist's material from ~2002 sucked, but starting with the easier access to high speed cameras ~ 2005 their instruction methods improved a lot. Sue Enquist has been quoted several times saying I was wrong prior to 2005, throw out any of my videos prior to 2005.

Remember my target audience. I'm trying to get rec league coaches of 10-12 6u and 8u teams, at least half of which have no softball experience, most little or no coaching experience, teaching mostly correctly, so the kids will enjoy the game and keep playing. Most coaches only have a couple hours to come up to speed on coaching with mostly correct coaching techniques that doesn't require a masters in kinesiology to understand. When we offered advanced in person coaching clinics over the years outside of the week just before practice started, we were lucky if someone from 25pct of the teams showed up. I can't let perfection be the enemy of the good.

My job is to get coaches teaching techniques that are mostly correct and when watching games or umpiring games if I see a player that has potential and obviously loves the game, point the parents towards the three or four local hitting coaches I trust.

Do you have better video resources that at a reasonable cost can be provided to coaches of 24 to 32 teams that can get them teaching mostly correct techniques that they have time to look at? I am providing them the 23 short video RVP material, not the ~68 video version which will overwhelm them.

I recommend the post ~2007 Candrea ASA DVD's as a good enough resource, tell people to throw out the pre 2007 ASA DVD's.

I saw Dot Richardson give a coaches clinic ~2009 on hitting. She is an inspiration as a speaker, her hitting instruction sucked. There is a local facility with a semi-well know owner who has been around for over 20 years. I cringe when I hear a parent say their DD is going there for hitting or pitching lessons. There are only 3 pitching coaches within 80 miles of me that I recommend.

I umpired an 8u game last night. I saw 6 different pitchers. The two that will be studs in 10u were probably the 3rd and 4th best statistically. They are using ~90pct IR, but haven't quite figured out the brush interference. After the game I talked to them and their parents, told them they were on the right path, gave a quick 5 minute demonstration of proper technique, and pointed them in the direction of free Javasource and Rick Pauly videos.

My wife played D3 tennis in college and is a pretty good hitter. In 2005 the local league hitting "experts" told her hitting technique was totally wrong, it was a baseball swing. Two years later those same "experts" were telling her she had a great hitting technique. She didn't change what she was doing.

My DD doesn't swing for the fences, never hit one over the fence, hits the ball hard with a lot of line drives. She usually bats in the 3 spot. Her offensive statistics are the best on the team. She gets on base with singles and some doubles. She is aggressive on the thrown ins and takes 2nd when possible. Been going to the same two hitting coaches since she was 8. Their methods have evolved over the years, but their baseline is RVP.

Pauly/Balswick/Javasource have evolved their pitching instruction over the years, but what 8u through 12u pitchers need is at least 90pct the same as it was ~2017.
 
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Jan 22, 2011
1,610
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Only take kids with January Birthdays...
That tends to be the rule of thumb, but interestingly my daughter played on a 12u-B rec league based select team that at least 6, if not 8, players were post August 1st birthdays, including at least 2 November birthdays. I don't think we had any Jan or Feb birthdays.

The team was something like 71-9-1, including 6-6-1 in PGF tournaments, and something like 14-3 against So Cal 12u-B teams. They came in 5th place at Western Nationals and beat the team that won Western Nationals in pool play.

There was 12u PGF qualifier about 70 miles from us on a weekend we were off that I wish we had done to see if we could get lucky and qualify. Maybe USA softball told us if we played in that qualifier we would be re-classified as an A team.

Its about instilling the love of the game, trying to develop all the players who love the game. I coached a player who as probably the 10th best player on her 10u All-Star teams who was a hard worker and won a 14u ASA Nationals as a 1st year 14u (before there was a PGF), and played in the D3 College World Series as a senior. My wife's nickname for her was 'Remington', since she had a very strong arm, but wasn't accurate yet. Another player who caught in D3 college didn't blossom into a starting catcher until she was 15.
 
Last edited:
Apr 14, 2022
564
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Bob Burnett asked me last week for some thoughts on how to develop a strong 8u program. In honor of this weekend being his daughter's memorial tournament, I've compiled what I helped an excellent group of volunteers pull off over 12 years. Home | Mbfoundation (meghanburnettfoundation.org) Fly High!


1) Started developing catchers my first 8u practice. Spent ~5 minutes with each girl teaching them the basic catchers crouch/receiving and l would pitch lite flight balls to them. You never know who has ability to be a catcher. (www.catchingcamp.com). Every one caught at least 2 innings over the course of the rec season. Even though 8u All-Star rules back then didn't allow stealing, our first tournament allowed girls to "steal" if the ball got behind the catcher. My basic work with catchers allowed them to mostly keep the ball in front of them. We won it. Thank you @Eric F for pointing me in the direction of excellent catching resources 8 years ago!

2) Give every girl the chance to pitch. Work with them all some. My league rules limited each girl to pitching 2 innings a game. My daughter only pitched 1 inning every other game in 8u (1 game she pitched 2). I had an Irish girl named Caoimhe (kee-va) who had natural IR who only played one year. One of my fondest 8u memories was her Dad coming up to me after she pitched and saying 'Caoimhe was disappointed she only pitched to 3 batters that inning' . Pitching Videos | Pitching Lessons | House of Pitching helped me learn the basics. If only I had heard of Rick Pauly and Rich Balswick two years earlier. Pauly Girl Fastpitch – High Performance Pitching Fastpitch Foundations – Softball Pitching Instruction Watch | Facebook I've heard very good things about where Meghan taught pitching (https://www.planetfastpitch.com/)... a buddy from California who grew up in Mass told me at one point he was thinking about bringing his 8 year old there for a week to take lessons there. We had alumni coaches and high school players who were good pitchers helped run a pitching clinic for 8u and beginning 10u players. Try to encourage some of your HS pitchers to give lessons to younger pitchers for say $20 a lesson.

3) My daughter naturally threw with good form because she watched softball played for the first 5 years of her life. I would of helped more girls if I had heard of Austin Wasserman three years earlier. Home - High Level Throwing -.
High Level Throwing With Austin Wasserman Webinar - YouTube In 2015 or 2016 Austin agreed to sell me his e-book for $10 or $20 a copy and I bought one for each of our Summer Star and All-Star coaches.

4) Have coaches play catch with the girls with lite flight balls until they get confidence. Teach them the 'clock theory' about point their thumb to the clock position with their belly button the center of the clock.

5) Watch Big Al Baseball's videos.... one or two years we paid for the whole league to get access to his material... even the parents. When he came out to give a coaches clinic to the Little League coaches one year, we had him give a coaches clinic for our softball league. Home (bigalbaseball.com)

6) Keep it fun. I question some of the fundamentals taught, but Canada does it right. Until I convinced the league to spend the money on Big Al Baseball, I bought the 6u and 8u coaches 'The Learn to Play' books out of my pocket for 3 or 4 years. Keep it fun. They have a new program called 'Timbits Softball' which I assume is a new and improved version. https://softball.ca/programs/timbits-softball

7) Human Kinetics books are great. Also has coach education. Never did implement it, but I consider making it a requirement for All-Star coaches to take the fundamentals of coaching class. Human Kinetics Coach Education Consider bringing in Positive coaching alliance every other year. They have online classes as well: Positive Coaching Alliance – PCA – Youth Sports Training - PCA

8) Mike Candrea USA softball videos. Little league has some good coaching education material for softball. I haven't looked at it in 3 or 4 years: Coaches - Little League

9) Worked out deal with Right View Pro one year to get the video they used to sell in Little League store for ~$10 each at a discount on USB stick to give to our coaches. 23 video clips of hitting instruction by Mike Candrea and Sue Enquist. About 5 years ago I had two long phone conversations with Don Slaught. There is an app I bought for my phone a couple years ago. I haven't looked closely at their structure lately, but RVP seems to have a league license: Right View Pro

10) Develop a relationship with your local High Schools, JUCOs, and travel teams (need to be careful they don't poach your players) to come out and give clinics. We never fully implemented it, but I wanted to implement something like AYSO soccer does to have experienced coaches to come out and help run practices. Maybe try to get High School players and good coaches whose daughters have aged out to come out and help run practices for 6u-8u the first couple Saturdays before you start playing games.

11) Develop a youth umpire program where girls umpire 8u and 10u games. Rule of thumb is they have to be 4 years older than the division they are umpiring. IE 12 year olds can umpire 8u games, 14 years old can umpire 10u. Younger girls love see older girls umpiring their games.... and it helps the older girls learn the game. Local umpire associations are likely willing to provide training for youth umpires.

12) Good material on fundamentals of coaching, 1st aid, dealing with parents, at the NFHS: NFHS Learn | Interscholastic Education, Made Easy Consider buying at least 1 membership to the NFCA for your league to get access to their 'Coaches Box'. https://nfca.org/ NFCA membership also gets you a discount with Bownet and other vendors.

13) Our league couldn't get much field space for a developmental Fall Ball program, so we implemented a 6 week summer fall ball program we called 'Summer Stars' where we brought in outside coaches to help run practices, teach some skills, a couple pitching clinics, etc. Gave us a deeper pool of experienced coaches, gave the girls who wanted to learn more about softball but not do summer tournament ball a chance to keep playing and improving. Girls played division they would play the next spring. Had cohorts of 24-28 girls that practiced together with 4-6 coaches, divided into two equal teams that varied weekend to weekend for a Saturday game. Gave youth umpires a chance to earn some more money. Brought in HS girls to help run practices (let them earn a little spending money). Not sure if they still do it, but for a couple years other rec leagues in our county banded together and did something similar for their non-tournament fall ball program.

14) Read @Ken Krause Krause 's excellent blog on softball: Life in the Fastpitch Lane | Thoughts, ideas and musings on fastpitch softball (softballsuccess.com) IOMT Castaways forever!

15) I truly believe you shouldn't coach unless you love your players. A couple resources:
Amazon.com: Lead . . . for God's Sake!: A Parable for Finding the Heart of Leadership eBook: Gongwer, Todd G. , Meyer, Urban, Meyer, Urban: Kindle Store
3D Coach: Capturing the Heart Behind the Jersey (Heart of a Coach) - Kindle edition by Duke, Jeff, Bonham, Chad, Bowden, Bobby, Bowden, Tommy. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com
3D Institute

16) Try to end every practice with a fun 10 minute drill/competition.
Very nice. Every girl should try pitching!
Also learning to catch with with an adult is critical.
Very wise words.
 
Jan 22, 2011
1,610
113
Was talking to a teenager umpire the other night in-between innings as she was umping an 8u game. She brought up a very important point I hadn't thought of lately. If leagues do coach pitch, they need to give coaches some basic instruction on pitching. Kid's brains are not wired to react to slow pitching. When I coached 8u I pitched faster than other coaches and basically on a straight line, trying to estimate where the bat was going to be. Most of my players would put the ball in play.



Bob Burnett asked me last week for some thoughts on how to develop a strong 8u program. In honor of this weekend being his daughter's memorial tournament, I've compiled what I helped an excellent group of volunteers pull off over 12 years. Home | Mbfoundation (meghanburnettfoundation.org) Fly High!


1) Started developing catchers my first 8u practice. Spent ~5 minutes with each girl teaching them the basic catchers crouch/receiving and l would pitch lite flight balls to them. You never know who has ability to be a catcher. (www.catchingcamp.com). Every one caught at least 2 innings over the course of the rec season. Even though 8u All-Star rules back then didn't allow stealing, our first tournament allowed girls to "steal" if the ball got behind the catcher. My basic work with catchers allowed them to mostly keep the ball in front of them. We won it. Thank you @Eric F for pointing me in the direction of excellent catching resources 8 years ago!

2) Give every girl the chance to pitch. Work with them all some. My league rules limited each girl to pitching 2 innings a game. My daughter only pitched 1 inning every other game in 8u (1 game she pitched 2). I had an Irish girl named Caoimhe (kee-va) who had natural IR who only played one year. One of my fondest 8u memories was her Dad coming up to me after she pitched and saying 'Caoimhe was disappointed she only pitched to 3 batters that inning' . Pitching Videos | Pitching Lessons | House of Pitching helped me learn the basics. If only I had heard of Rick Pauly and Rich Balswick two years earlier. Pauly Girl Fastpitch – High Performance Pitching Fastpitch Foundations – Softball Pitching Instruction Watch | Facebook I've heard very good things about where Meghan taught pitching (https://www.planetfastpitch.com/)... a buddy from California who grew up in Mass told me at one point he was thinking about bringing his 8 year old there for a week to take lessons there. We had alumni coaches and high school players who were good pitchers helped run a pitching clinic for 8u and beginning 10u players. Try to encourage some of your HS pitchers to give lessons to younger pitchers for say $20 a lesson.

3) My daughter naturally threw with good form because she watched softball played for the first 5 years of her life. I would of helped more girls if I had heard of Austin Wasserman three years earlier. Home - High Level Throwing -.
High Level Throwing With Austin Wasserman Webinar - YouTube In 2015 or 2016 Austin agreed to sell me his e-book for $10 or $20 a copy and I bought one for each of our Summer Star and All-Star coaches.

4) Have coaches play catch with the girls with lite flight balls until they get confidence. Teach them the 'clock theory' about point their thumb to the clock position with their belly button the center of the clock.

5) Watch Big Al Baseball's videos.... one or two years we paid for the whole league to get access to his material... even the parents. When he came out to give a coaches clinic to the Little League coaches one year, we had him give a coaches clinic for our softball league. Home (bigalbaseball.com)

6) Keep it fun. I question some of the fundamentals taught, but Canada does it right. Until I convinced the league to spend the money on Big Al Baseball, I bought the 6u and 8u coaches 'The Learn to Play' books out of my pocket for 3 or 4 years. Keep it fun. They have a new program called 'Timbits Softball' which I assume is a new and improved version. https://softball.ca/programs/timbits-softball

7) Human Kinetics books are great. Also has coach education. Never did implement it, but I consider making it a requirement for All-Star coaches to take the fundamentals of coaching class. Human Kinetics Coach Education Consider bringing in Positive coaching alliance every other year. They have online classes as well: Positive Coaching Alliance – PCA – Youth Sports Training - PCA

8) Mike Candrea USA softball videos. Little league has some good coaching education material for softball. I haven't looked at it in 3 or 4 years: Coaches - Little League

9) Worked out deal with Right View Pro one year to get the video they used to sell in Little League store for ~$10 each at a discount on USB stick to give to our coaches. 23 video clips of hitting instruction by Mike Candrea and Sue Enquist. About 5 years ago I had two long phone conversations with Don Slaught. There is an app I bought for my phone a couple years ago. I haven't looked closely at their structure lately, but RVP seems to have a league license: Right View Pro

10) Develop a relationship with your local High Schools, JUCOs, and travel teams (need to be careful they don't poach your players) to come out and give clinics. We never fully implemented it, but I wanted to implement something like AYSO soccer does to have experienced coaches to come out and help run practices. Maybe try to get High School players and good coaches whose daughters have aged out to come out and help run practices for 6u-8u the first couple Saturdays before you start playing games.

11) Develop a youth umpire program where girls umpire 8u and 10u games. Rule of thumb is they have to be 4 years older than the division they are umpiring. IE 12 year olds can umpire 8u games, 14 years old can umpire 10u. Younger girls love see older girls umpiring their games.... and it helps the older girls learn the game. Local umpire associations are likely willing to provide training for youth umpires.

12) Good material on fundamentals of coaching, 1st aid, dealing with parents, at the NFHS: NFHS Learn | Interscholastic Education, Made Easy Consider buying at least 1 membership to the NFCA for your league to get access to their 'Coaches Box'. https://nfca.org/ NFCA membership also gets you a discount with Bownet and other vendors.

13) Our league couldn't get much field space for a developmental Fall Ball program, so we implemented a 6 week summer fall ball program we called 'Summer Stars' where we brought in outside coaches to help run practices, teach some skills, a couple pitching clinics, etc. Gave us a deeper pool of experienced coaches, gave the girls who wanted to learn more about softball but not do summer tournament ball a chance to keep playing and improving. Girls played division they would play the next spring. Had cohorts of 24-28 girls that practiced together with 4-6 coaches, divided into two equal teams that varied weekend to weekend for a Saturday game. Gave youth umpires a chance to earn some more money. Brought in HS girls to help run practices (let them earn a little spending money). Not sure if they still do it, but for a couple years other rec leagues in our county banded together and did something similar for their non-tournament fall ball program.

14) Read @Ken Krause Krause 's excellent blog on softball: Life in the Fastpitch Lane | Thoughts, ideas and musings on fastpitch softball (softballsuccess.com) IOMT Castaways forever!

15) I truly believe you shouldn't coach unless you love your players. A couple resources:
Amazon.com: Lead . . . for God's Sake!: A Parable for Finding the Heart of Leadership eBook: Gongwer, Todd G. , Meyer, Urban, Meyer, Urban: Kindle Store
3D Coach: Capturing the Heart Behind the Jersey (Heart of a Coach) - Kindle edition by Duke, Jeff, Bonham, Chad, Bowden, Bobby, Bowden, Tommy. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com
3D Institute

16) Try to end every practice with a fun 10 minute drill/competition.
 

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