As the days grow longer and warmer and the stubborn beige tones of winter’s dormant grass give way to slivers of green on fields in ballparks across the country, we usher in a season full of sights and sounds enjoyed by millions. Baseball is upon us. With it comes it’s lovable little brother; tee ball.  

For many, the freshly cut grass, fields chalked to perfection and little ones stumbling in and out of the dugout signifies the beginning of their favorite time of year. Aware that this time will pass all too quickly, giddy moms and proud dads snap pictures at a frenetic pace, making sure they have documented the moment. Grandparents and siblings lean into the fence to watch their little player overcome nerves, block out the noise, hit the ball and hustle down the line. These are good times. However, for the men and women responsible for organizing this endearing and entertaining chaos, it can signify something very different: stress, frustration and elevated blood pressure.  

A close friend of mine who coaches baseball at a high level once told me that you aren’t a real baseball coach unless you’ve coached tee ball. I don’t share his breadth of experience in coaching, but I have coached enough seasons of youth baseball to know that I agree wholeheartedly. Not for the knowledge required, but for the sheer unpredictability of it all. It is a task replete with its own unique challenges. Whether you are a seasoned youth coach, played a little ball in your day, or are just a well-intentioned dad in his first year of coaching, odds are you will be facing adversity of some type very soon. 

Among the unique challenges in coaching tee ball is the requirement of 4, 5 and 6-year-olds to stand relatively still when the action is slow – and for position players in tee ball, the action can be painfully slow. Unlike soccer, where children are constantly entertained by chasing a brightly colored moving target, tee ball players are asked to stand still, watch the ball and wait for it to come their way. For some players, that wait may last several innings or in some cases, games.  

In other words, tee ball lacks the instant gratification kids today demand and usually receive in all other aspects of life. Patience is essential in this sport, but that’s a difficult trait to come by at their ages. Nonetheless, it is a great game that can be enjoyed by all if the coach can keep things in perspective and help them keep their eyes on the ball. Literally. 

Here is what I have learned in my years as a tee ball coach. 

Stay Organized

The most important job of a tee ball coach is just being there. In many leagues, very little is expected from the coach other than holding a few practices and keeping things loosely organized on game days. In other leagues, it may be much more competitive. Regardless, I would encourage you to do more than what is asked of you. 

Your players are going to vary greatly in terms of ability and personality, as will their parents. Expectations abound in youth sports, and tee ball is certainly no exception. While it is impossible to be all things to all people, you can certainly minimize the number of misunderstandings or conflicts by communicating well with all of your parents. Explain your philosophy and your strategy on the front end, and you and your parents will enjoy a much smoother emotional ride for the rest of the season. (The misunderstandings come in all shapes and sizes). 

First and foremost, make your self available to your parents and keep them well informed. You may be blessed with the greatest players and parents to ever enter a ballpark, or you may have a hodgepodge of personalities from all walks of life. Either way, you owe it to them to maintain regular contact and keep them in the loop on all things tee ball; schedules, uniforms, weather delays/closings, pictures, drinks/snacks, etc.  

Set a practice schedule and hold yourself to it. If your league provides ample field time to practice, take advantage of it. If space is at a premium in your park, then try to have a plan for holding practices elsewhere. In most cities, you can utilize the fields at churches, schools, even undeveloped commercial real estate, if needed. In some instances, you may even rent space at an indoor facility. While I have never done this for a tee ball team, it could be necessary in periods of prolonged inclement weather. Don’t wait until two or three weeks into the season to try and figure this out.   
Practice, Practice, Practice

This may sound like overkill, but my theory on practice schedules in tee ball (or any other level) is that I would rather offer too much and have players not attend, than offer too little and have parents want more. I have had parents complain both ways – that we were practicing too little and that we were practicing too much. Usually though, whether they want more or less practice, most parents would like to see their child improve. What I do is offer a couple of practices a week leading up to the season. Once the season begins, I hold a scheduled practice each week and (depending on the game schedule) another voluntary practice each week. That said, I also make it clear that all tee ball is essentially voluntary and I’m not going to hold it against any player if they miss practice or games. If you want to come, great. If you don’t great. But there is no question that, by the end of the season, it will be obvious which players have participated the most. Which brings me to my next point. 

There is no substitute for repetitions. This applies in the field and at the plate. Any kid that gets enough reps will improve. You may bring a vast knowledge of hitting mechanics and a plethora of drills with you to the game of tee ball. I strongly encourage you to dial it back a notch (or twelve). Leave the agility ladder at home and boil whatever you know about the game down to a few simple ideas. If you don’t have a practice plan, a quick internet search will produce several that should suffice, but I can probably save you the time. Field grounds balls. Throw to first. Hit the ball.   

Make sure you keep them moving (stations work very well at this and any other level). Also, you will quickly discover that first base is the most important position on the field in tee ball. Put your best glove there. If your league requires you to rotate, have at least a few kids that can catch and play the position. I can not stress this enough; make sure that you have a player that can play this position.  

Make It Fun 

Your league may or may not keep score. Like me, you likely have an opinion on which you prefer, but that’s a topic for another day. If you don’t keep score, make it fun. If you do keep score, make it fun. If your goal as a tee ball coach is turn each of your players into a “beast” or a “machine,” stop reading now and go find some older kids to coach. Our number one job at this age is to make sure that these kids love the game and to make sure that it feels like a game. Make sure that your players want to come back to the ballpark. If you are doing everything right, they will look forward to both practices and games. The beasts and machines will reveal themselves with or without you, so just make sure everyone is smiling.  

Managing Personalities and Positions 

Hopefully you are blessed with good players and good parents. Oddly enough though, there are many that don’t fall into the “good” category. Most disagreements with parents stem from your coaching style, your demeanor or the position their kid is playing. I manage this by rotating positions regularly and making an effort to give every player a chance to make plays. Some leagues may require you to do this. If not, I would encourage it. The only exception I make is first base and, to a lesser extent, pitcher. The reason being that there is usually a player or two that could get hurt because their skills and attention span just aren’t there yet. Again, tell them on the front end how you plan to manage a lineup and what your overall strategy is and you can avoid ruffling feathers as the season progresses. 

You are going to be coaching some children that don’t have the attention span to stay “dialed in.” You are going to coach children that are only there because their parents are making them be there. You will also coach kids that just don’t care. All of these are common in youth sports. My only advice is to try to keep them moving, keep them entertained and try to put a smile on their face. And, if they are not the least bit athletically inclined, try to keep them out of harm’s way. If their parents ask how they are doing, be honest. Not rude, but honest. There is nothing wrong with you telling a parent that their kid hates being out there. There are plenty of successful people in this world that hated tee ball as a kid.  

Keep Your Competitive Side In Check

If you aren’t overly competitive, this won’t be an issue. If you are, you may be in for a long season. Adults can ruin a child’s experience and literally scar them for life if they aren’t able to keep their emotions in check. This should go without saying, but just don’t be that adult. You are going to get frustrated, you are going to have calls go the other way, you are going to have another coach/umpire/parent push your buttons. Take the high road, the stakes are not high in tee ball.   

Enjoy The Game

If you get past the hustle and bustle of hurrying your child to and from the park, the added stress on what is likely an already busy schedule and the kindergartners that just won’t listen, you will realize that a ballpark is an amazing place to spend an evening. Most nights after we’ve played a game, I have a moment in which it dawns on me how much I love being there. The field is empty but the lights are on. Voices grow fainter as they head for the gate. As I gather my equipment in the dugout, I forget how hard it was to get out of my office that day and I forget the helplessness I felt while plugging through the miserable traffic on the way to pick my kids up from school. I see the smile on my son’s face. It’s just me and him now and I know that that the inconveniences were worth it. I am exactly where I am supposed to be. 

When my wife and I had our second child, my brother, with a tinge of regret in his voice, advised me to take it all in. Having raised two boys of his own, he knew very well how fast the moments with my children were about to pass.. “The days are long but the years are short,” he said. I know now what he meant. Truer words have never been spoken, especially when it comes to tee ball.  

Contrary to what former Golden State Warrior head coach Mark Jackson would have you believe, Steph Curry is good for basketball. To most, the utterance of that sentence alone will seem silly.   However, as absurd it may seem, there remains a small faction that, like Jackson, hasn’t bought into the hype surrounding the dynamic point guard’s ability. Over the holidays on Christmas Day, during halftime of the Warriors game versus the Cleveland Cavaliers, Jackson took it one step further by claiming on national television that Curry is actually hurting basketball. I adamantly disagree.

The aggrieved former Warriors head coach had his reasons, namely (and irrationally) the negative impact Curry’s shooting ability is having on “the kids.” See, Jackson has been in these high school gyms and it hurts him to see kids just run to the three-point line and start jacking up threes. He would have you believe that is the only thing going on in high school gyms across the country, that Curry’s shooting ability is causing it and that it is hurting the game. Never mind what coach says, just jack the threes because you saw Curry do it on TV. Jackson’s perspective is fundamentally flawed and clearly influenced by the frustration of watching his former team succeed at a ridiculous level without him. I don’t fault him for that. Human nature deprives most of us of the ability to wish well upon those who have cast us aside. And, to be fair, he does deserve some credit for his success with Golden State. They improved in each of his three years as head coach and made the playoffs in his last two seasons at the helm. But that doesn’t change the fact that he is dead wrong about Curry.

There was a time when I was a young wide-eyed NBA fan but it has been decades since I really cared whether any team in the league won or lost. Faint are the memories of days when I would program my parents VCR to record Dominique Wilkins, Michael Jordan and Spud Webb in the dunk contest then watch it repeatedly so I could try and replicate their acrobatics on the 8 ft. goal in my neighbor’s backyard. I quit watching years ago, for a multitude reasons. Curry is changing that, and not just for me; last year’s NBA Finals series between the Warriors and Cavaliers resulted in the highest television ratings since Jordan’s last championship with the Chicago Bulls in 1998. So on Christmas day, like millions of others, I sat down with my 7-year-old son (a budding basketball player and self-proclaimed baller) to watch the rematch between Curry and LeBron James. Not coincidentally, these are the only NBA player names that my son could name.

During the course of the game, there were three plays by Curry that I rewound and reviewed with my aspiring hoopster; none of them involved three-point shots. All three did involve some awe-inspiring ball handling followed once by a runner and twice by an impressive assist. Not to take anything away from LeBron because there is no denying his once-in-a-generation talent, but I was encouraging my son to focus on the plays he may actually be able to make one day. My son was listening. Therein lies the value of Steph Curry to the game.

In a league dominated by players making a living off their freakish DNA, Curry is the exception. He is making his mark largely by doing things on the court that can be learned. Yes, there have been other point guards with exceptional skills in the modern era; Stockton, Nash and Kidd to name a few. And, there are others currently playing the position that will likely be considered among the best of all time (see Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook). But none of them have possessed the insane ability to shoot the ball as well or as consistently as Curry and none of them have parlayed their ability into the pinnacle of basketball success like Curry. Not to discount his innate athletic ability because Curry has good genetics too. His father Dell (a great shooter in his own right) played in the NBA and his mother Sonya played volleyball at Virginia Tech. Still, Curry hasn’t built his highlight reel with gravity defying hops or super human strength. Rather he continues to amaze basketball fans the old fashioned way – by dribbling, by passing and by shooting. In the process, he has won over legions of youngsters that want to play the game the way he plays it and he has even rekindled a little interest in the NBA from guys like me.

Anyone who has played basketball at any level knows that becoming a skilled shooter demands a boatload of effort, which means countless hours spent in the gym, on the playground or in the backyard. The process takes years and there are no guarantees. Many athletes that are considered good basketball players (even some that are considered great) are not prolific shooters despite years of hard work and time spent trying to improve. Even if a kid puts the hours in and becomes a great shooter, the ability to translate that into success on the court requires additional mental and physical characteristics that many players will not possess. Nonetheless, it is a skill that can be learned and improved upon with practice. All you need is a ball and a hoop.

Curry is a superstar that can shoot from anywhere on the court. He’s a smart player that makes his team better. At 6’3” and 195 lbs, he has the dimensions of a mere mortal. Yet, after toiling away for three years at a mid-major college like a run of the mill prospect – undoubtedly due to the unspectacular nature of his play – he is now an NBA Champion, an MVP and an inspiration to millions of youngsters that want to feel the basketball spin off of those last two fingers and knock the bottom out of the net. Along the way, he grabbed the attention of a 40-year-old father of two, who is watching the NBA again for the first time in over a decade and making sure his sons do the same. That isn’t going to hurt the game.

Two summers ago, while lugging an equipment bag and two rambunctious boys out of the ballpark after a hard fought Tuesday night tee ball game, I heard someone call my name.  It was an old friend with whom I had played baseball with and against when we were younger.   He stopped me and started a conversation about possibly combining a team and wanted to know when we were going to look into playing travel ball.  My son was 5 years old.

My knowledge of travel ball at that point was limited.  I was aware that youth baseball/softball had gone that direction long ago and I understood that, if my boys continued to play, I would likely be considering it as well.  I just assumed the decision would come several years down the road.  I wondered internally what age parents considered traveling and if it was necessary at all. Thinking about it that early seemed absurd.  My child was too young.  But how young is too young?

Through friends and other coaches, I had heard the horror stories about costs, the toll it can take on a family’s time and the motives of some of those involved. I had listened to parents of players complain about the inability to escape the politics that often mar youth sports.  I had also heard positive stories from parents that found themselves on a team with great chemistry, solid coaches and reasonable expenses.  I was even aware of a few players from rural areas that gained exposure and attention from college programs almost solely from travel ball. I knew that there were issues but I understood that, for some, it was both necessary and beneficial.

The merits and drawbacks of modern travel ball have been argued enough in print and social media that many parents are exhausted by the topic.  My personal opinion is that travel ball is necessary for many but not all.  It was born of noble intentions but it quickly blossomed into a massive hyper trend involving many players and families that should be enjoying the game at their local ballpark.  The result has been devastating for many recreational leagues and parks across the country.  Sadly, this means that in many areas that need it the most, kids aren’t being exposed to the game.  Those kids aren’t going to ever play baseball because it simply isn’t around.  The game is now played in some far off place and it costs too much.

Because of the reasons I’ve been given by parents for why they are playing travel ball, I’ve pondered the “chicken vs. the egg” question when it comes to travel teams.  Did competition really get watered down at that many local parks across the country at the same time?  Did every kid really have an incompetent coach and untalented teammates?  Did everyone’s kid suddenly become so dominant that they needed to take the show on the road and up their level of competition?  Or did the travel ball phenomenon consume them prematurely?  Did the competition and quality of coaches diminish as a result of all the good players being pillaged from local ballparks? Did mom and dad want to play travel ball because that’s what everyone else was doing?  I honestly don’t know the answer.  However, I do personally know many players that would be better served playing locally, enjoying multiple sports (if they chose) and letting mom, dad, brother and sister sleep in their own bed while saving the family some money. And I have heard parents and grandparents proudly boast about playing travel ball, strongly implying that they wouldn’t be caught dead playing in a measly rec league.  That leads me to question the motives of many.

Since that summer night two years ago, my knowledge of the advantages of travelling has expanded immensely.  I understand that, in most cases, it raises the level of competition significantly.  Many families enjoy the vibrant tournament atmosphere and playing on pristine fields.  It provides a platform for higher caliber players to draw the attention of college programs and younger players can develop much quicker if you are fortunate enough to find the right mix of team, coaches and competition.  Most importantly though, I understand that, when the decision is made to begin traveling, the game becomes much more serious.  Your child is going to work harder.  Your family is going to sacrifice more time and more money.  One child’s sport is going to consume the attention that another child deserves; or that you yourself deserve. Which brings me back to the question I asked myself that night as I was walking out of the ballpark.  How young is too young?

The answer will vary because kids are all over the map in terms of ability and ambition.  In 12 seasons of coaching youth baseball, I’ve learned more from the kids I’ve coached than they have learned from me.  I’ve also learned a great deal by watching how parents interact with their kids.  It’s been my experience that the most well-adjusted kids down the road (regardless of athletic ability) are the ones that were having the most fun playing when they were young. These also tend to be the children of parents who are letting them develop at their own pace. I can assure you, that if your child is going to hit the big time, it won’t be because of what they did when they were 8 years old.

For the foreseeable future, I want my boys to have fun playing this game. If and when they outgrow their competition at our ballpark and decide they want to work harder, we’ll have to make a decision.  For now, we are going to have fun.  Work can wait.

Derek Dooley inherited a mess at the University of Tennessee when conference loudmouth Lane Kiffin bolted for the University of Southern California with no notice whatsoever.  Kiffin and his staff left a wake of issues stemming from infractions that would lead to penalties, a multitude of player defections and a rabid fan base demanding that someone remedy the program’s derailment immediately.

Tennessee found their man in Dooley, the lawyer turned coach with an attractive football pedigree.  The son of Georgia football legend Vince Dooley was a hot commodity at the time.  He was coming off an 8-5 season as the head coach at Louisiana Tech University where he led the Bulldogs to their first bowl win in over 30 years.  Nonetheless, it was an underwhelming hire for much of Tennessee’s fan base and Dooley would need to right the ship quickly if he were going to succeed at Tennessee.  He didn’t.

Despite showing progress at times, the Volunteers stumbled this year and decision makers at the university began circling the wagons early in the season.  In the end, they were too proud to tolerate an 0-7 conference record and the blowout loss to Vanderbilt yesterday sealed Dooley’s fate.  They will pay Dooley a $5 million buyout and start over.  Again.

Now Tennessee, with the ever fading memory of 1998’s national championship season, finds itself searching for a new coach along with conference foes Arkansas, Kentucky and possibly, if not probably, Auburn to take them back to the promise land.  In today’s world of here today, gone today college head coaches, it’s hard to understand the expectations of college football’s big time programs.  Only in rare cases, involving unique circumstances, unbelievable talent, or good old fashioned luck, can a football coach come in and win big immediately (see Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin).  Despite the rarity of such instances, that is exactly what every athletic director, fan base and board of trustees wants and expects.  Even if a coach finds himself in such a situation, it may not buy him much time (See Auburn’s Gene Chizik).

Gene Chizik was hired was hired in 2008 to replace Tommy Tuberville who had just finished 5-7 at Auburn.  At the time, it looked like a terrible hire and many still maintain that it was despite Chizik winning a national championship in his second season with the Tigers.  Chizik was 5-19 as a head coach at Iowa State at the time Auburn hired him.  Regardless of what you think of him as a coach or what you think of his controversial star quarterback Cam Newton, who only spent one season at the university, most would agree that a national championship should buy a high level job security for a head coach.  The fact that Auburn is even considering removing Chizik tells me that no one involved with the university is giving him any credit for the title.

Dooley was fired in less than three full seasons.  If Chizik is fired this year, it will have been less than two years since he won a national championship.   It seems that the process of building a championship program after inheriting a program in turmoil would take more than three years.  Or, in Chizik’s case, that it would buy you more than two seasons after reaching the top of the football world.  Unfortunately for whoever fills any current or future FBS conference head coaching vacancy, it appears time is a luxury they will not be allowed.

Darrell Royal, College Football Legend and Old Arkansas Rival, Dies at 88

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/88413/arkansas-razorbacks-football-coach-john-l-smiths-40-million-mistake

http://www.gq.com/sports/lists/201210/worst-decisions-sports-history-gq-october-2012#slide=1

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