The Saga of Rebuilding a School Program: A parent-coach's journal

[PJR202]

Hello. I had the idea while back to read the chronicles of different school (and travel) programs the members of this site have participated in. I think there could be a real interest around here in seeing how these things go for different programs in various areas of the US, so I thought I would get the ball rolling by talking about our journey. The past few years of planning and work have been to take a nearly extinct, very small-town program from perennial doormat to what will hopefully (and IMO, realistically) be a program that can keep itself above .500 for at least the next few years. The efforts of our small group of dedicated LL, MS, and HS parents and coaches have and will continue to work hard to build a solid program and help our kids have fun and learn how to work to achieve their goals in softball and life.

I'll be covering all three levels of the school program, as I and most of my co-conspirators have been, or continue to be directly involved in each level of play.

I intend to dedicate the first several posts to our history before continuing on with the daily events and preparation leading into the 2023 season.

I hope you enjoy our past and present struggles and successes, and will be inspired to journal about your own. I would love to read about each one!

Small town in the southeast. Not much of a pool to pull athletes from.

HS - 450 students, 6 sports for girls
MS - 400 students, 6 sports for girls (some are just together with the HS)
Three elementary schools totaling 900 students. Zero sports.



2018 - My older daughter takes up softball as a 6th grader, having joined the MS team. I have to teach her to throw, catch, and understand the game in like two weeks. That went better than expected, really. I'm sure the neighbors feared for the safety of their automobiles, but all in all, she was on part with most of the other 6th graders. Our LL softball had died off and had only just restarted that year, so her team basically had no 6th graders with experience, and only a couple 7th graders who had played. I believe three girls were playing LL baseball at some point before that since baseball was still around. The MS coach was in his first (and only) season, having taken up the job as a reluctant parent. Oddly enough, that's how I ended up doing it as well!

The 2018 middle school team lost every game by run-rule, aside from "winning" one JV game.
I'm not sure how the HS team did. I believe they were well under .500 in 2018. The HS team had achieved some success from maybe 2005 to 2012 or so. After that it was pretty much all sub .500, usually ending up 1, 2, or 3 up from the bottom in the district.

2019 - No coach. No MS team. LL was in its second season but only had two teams, with players ranging from 7 to 13 years old. One girl could pitch, so she was placed on the weaker team--presumably in order to help develop the stronger (using the term loosely) players so they could have some sort of all-star team. That went about like you're expecting. I had no intention of coaching the MS team in 2019. Having just been a baseball player until I was 15, I didn't feel confident that I knew enough to get the job done, and in hindsight it was probably the better decision. My then 7th grader was offered a JV spot on the high school team, so we rolled with that. The HS team won about a third of their games that year. 2019's gap year for MS and the lack of a strong LL would prove to be quite a challenge for 2020 and 2021.

Coming tomorrow....2020.

Thanks for (hopefully) reading!

 

[CoachJD]

This is a great idea, and it makes me wish I had taken the time to do something like this with our program (though if you compile all my posts about our teams on DFP I've probably written about half a book or more on it).

Keep doing this.

 

[PJR202]

Thanks for reading, @CoachJD. I think it's interesting to see how things are done in different regions, states, different economic areas, etc. I see posts here that are so much different than the way we do things, or the things people or teams have. We're all shooting for the same goals but can have completely different approaches to getting there. As towns go, we aren't the smallest, but our half of the county is a 2A (out of 6) program in sports

So, 2020 ...this is where things went down in many ways (good, bad, and absurd), and how I was eventually sucked into the coaching world. The MS team was back...sort-of.

As I said in post #1, in 2018 I was just an observer. I had hinted a little bit that I was willing to assist with the MS team that my older daughter (I'm actually a step-parent to both my kids) had been a part of because the coaches were in a little over their heads (as I would have also been) and I saw some areas I could help with. But ultimately I guess they felt like they had things under control, so no big deal. I'm not the type to push myself onto people.

So for 2020, my DD #1 (I hate saying DD, but it's simpler this way) was now in 8th grade, having spent 7th grade playing HS JV since there was no MS team that year. She and Ed's DD, who is a year younger, were by far the top two players on the team, so I knew they were hosed because at that point, neither of our girls was a superstar by any means. Plus, Ed's girl is left-handed, and we all know lefties can't be trusted. Clearly, they're abominations, and I make sure to let Ed's girl know this at least once a week...plus it's just a pain in the rear to keep equipment around for them. And on that note...my kingdom for a RHT 1B mitt because the kid we're training to play it for next year has an absurd love for her barely-more-than-plastic, 11.5 inch mitt that sucks so bad she has to catch at 1B with two hands. I want to harass her to get a 1B mitt but I HATE asking parents to spend money--especially in our economically depressed area--and if I buy any more softball gear my wife will stab me. But I swear, if I pull aside one more kid who can't seem to squeeze the ball and find an 11" Jenny Finch wal-mart special, I'm gonna lose it. I'd like to dramatically toss those gloves out into the nearby woods like I do every time I pull one of the 5,000,000 lopsided or dead balls we have in the buckets. I've probably put a dozen out there over the past year. You may disagree, but the only thing even remotely as unsatisfying as hitting a dead ball, is was last week when I dropped a freshly grilled chicken breast on the driveway.

To be continued, in a few minutes...

 

[PJR202]

So, two practices into the 2020 season, DD #1 (13 at the time) convinced DD #2 (11 at the time), to go with her and "try softball." That's how MS ball was at the time. There was no making the team. They would take anyone. Literally, anyone.

DD #2 HATED ball sports. She was the type of kid who would put on a helmet to play basketball. She was the dainty, quirky one who would rather be in the basement making slime or playing in the grass than to do physical competition. The most sporty thing she did was the school archery program where the kids all stand in a line and coaches, such as myself, would pray they didn't shoot each other. She was the type of kid who, when throwing a ball, inspired everyone nearby put up a wall of protection because the ball could go literally any direction. She's hit me in the worst places when standing BEHIND her. I love both my girls immensely. I've been their stepdad since they were 3 and 1 and I believe in them, but I didn't expect much from DD #2 in this case.

Boy was I wrong...

She came out of our small batting building exploding with enthusiasm. "I LOVE SOFTBALL," she screamed as she got in the truck. One thing about this DD2 is, unlike her sister DD1, when she finds something she loves, she basically never stops. She used to make some of the worst, most half-assed kid art paintings. It was brutal. We're talking about the hairy fire engine caliber stuff. That was 7 or 8 years ago. When we moved two years ago she had 70 canvases on her bedroom walls. She still paints almost every day, and sometimes blows me away with the depth of them. She gives her paintings and mixed media art exclusively as gifts. I don't even want to know what my wife has spent on canvases.

By the third practice, I went in the building to watch. The building is 80 x 30 with a net down the middle so there's very little space for observers. TWENTY ONE girls showed up. IT was complete chaos. Right after I got in there, the new lady coach looked at me and said "Ed says you know how to play. Feel free to jump in and help!"

And that's how it started. I'm a sucker because I love my kids and community.

 

[PJR202]

Imagine if you will, an 80 x 30 building, packed full of 21 girls and three coaches (Ed got sucked into it as well. Time was really his only issue). Here's the roster...

Coaches with head coach experience more than one season of LL - 0

Girls with more than a year of experience - 2
Girls with 1 year of LL - 6
Girls who didn't know what softball was when they walked in the door - 13
Girls who didn't have their own glove - 4
Girls who had ever thrown a game pitch - 2
Girls who could throw a strike - 1 (5th grader)
Girls we thought was right-handed because she didn't know the glove was for the opposite hand - 1
Girls who didn't know right from left - 1
Girls who had competent throw and catch skills - 6
Girls who could throw and catch full speed at a middle school level - 2
Girls who were hit in the face during the first few practices - probably 21
Girls who cried when they didn't get their first choice of jersey number - 1
Girls who understood baseball/softball lingo and acronyms - 1

The building was literal chaos. Trying to teach that many girls how to throw and catch inside a sardine can was downright dangerous for all involved. It rained and snowed so much during the practice weeks that we only got on the field twice. We share the field with the HS, and have no tarp. Almost all learning was done in the sardine can or in a couple sessions at the MS gym. Imagine teaching a game without having the field, the diamond, pitching, etc. Imagine a pitcher who can't handle more than two walks without melting down. Imagine a brand new catcher, blasting motley crue and silent screaming obscenities in the corner of the gym, missing every throw from the melted-down pitcher, and both of them are crying. We had a few throw down bases and some softie balls, which make learning reactionary glove squeezing even more difficult. Conditioning consisted of some crunches and stretching.

DD1's 2018 6th grade year had a full set of uniforms in multiple configurations. They never made it back after the season. So the 2020 team had...

-$500 starting money in boosters that Ed donated
-No uniforms
-No catching gear
-One bucket of balls
-No team bats
-No bats in-general for most of the kids. Maybe one of them had a composite, which we like to call a "trampoline bat."
-No money for bus transportation (there's a gate/ticket money fund that accrues for umps but it was empty)
-The option of a qualified catcher or 1B (Ed's daughter), but not both because it was the same kid.

We managed to get money for uniforms donated by a player's relative. Sheer luck. Bless that woman.
My kids' bio dad agreed to drive the bus for free. We didn't have any gas money. We handed out a sheet detailing what were approved gloves and bats, how to measure for a bat, suggested glove sizes, etc, and a third of the parents managed to screw that up. One 6th grader of average height showed up with a 27" bat. I bought some used gloves on eBay and passed them out to the more financially strapped kids. We shared Ed's daughter's catcher's gear.

We were nowhere near ready when the week of the first game arrived. Not even close. We were gonna get murdered twice a week for two months.

Then, a bat took a dump on a piece of fish in a dirty market somwhere in Wuhan, China... That little rat with wings saved our asses...

 

[PJR202]

Back to 2020...good lord. Here we go...

So in the last days leading up to our first scheduled game in March, we assessed our lineup.

P - 5th grader with a couple years of lessons and a little travel experience who could hit the zone maybe 40% of the time. Overall skills, 3rd best player on the team.

C - First year player. 13 year old 7th grader. Fantastic natural athletic ability, very strong for her size, fast, but emotionally fragile. Throw and catch was normal for a first year. She was easy to like but could really be a handful at times. We'll call her Melanie. We REALLY needed her to develop into a catcher, but she hadnt by that point.

1B - Ed's DD. Savage, knowledgeable, rocket arm, absolute love for the game. Great kid. Still a lefty though, so untrustworthy and dangerous. Would probably steal your candy bar...

2B - A small but savage 6th grader with a year or two of experience. The "silent assassin" type. Good in the field but struggled at the plate. Always knew where to be on the field. Good parents who took their role in her development seriously. All the girls loved her.

SS - my 8th grader, DD1. Can't get a ball past her. Strong arm. Struggled at the plate. Really good at judging pitches, and even better at getting hit by pitches. Doesn't move unless it's at her head.

3B - DD2, who despite my lack of expectations, it turned out had a very strong arm and was halfway decent at ground balls. Still pretty weak with a glove and nowhere near enough game knowledge. Couldnt hit. But a brand new, 100lb 11 year old capable of throwing 84 feet, 10 1/2 inches couldn't be left on the bench.

Outfield was a rotating cast of characters. We didn't have a single kid who was a competent outfielder, nor any that could hit the cutoff. Nor were we capable of making a cutoff transition, and really even just knowing that a cutoff existed. Lack of actual field time was such a huge detriment. You can't truly teach this stuff without space.

As for the HS, they were returning 9 players, and I think the coach (that was his last season) was just planning on pulling our older kids. At that time the link/interaction between MS and HS was mostly non existent. I feel that having everyone coaching from LL to HS staying in contact, practicing together some, and doing scrimmages is critical to building a program with lasting success.

So anyway...we were completely hosed for MS, and the season was cancelled the week of out first game. It was truly a merciful action sent to us by the cosmos. I was disappointed at the time, but very quickly realized that it was the best thing that could have happened.

 

[PJR202]

So we're in late May, 2020. Schools lets out early here.

Once our school seasons were cancelled, we started thinking about LL. My DD2 was eligible, along with almost all our other girls. We saw the situation as a chance to catch up. There was a board meeting where we would be discussing how LL would work during the lockdown.

LL as an organization wasn't shutting down, but they had basically made it impossible to play. The rule that sent our hands in the air for good said the ball wasn't to be shared in practices. Only games. So essentially we couldn't pass, take infield, etc. Pointless to try. There would be little to no development from a defensive perspective. We really needed development. Most other teams in our district have multiple travel players and are deep enough to send their 8th graders to the HS and only bring them on free dates and when the district tournament rolls around.

So we softball folks decided to just to a camp, on our own with no affiliation. Baseball just made a travel team. We had enough LL age kids to do two teams. I coached one, and another MS parent coached the other. I'll call her camp coach 2 (CC2). We both found our own assistants. She had a former high school player who was in her mid 20's and pretty knowledgeable. I had a buddy helping me whose daughter was 8. The teams were divided up by Ed since he was the LL president, but CC2 basically told him to give me most of the MS players. Why? I have no idea.

So we advertised a bit, then started the camp. I was nervous. I basically had never coached, but I knew the basics of the game and came into practice with a clipboard and a plan (my AC laughed at my clipboard). I know a lot of parents without much experience take the job, but I wanted to do well. So I basically set up half a practice to fundamentals, then we spent the other half taking IF/OF, focusing primarily on just throwing it to 1B and teaching SS and 3B to take the cut throw. I also made it a point to tell them what softball was, explain balls, strikes, innings, the object of the game, etc. Just the basics. I've learned since that day that it's best to just get the kids on the field, show them spots, and get them going through the motions even if they don't understand quite everything. Then add runners, and progress from there.

 

[PJR202]

So, continuing with the camp...

There were a couple kids I hadn't seen before. One in particular caught our attention. She had just finished 5th grade, had no organized softball experience, yet showed up with better throw and catch than most of my MS players. There was a point in the first or second practice where we had put her at 2B, and amid the distraction she had drifted over too close to the base. I look over and her dad 's jogging out toward the infield and puts her in the right position, and is talking to her more about what to do.

Now, initially I was like "ok that's not very cool," but then I realized if I had ANOTHER guy out there who knew even a little bit, that it's a good thing. I think I gave him a wave and said thanks, then he actually ran right back off the field after about a minute. I figured her realized he had gotten ahead of himself and committed a bit of a faux pas.

So later, we're doing some hitting and she's on deck. I didnt notice she had gotten pretty close to the active batter and was in a prime spot to take a foul ball off what would assuredly late swing, which is pretty much a guarantee with new batters. He was behind the fence this time and he told her to step back or she was gonna get killed. And he was right. I felt stupid, so after practice I went over and apologized. We had a brief conversation. He told me I was doing a great job, and casually mentioned he had coached his son from T-ball up until he left to play in college. I didn't grow up around here, but everyone knows him and is like "oh yeah. he was a great baseball coach." I did a silent fist pump because I knew I could get him back out there. I told him we've love his help if he wanted.

But he didn't come through the fence the next day. I wanted to work on some OF stuff, and he was sitting in the bleachers again so I asked if he knew a drill for it. He did, and came out and ran it for me. He never came on the field unless I asked. I could tell he was trying to respect the job. He runs by the same philosophy as me, which is "if that person took on the responsibility, they run the show no matter what."

So I eventually got him out there regularly, and he always stuck with whatever plan I had come up with and gave me drills and info to work through it. He's a wizard, and if he hadn't come along, our program would still be in the stone ages. I had no idea how much I didn't know about the game, or more specifically how to TEACH the things I just already knew how to do.

I also realized and STILL am realizing how much my coaches didn't bother to teach when I was younger. These guys had been at it for 10+ years and basically all they did was IF/OF and say things like "glove on the ground," "get under the pop-up, and when hitting, say "get your elbow up." I'm not an amazing athlete, but I think I could have probably gone on to play HS and done pretty well.

 

[PJR202]

Camp practices were going well, and everyone got a jersey t-shirt with their own made up team names and each player got a nickname on the back. They were hilarious. We fired up a borrowed pitching machine and shoved some B-grade softballs through it until they were scored and faded, and I think we managed to play 5 or 6 games before one of the local cheer gyms (which we had a couple common kids in the dugout) had a Covid case and we decided it would be best to shut it down. We did also discover that our budding catcher was chewing tobacco. Like, legit had a pouch of beech nut hanging out of her back pocket. When I told her she couldn't do it anymore and really shouldn't do it at all, she said "well I only do it when I'm not at school." LOLOLOL.

My team was considerably better. The only time they beat us was when we gave them my ineligible 14 year old and Ed's daughter. They beat the piss out of us that night. The games were a blast though, and we had huge numbers of parents and family out watching. I think it was the first time in several weeks that people were venturing out of the house and it was clear that everyone was just pumped to be together again.

That first game for me was nerve wracking, with everyone watching me and I presumed were expecting me to know what I was doing. I forgot my cleats so I was out there looking like a dope in flip-flops. Despite the games being chaos and having kids with so little experience that they were standing on the plate to bat, we still had some really exciting moments and it just FELT right. I learned a ton in those 6 weeks or so, and the experience for the kids was invaluable. With the addition of The Wizard, it probably legitimately pushed us two years ahead by the time spring rolled around.

I'll never forget 2020 from a softball perspective. Those will always be my fondest coaching and parenting memories.

 

[PJR202]

Anyone who is reading, feel free to comment anything you'd like. I want this experience to be as interactive as possible.