Why do some pay all this $$$ for private lessons???

[GOINGDEEP]

I gotta ask this question? And anyone can answer and I won't have bad feelings. I'm just curious.

Why do people drive hours away and spend $50-100 an hour for a pitching or hitting coach? My family has played baseball all our lives ( high school-competitive-college ), I switched to softball because of my daughter, as most of us dad's have. But I take pride and time to pass on what I have learned to my kid. When I have any problems I will ask a fellow coach or buy a DVD.

I will be honest, when mine was 10-11 we did try a pitching coach and several batting camps. They were a waste of money. They taught nothing that a average dad shouldn't already know, or find out from fellow coaches on the field. Sure I might ask another coach to come look at a player of mine who is in a batting slump or her pitching is off, and between a few of us we usually can work the slump out of them. But dang if I'm going to pay someone.

We have a good indoor/outdoor facility where we live and it amazes me every time we go. Tons of parents spending big bucks for private lessons that they could do in the backyard, at the batting cage, or just by renting a field. ( which is what we do because we can split the cost of the field over 10 parents= $5 bucks for an hour ) Shouldn't we as parents want to spend that time teaching our own kids?

I just never understood the allure of paying for private lessons. Maybe we are blessed to have a great coaching staff? IDK, cause we are not perfect. We do have 2 players that go to private lessons. And they are behind the others that work with their dad's ( or mom's ) a few hour a week. I think the private lessons make them worse, but that's just my opinion.

I'm sure some will say, " maybe we could be better with paid instruction". But dang, we are a 2 time state champion team, our ace pitcher has lost 1 game in 2 years of school varsity ball with a very tuff district to play in, in 2009 travel ball we averaged 6 runs a game ( 14u USFA/ASA/USGF/USSSA ), we play over 120 games from spring to fall and trophied all but 2 tournaments. Heck it don't get much better than that.

 

[mudbug]

Well , it does in fact get a little better than that.

State champion in what organization. You are always only a winner because better teams were not there. Did you play where the best teams were?

HS ball doesnt mean much. 6 runs per game in 14U? How about 14Us playing 16U and even 18U and outscoring almost every team they play by a 10 or more to 1 margin and placing first in every tournament they play, while seeking to play the best. Most teams will never score or get a runner in scoring position on them.

Unless you have placed #1 at ASA USA nationals, and routinely in the top 5 or 10 , there is always more to be had!

Not disagreeing with you at all though, we dont have any significant private instruction here, and our teams often do very well on national level, even beating some of the legendary California teams where all the girls have private instruction too.

The difference is good coaches, with lots of experience, love of the game, and ability to teach and spend lots of time working with girls. Cannot overstate the amount of time and its significance in the results. Unfortunately, they arent that common. There are many teams where the coaching isnt good and parents want to improve their daughter. Others where the coach is good, but hes a game manager or paid coach, and they depend on private instruction to really teach players.

From what Ive seen, I have no doubt that some private instructors are not very good, and parents have wasted money. But other good ones can really help girls without a good coach that knows what their doing. The best ones can help anyone.

 

[amanda_cake]

Stop and think about some of the kids. Maybe they are coming from a home situation with no background in baseball or softball. I'd much rather see someone spend the money on the lessons than have their father teach them the wrong stuff. That's time that we have to spend to correct it. Easy to make a bad habit, hard to fix it. Also, if you've got the money and want to spend it that way why not? I've been to numerous camps and I've seen a difference in my ability because of it. Pitchers without pitching lessons get no where around here.

 

[alexander58]

Many private instructors have plenty to offer. Unfortunately, I know some who are better at marketing themselves than they are instructing. I know pitching instructors who will fill a gym full of kids at $20.00 a pop for an hour. They spend the majority of their time with their oldest students, barely spending time with the younger kids who really need help. The worst part is the kids who they continue to work with for years, who aren't going anywhere. I suppose I could chalk it up to " a fool and his money are soon parted", but it makes me mad.

 

[Mark H]

A skilled instructor who devotes their time to becoming skilled and then to teaching your kid deserves to be paid. If you know enough to not need help, good for you but good luck imo in most cases. The list of greats who took lessons from professionals is long starting with Cat.

 

[sluggers]

GOINGDEEP...wow...you actually won trophies at 14u?

Maybe you're right...my DD went to private lessons from an experienced pitching coach who has produced dozens of D1 players and a couple of Olympians, and she only won a single 14U trophy.

Of course, she only played in one 14U tournament, because she was playing 18U at 13YOA, but that is a different story.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

GOINGDEEP...wow...you actually won trophies at 14u?

Maybe you're right...my DD went to private lessons from an experienced pitching coach who has produced dozens of D1 players and a couple of Olympians, and she only won a single 14U trophy.

Of course, she only played in one 14U tournament, because she was playing 18U at 13YOA, but that is a different story.

I stated a few weeks ago on a post. As a first year 14 my DD moved up to 16/18u all this past fall. She was the only pitcher in the tri-state area to go undefeated on the rubber. ( ASA ) No private lessons. I have not seen one private instructor that has offered anything that I or some of the other coaches in the area have not learned over the past 20 years of playing ball.

 

[SBFAMILY]

I will only address the hitting part of this reply. If all these people are so good teaching then why did 90% of the girls at our last Bustos clinic not know how to throw overhand correctly.?
Of the l coaches we called on , not one could show a girl how to get balanced correctly. So how can they teach hitting? I have been around for many years and can tell you that not all instructors are equal. Till I started working with Howard Carrier I can tell you that most of the coaches teaching hitting have no clue how to teach your dd. That includes many college coaches.

 

[druer]

Wow! This got heated up in a hurry, you'd think someone suggested that we stop paying public school teachers and just all start homeschooling.

The reality is that not every parent has the gift of being able to teach. Some that do, may not have the knowledge from which to do the instruction for softball. Others may have both but don't have the gift of communication within their own family. Others may have it all but they commute 2 hours each way to work and are exhausted when they get home and don't have the energy to. For others that 1 hour drive to and from lessons is the only alone time that they have to communicate with their DD and they would pay $100 just for the chance to have the drive, let alone the valuable information that is instilled while they are there. Life is complicated, and all of our lives, backgrounds and gifts are different.

I was blessed for several years to be able to work out of my home. During those years I got to spend great time with both of my DD's on the field. My oldest daughter and I had personalities that were so much alike that she just didn't want to take instruction from me. So I had a private instructor for her. I then changed some of my communication with her in games to use the same terms her instructor used and for years she also excelled in the sport. My youngest daughter though wanted nothing to do with other instructors, she only wanted to work with me because she'd had a very bad experience with a really "scary" gymnastics coach. (Scary was her term.) She also excelled in the sport. One day my oldest DD's batting coach was talking with us after a lesson and my youngest mentioned that she had gotten tagged out on a close play or she would have had a home run (in the park.) The coach said that she loved sliding and would be happy to teach her to slide. So my youngest jumped at that chance, took 2 sliding lessons from her and then took off as a baserunner. But even after that she never wanted to take batting lessons from that instructor.

We do pay teachers. We do pay college professors. We do pay for tutoring. We do pay for cooking lessons. We do pay for personal trainers. We do pay for expert advice for all types of things related to self help and motivation. It's only natural for some to feel overwhelmed by all of the information to want to pay someone else who is an expert in the field to give their kid the advantage of that wealth of knowledge and the confidence that the knowledge can be bring.

The beauty though is that girls can compete in the sport because of their heart and their desire with or without private lessons. Nothing wrong with either.

 

[Mark H]

I will only address the hitting part of this reply. If all these people are so good teaching then why did 90% of the girls at our last Bustos clinic not know how to throw overhand correctly.?
Of the l coaches we called on , not one could show a girl how to get balanced correctly. So how can they teach hitting? I have been around for many years and can tell you that not all instructors are equal. Till I started working with Howard Carrier I can tell you that most of the coaches teaching hitting have no clue how to teach your dd. That includes many college coaches.

I agree the majority of hitting instruction does not pass the simple scrutiny of "does the instruction match up with what elite hitters actually do".