Important Aspects Of A Baseball Coach
by: Sintilia Miecevole

Being a baseball coach can be very rewarding. It is a big responsibility, though. You are basically the ‘leader’ of your team, and how you act will directly affect how the assistant coaches and the players act. There are some tips you can follow to make yourself a better baseball coach.

These tips are:

1. Give everyone on your baseball team a responsibility. Make each and every person on the team feel if they don’t do something, it won’t get done! Any accomplishments made by a member of the team are shared by the whole team. (It is important to give recognition to individuals, though.)

2. Help everyone on your baseball team make good, informed decisions. As the baseball coach, you need to guide and teach the players to make the good decisions you want them to make. Don’t bully the baseball team to do what you want them to do, just encourage them to do what is best.

3. Always treat your baseball team like they are winners! If your baseball players feel like winners, they will be more likely to win.

4. Let everyone on your baseball team know you care. Be interested in every individual baseball player. Encourage them and show them your support. Look at your behavior around your baseball team and evaluate it carefully.

5. Help your baseball team understand the meaning of playing with good sportsmanship! Good sportsmanship is just as important as winning. Make sure your baseball players understand the meaning of fair play from the moment you become their baseball coach.

6. Make sure you motivate and reward your baseball team players. Just knowing the basic skills and strategies of baseball won’t necessarily make you a very good baseball coach. Being a baseball coach is truly more than just teaching these things. A really good coach can motivate a baseball team to do its best! Good baseball coaches understand and can empathize with the players’ feelings of joy, anger, anxiety, frustration, and pride.

7. Don’t make your baseball practices boring or repetitious. Shake up practices by playing games and teaching new techniques and plays. Since only 9 players can play at a time, make sure to keep the rest of the baseball team feeling useful by having them keep score or charting pitching and offence. Make sure to keep each baseball player feeling they have an important role in winning.

8. Make sure you have a plan for your baseball team. Just like a teacher needs to plan for the school year, a baseball coach needs a plan for the season. Having no plan is a sure road to failure.

9. Give your baseball team enough time to review things they have learned. Whether at the end of a practice or the end of a game, give your players time to review what has been learned and what could be improved upon. Keep the review as positive in tone as possible.

10. Make sure you communicate with your baseball team. If you cannot get across to your baseball team what you want, how will they know what to do?