Our Own Drills & Tips

(and other stuff)

These are drills, tips and other things that I have accumulated over several years of coaching. I can claim to have come up with only a very few of these. Most were passed down by older coaches to younger coaches over many many years. I would like to credit the following youth coaches that I have worked with or observed and whom I am sure can probably take credit for some of these - Dick Wilder, Larry Kirk, Pat Stanley, Joe Chapman, Noel Mayfield, David Keenum, Amy Pitt, Ben Wilder, Barney Lovelace, Billy Pitt, Rusty Jones, Benny Perrin, Mike Burnthall, David Ellis, David Breland, Steve Atchley, Jeff Broadfoot, Jason Vittrup, Harry Coleman, Sharon Gamble (my wife, a PE teacher and a source of lots of instructional games), Bruce Gamble (my dad and the best athlete I ever met) and countless others that I can't remember.

Baseball

Lead-Off Drill - One problem we have in youth baseball is getting the baserunner to come off of the base agressively as soon as the pitch crosses the plate. In our league you can't come off the bag until the ball is either put into play or caught by the catcher. To correct this we run an exercise requiring a pitcher, a catcher and a first baseman and one baserunner with batting helmet (at first base). The remaining players line up in foul territory to take their turn running. To begin the pitcher pitches to the catcher and the catcher makes a throw to first base to try to catch the baserunner coming off of the bag to go to second base. The object is for the baserunner to get as far as possible toward second base (but not to go to second) and then try to get safely back to first before the throw. We mark a line in the dirt at the farthest distance that each player gets to if they get back to first safely. That tells the player how far they can get off the bag and still get back during a regular game. We have a competition to see who can get the farthest. In order to get any distance at all they have to dive headfirst back to first base (which is legal in our league). Our aim is to get the players to come off the bags far enough to take advantage of any dropped balls by the catcher or to get the catcher to make an attempt at a throw-out (which results in an error about 50% of the time). It is also a good workout for the pitcher, catcher and first baseman. Its important that when you finish the competition to go back over each players mark so they have an idea how far to come off the bag.