No Such Thing as an Offseason: Planning for 2019 Baseball/Softball Season

Whether you’re a newly minted coach or have been coaching youth baseball for years, you need to start preparing for next year’s season before the New Year begins. Meeting your team, recruiting parent volunteers, and designing custom baseball jerseys takes time and ideally should be completed long before the season’s first practice. Here are some baseball youth coaching tips to help you hit the ground running before the season even starts.

Hold a Team Meeting

If you’re coaching little league, it helps if you know a little about your team members and their parents. Call a team meeting in the fall / early winter to introduce yourself and explain your coaching philosophy and team rules. If you're new to coaching youth baseball, possible rules to bring up include:

 

• Players will show respect for the coaching staff, fellow team members, league officials, parents, and the opposing team.
• Players are expected to pay full attention during practice and games, as their teammates are relying on them.
• Emphasize the need for good sportsmanship. Bad attitudes should have consequences, such as running laps, push-ups reduced playing time. Explain to team members (and parents) that everyone abides by this rule, and you’re willing to bench even your best player during a game if attitude becomes a problem.
• Players are expected to give their best effort. Explain it’s okay to miss a catch or strike out, as long as players are doing the best they can.

Spend some time with the team without the parents. This gives you an opportunity to get to know the players, evaluate how they behave without parental supervision and build some enthusiasm for the coming season. Find out who’s played before and what positions, but this information isn’t nearly as important as gaining some insight into your team members’ personalities.

No list of youth coaching tips can avoid discussing parents. Some will be a great help throughout the season. Others . . . will be less so. Be sure the parents understand the team rules. Explain you're always willing to discuss parental concerns, but never during practice or a game, as doing so takes your attention away from where it matters--the kids.

 

The preseason meeting is a great time to recruit parents willing to act as assistant coaches, volunteers, or team moms. Having a team mom or dad is an invaluable aid when you’re coaching little league. The team mom helps by announcing practice times, setting up post-game pizza parties, and coordinating with parents for after practice snacks and drinks.

Designing a Uniform

Designing and ordering custom baseball jerseys and hats need to be completed before the first practice of the new season. If you’ve already got a team logo and name, all that needs to be done is to measure team members for their baseball uniforms and place an order with a customized promotional clothing company. If not, you’re going to need time to brainstorm a team name and logo (ask the team for input on both, and check to see if any of the parents has the graphics skills needed to design the logo or use Triple Crown’s free logo service included with every order set-up).

 

Possible custom baseball jerseys and t-shirts for a softball uniform include;

 

• Badger Sports Youth ¾ Sleeve baseball T-shirt, a 100 percent polyester shirt with Raglan sleeves and microbial control to fight odor.
• Champion’s Youth Raglan Baseball T-Shirt, made from 100 percent cotton, and boasting double-needle sleeve and bottom hems.
• SPORT-TEK’s  Youth PosiCharge Custom Baseball Jerseys, with ¾ Raglan sleeves, color block sleeves and crewnecks, and 100 percent Cationic polyester pique fabric.

Custom Baseball Hats

What’s a baseball uniform without a smart-looking baseball hat? A well-made custom baseball hat puts the finishing touch on a softball uniform and is worn with pride by your team. Possible hat choices include:

 

• The Max Comfort Mesh Fitted Hat, capable of holding 10,000 embroidery stitches on its front panel.
• The MAX Mesh Back Hat comes with a pre-curved visor and your choice of velcro strap, cloth strap with buckle, or plastic snap straps.
• The CROWN Victory Hat is made of heavy brushed cotton fabric and comes in your choice of low, medium, high, or “pro-style” profiles.

Choosing the right custom baseball hat for your uniform can be complicated--you have literally hundreds of different hats to choose from. Triple Crown Products’ interactive hat quiz helps you narrow down your choices to a small selection of hats based on a short series of questions.