I'm flattered to be a part of any Hall of Fame and no matter what I do for the rest of my life, this time with my kids will be the best part of it. You only get one shot here and being the best dad I can is more important to me than anything else. Part of that for me is coaching my sons' baseball teams.
Next spring, I'll have coached in The Farm League for 10 seasons spread over springs and summers. My older son, now 9, has played since he was 4 and my younger one just started 5U in 2012. It's not easy coaching two teams, but I want to give this to both of my boys. I have a passion for baseball and have for as long as I can remember. Luckily, at least for now, both of my kids have inherited that passion, we've never once forced them to play any sport, but they both love playing baseball.
The main philosophies behind what I do with the kids are twofold. One is to make sure it's fun for the kids while teaching proper FUNdamentals. Fun is key, if no one wants to be out there then it's going to be a pretty long season. The other is to instill a life-long love of the game in the kids. Baseball is about so much more than the game on the field. Baseball teaches how to solve problems, work together while also handling individual tasks as well as how to bounce back when things go wrong.I've learned to give the kids multiple chances at all the positions. Even at 9U and 10U, I've made sure that every kid is in the infield at least once per game. There's no reason to stress winning over everything else at this age. That time will come but for the kids still learning the game, allow yourself to be impressed when a child does something you weren't sure they could handle. Let them surprise you. My older son's team won the championship of the spring league in 8U and my son still looks back at that as a fun time. I do as well, knowing that we did it the right way and were coaching to teach rather than win. Winning is fun but if you preach winning all the time and then you're grumpy when you lose, the kids learn pretty quickly that it's more about winning than fun. As coaches, all of us have to remember that we've played our last baseball game. Our careers are over and no matter how badly we want our kids to do something, it might not always work out that way. That has to be okay. The kids have also taught me to never be surprised when something funny comes out of a small person's mouth, these kids say some really funny stuff and if you're too caught up in what you're doing to win, you miss it!
The teams I've coached have blessed with great families, some I knew going in and some I didn't. The other thing that has made this more fun (and easier) is the presence of the moms and dads at practice. No one can do this themselves and me taking all the credit for this would be both wrong and completely untrue. We've had a cast of dads ready to run stations at practice so that the kids are on the move since day one. We involve the moms as well, this past spring, we played moms versus kids with the 9U team, it was a lot of fun.Thanks again, I live for the spring and hope to keep doing this for a long time.
"Coach of Crimson Tide, which has turned into the Vipers, and the Yellow Jackets.
