Tee-Ball coaching 1st Practice

Set the tone for your season.

The Tee-Ball coaches 1st practice will help set the tone for the entire season. Do your home work, make sure you have a plan and drills for the players and information for the parents.

As coach you have been putting a lot of thought into what you will cover in practice, what assignments you will give your assistants, how you will communicate to players and parents during the season,

You have compiled forms for phone chains, emergences, snack schedules, car pools and anything else you feel is important.

Now is the time to put all this thought into action.

It is important to get to the 1st practice early and set up the field the way you need it. If you will be using multiple diamonds set out the bases before the team arrives, this will allow more time to give direction to the team and your assistants. It will also show the parents that you are organized and have a plan.

Introduce yourself and your assistants.

Begin your 1st practice by introducing yourself and your assistants. Ask all parents to introduce themselves and their children. This is a good ice breaker for those parents who are relatively new to the area and do not know the other parents.

At this point ask your assistants to take the players and instruct them on the first drill. You have already gone over this with your assistants and they know what you want to accomplish and what is expected of them.

Explain your philosophy and policies.

You now have the opportunity to explain to the parents what tee-ball is all about. What your philosophy is towards coaching and how you will handle practices and games. When practices will be held and what your attendance policies are.

This is also a good time to explain you expectations of the players and the parents.

Tee-Ball Drills for the first practice

Drills for 1st practice.

Drill #1

The first drills for your tee-ball team will let you as coach get a fix on the abilities of the individual players. This drill is simple; however, it is based on the principle that a major part of the game of tee-ball is based on catching and throwing the ball 60 feet. I call this drill “Four Corners”.

If possible set up two or three diamonds, use the outfield grass, one diamond in left field, one in right field. Start with the bases 30 feet apart (each practice increase the distance till you reach 60 feet.

Have one player stand at each base; this will allow twelve players to get involved in drill. If you only have room for two diamonds or one diamond you will add players to each base.

Explain to the players that they are to throw the ball to the player at the next base; I would suggest that you start by throwing from Home plate to 1st base, then 1st base to 2nd base, and so on.

This will get the players thinking in the right direction. Have the players throw around the diamond from five to ten times depending on how long it takes. Instruct the players to take their time, the objective is to make a good throw to the base and for the player at the base to catch the ball. Initially the players will have some difficulty doing this drill. However, if you continue to run this drill at the beginning of each practice and if you have time before each game, you will be pleasantly surprised at how much better the players will get at this drill during the course of the season.

The players will all have different abilities; after doing this drill a couple of times you will be able to group the players together by ability. This will allow the players to improve at their own pace. The better players will work together and those that are not as advanced will work together, this will create an

With multiple diamonds you can make a game of it. You can introduce competition by making the first team (each diamond is a team) that throws the ball completely around the diamond three times the winner. Set up even teams, have them compete with a little reward for the team that wins

This will make it fun for the players, which is the real reason they are there!!

The Four Corner drill may seem simple, however, I have used this drill with youth, high school, and college players with success.

Drill # 2

The second drill for the first day of practice is base running.

Building on the first drill, start all the players at home plate. Have them swing the bat at the tee and run to 1st base (this will let you see who can and can not swing the bat). Do not give them any more instruction then to swing and run as fast as they can to 1st base. Remember, you are dealing with young players that require small bits of information for them to understand. You can deal with over running 1st base at a practice later in the season as the players begin to understand the game. The same is true with rounding the base or continuing on to 2nd base.

Next have the second player bat while the first player is a base runner at 1st base. Again give both players the same instructions to run as fast as they can.

Continue in this manner till all players have gone around the diamond one base at a time and scored a run.

This will introduce to each player the process of running the bases. It will also teach the players in which direction to run the bases. A small thing you say, you would not think so if you have seen a player run to 3rd base the first time he hit the ball in a game.

If you have multiple diamonds you could break this drill up into different groups so the players will get more repetition and less boredom.

These drills will take about a half hour each. Remember, this is the first practice, the players know nothing about the game of baseball. It will take you a considerable amount of time to explain what you want them to do, I expect this to take you at least ten minutes to explain the process so all players and assistant coaches understand.