5 Tee Ball Coaching Tips

Thank you for volunteering your time to coach young children in the great game of baseball.  I hope you find it as rewarding as I have over the years. 

For a lot of coaches this will be their first experience at coaching the game and that can be stressful.  Most of you want to do the best you can for your child or your player but just don’t know where to start. 

We have put together 5 of the best tips we can offer for new coaches starting to coach tee ball.

Enjoy.  Fundamentals, Communicate, Teach, Fun, Organized, Games, Drills, Groups,

1. Fundamentals:  Do your self, your players and future coaches a favor and teach good fundamental baseball skills to these players even at this early age.  Don’t buy in to the fact that tee ball is not about fundamentals and its only an introduction to baseball.  It can be and should be much more than that.  Yes, it shouldn’t be over the top but every drill or skill you work on should be fundamentally sound even at this early age.  If you don’t know fundamental baseball skills then I challenge you to get a few books or videos and learn how to teach correct hitting, fielding and throwing.  Check out our site as there are many great fundamental tips for you to follow.  Please learn these simple fundamental mechanics and teach them from the beginning.  Trust me you will happy you did.
2. Organization:  You must remain organized as a coach of any sport regardless of age level.  The parents and players will benefit from your organization and practices will run much smoother.  You should have a written plan that outlines the time of practice and breaks down everything you plan to do during your practice time.  Have your group assignments laid out up front and assign coaching responsibility before you get to the field.  Send your assistant coaches or parents that plan to help a copy ahead of the practice.  Create a parents letter before the season that outlines your coaching philosophy, goals for the teams, discipline and other important facts.  This is all about communication and is a key part of staying organized.
3. Parent Involvement:  You must engage your parents at this level more than any other.  As you will see in our next point about small groups you will need all the parents you can get.  These players will be very difficult to handle in large groups so getting parents out on the field will be your key to success.  If you don’t, I promise that you will be very frustrated and not enjoy the experience one bit.  Tee ball age children have very small attention spans and will not listen very well.  Getting their parents on the field will make or break you season.  I’ve seen it hundreds of times and the coaches with the most parent help here wins.  Not games, but wins in getting fundamental baseball skills taught to young players.  Those that don’t just become baby sitters for an hour a week.  Most parents really do want to help but they are concerned they are stepping on your toes if they just walk onto the field.  Engage them from day one and encourage everyone to come to practice to help.  Moms love to help but rarely do because they are never asked.  Go ask them.  They will for the most part come and help.  Again, everyone wins because trust me their little ones love to see their parent on the field with them.
4. Small Groups:  This brings me to the point about why you need lots of parent help.  It is 100% imperative that you break the kids into small groups of 2-3 players and work your fundamental drills over and over.  This will usually require 4-5 groups rotating every 10 minutes or so.  To be perfectly honest with you each group really needs 2 adults with it to be run effectively and keep kids on task.  It might be a little difficult to find 8 – 10 parents to help so you will have to be the judge of the size of groups.  I’ve found over the years once you get above 3 players at this age chaos begins to come into play and the children shut down the learning process.  If you can find 6 parents to help then break them into 3 groups.  You have to do the best you can do with what you have but I hope you see how important it will be for you to have parent involvement at this age.  Trust me, if you don’t the players will learn very little about baseball and you will be the baby sitter.  I challenge you to contact your parents up front and tell them their help is needed.  Tell them you are assigning them to a group each week at practice and for them to let you know in advance they are not going to be there.  You might need to push just a little but trust me they will help and they will love the experience of coaching without having to be the head coach and deal with all of that. 
5. Fun:  Your main job as a tee ball coach might be to teach fundamental baseball skills to young players but I will tell you having fun will be very important as well.  The players could care less for the most part whether they win or lose at this age but fun is number 1 to them.  I promise you that having fun and learning baseball in a controlled environment is completely possible with a little planning and work on your part.  No matter what you do don’t forget that having fun at this age is very important and you should judge your success as a coach at this level on whether your players want to come back and play the next season.  If the majority of the players come back to play this great game then you have done your part and they are having fun.

In summary, coaching baseball is really enjoyable and if done correctly will make a difference on young children for life.  No matter what your baseball skill level is you can teach the game of baseball with a little effort.  Just get some material and learn what to teach.  Take the tips I’ve offered above and run with it.  You will be happy you did.

Last but not least, the relationship that can develop between you and your child while you coach them can be great or it can be very bad.  Make sure you choose to have the experience be great and create memories that will last a life time for your child.  It’s simple to do:  treat your child the same as you do every child on the field. Stop yelling at them and start teaching them how to do things.  Don’t have higher expectations for your child over the others even if he or she is a better player.  Don’t put more pressure on them than you do on the other players and most of all don’t spend the car ride home yelling at him or her for what they did wrong today.  Ok, I’ve violated a few of those over the years but trust me really try not to.  It will be a better experience for everyone.

Until next time may all you baseball dreams come true.

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Equipment

In most recreational leagues today equipment is provided by the league for use at the Tee Ball level; however the quality of such equipment is not very good and usually in need of repair. 

Most leagues provide a minimum amount of equipment but every situation is different so you should ask questions when you sign up to be a coach.  Just know what you are getting and whether or not you will have equipment to work with.

To effectively run a team you will need the following equipment at a minimum:

• 1 Batting Tee
• 4 Batting Helmets – 1 for the hitter and 3 for a full set of base runners
• 1 Set of Throw-down Bases
• 1 Dozen Soft Core Tee Balls – soft core balls are softer than regular baseballs and should be used especially for first year Tee Ball players.
• 1 Tee Ball Bat – these bats are lightweight and designed for young kids who have not developed much strength at this point.
• 1 Set of Catcher’s Gear if your league allows for a catcher at the Tee Ball Level.
• 1 Gear Bag

Optional Equipment:

• 2 Additional Batting Tees – having three tee’s will allow you to split the players up in smaller groups and work drills designed to develop fundamental hitting mechanics.  You should be able to find additional tees for $10-$15 should you decide to invest in your team.
• 2 Dozen Soft Core Baseballs – less chasing of baseballs and speeds up practice and allows for multiple groups.
• 2 Dozen wiffle balls – these balls allow you to operate hitting drills without the need to chase baseballs. 
• 6 Tennis Balls – used to teach throwing and catching without the fear of getting hit with a hard baseball.
• 3 to 4 Tee Ball Bats, but these days every kid has a bat so should not be an issue for you.

When you first get your equipment do an inventory and check the condition of all equipment.  You will find things that need to be replaced and if your league provided the equipment get with them to replace immediately. You don’t want your kids playing with cracked helmets etc. 

I would suggest you wash the batting helmets inside and out as you have no idea who used them before or where they were stored.  It’s just safer to wash them before allowing them to be used.  In addition I required my players to wear their baseball cap under the helmet unless it was their own.  You will find a lot of kids even at the Tee Ball level will now have their own helmet and Tee Ball bat.

You need to keep up with all the equipment and working with this age group you cannot count on much help from the players.  I always conducted an inventory of my equipment prior to leaving practice.  Trust me, don’t ignore this step as I can assure you things can and do walk off.

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Rules

You might think I know the rules of baseball and if you’ve played the game or been involved I’m sure you do but Tee Ball can be a lot different and the rules vary greatly from league to league.  You need to get a copy of the rules your league plays by as soon as possible and spend 15 minutes reading and understanding them.  It’s not difficult to learn and having a guide to how things will be run in a game is important to keeping things running smoothly. 

Your practices should be set up and follow the rules of the game so the players get used to doing what will be expected in the games.

I’ve outlined below a few of the major differences between a Tee Ball game and regular baseball as it’s played today.

• Tee Ball games are played on smaller fields with 40-50 feet base paths.
• In true Tee Ball games there is no pitching of the ball and a batting tee is used at home plate.
• The players get 4-6 swings to put the ball in play off the batting tee.
• Most leagues don’t count outs at this level and let everyone bat.  Once all players have a turn to bat sides change and the team plays defense.
• Usually have 10 players on defense.  Four outfielders instead of three.
• Coaches and/or parents are allowed to position themselves in the outfield just off the infield dirt to provide direction to the players.
• Base running is usually base to base and players are not allowed to go more than 1 base at a time.  This varies greatly from league to league so check your rules.  I have seen leagues modify it a little and if a child hits the ball really hard past the outfielders they are allowed to take 2 bases. 
• Score is rarely kept at the in Tee Ball games and is more about introducing the kids to playing the game than it is about winning it. 

Note 1:  When I coached at this level I did talk to my players about winning and losing and I judged winning and losing by how many outs we got compared to the other team.  Usually the team that records the most outs will have kept the least amount of players from scoring. 

Note 2:  As I’ve stated before, it’s not winning at all cost and everyone should show good sportsmanship but I do believe you should teach your players how to win and lose games as it’s part of life.  I know there are a lot of people that will not agree with me and that is completely fine with me.  I’m not even saying I’m right on this, but for my children it works.  Now that they are older they are very competitive but win and lose games showing great sportsmanship and I’ve never had a problem with either of them on this.  You as the coach can decide how that fits into your philosophy. 

After you have read and understand the rules share them with your parents so they can be involved.  Some will appreciate you keeping them informed.  You will find that by providing the parents the rules it will keep those parents that think they know baseball from going sideways when their son isn’t allowed to take multiple bases when he hits the ball, should that be a rule of your league.

If you have any questions regarding the rules of your league you should bring them up to a league commissioner or player agent immediately.  They will be more than happy to help you understand everything.  Engaging them will show them how much interest you have in learning the game so don’t be embarrassed to ask your questions.

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