Coaches in Travel Baseball

Travel baseball coaches are under constant scrutiny, and they should be. Travel baseball, along with most other youth sports, has become big business requiring significant financial investments from players' and their families. In addition to coaching and instructing baseball, head coaches are typically responsible for all fiscal matters pertaining to a team's operation. Let's take a moment to consider the success and failures of businesses in a free market society. Regardless of the product sold or service provided, a poorly run business generally will flounder while a well-run business will prosper. Like wise, regardless of player personnel and talent, a poorly managed team will flounder or worse, fail, while a well-managed team will prosper. There are easily 25,000 travel baseball teams across the United States and choosing the right one for your son can be a difficult task. Your primary focus in this process should be on the head coach and it is important to assess him in his capacity as both teacher of the game and manager of the business side. A head coach will create and balance a budget, direct the team finances, collect on accounts receivable and deal with staff and player personnel. He will set practice and game schedules, provide instruction, and be a game strategist. WOW! Your head must spin with everything to consider. Following are some tips that focus on how to assess a head coach as a teacher and strategist of the game.

1. Do you like his style? Style of play and attitude about substitution can play a major role in an opinion of a coach. However, agreeing with the coach 100% of the time will never happen. You need to watch a coach in action to know if you will like his style. Would you put your child in a day care center without visiting and spending time observing the care providers first? So find out a little bit about the coach. He may very well have a huge amount of influence on your son in the very near future.
2. What do previous players or parents say about him? Do not base this decision on public opinion. In many cases tough coaches are perceived volatile or abrasive. On the other hand, there is the coach who seems perfect in every way until you discover, usually once it's too late, that the interworking of his team it is an oily mess. The people who know a particular coach best are the players who have played for that have played for him and the parents who have spent time watching him from the bleachers. Many times the coach that appears incredibly unapproachable is beloved by his former players and their parents.
3. Do his players get better? Many time parents blow right past this question. You are putting your son on a team and probably paying good money for his development as a player. At the end of the season shouldn't he have grown as a player? Growth can come in many ways. Not all growth is visible with the naked eye or measured physically. Growth can be in baseball IQ, better understanding of team, better 2-strike approach or just conditioning.
4. Do players grow as a team under the coach's tutelage? Seems like an odd question, but not really. However I am sure we have all seen the NCAA commercial referring to we will all go pro in something. Learning how to work in a team environment is an incredibly important skill that transcends all of life's experiences. Baseball teaches players the importance of team. Baseball can teach a player how 1+1 can equal 3. More concisely the collective work of a team can become larger than its individual parts. This question is an easy one to answer. Just watch his team play. The team will reflect in their play if the coach has a high emphasis on team or individual.
5. Does your son want to play on that team? Have you asked your son who he wants to play for? As a parent myself, I know we want to make the best decision for our children so we weigh all the different options analyzing every detail. It may be good to include little Johnny in the discussion too.
6. Make a decision and good or bad, stick with it! Now you have weighed, analyzed and tried your best. The final decision has been made. Don't look back!! In life, baseball and business many times the decisions that were made were not wrong or right to start. It was the dedication to those decisions after being made that made them the right ones. So in essence stick to it. Don't look back. Many life lessons can be taught from whatever happens. I know I learned much more from bad coaches than I ever did from the good ones. Baseball, life and church have a great deal in common. Many attend; few understand!