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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’ve coached baseball for years both rec and travel and adapted practices for each as well as age.  [b]Biggest challenge by far has been getting volunteer help[/b] - not so much travel because folks are invested.  But in rec parents were always quick to be all over their kid for swing mechanics etc but couldn’t bother to volunteer for station help.  Or when they saw I was solo with 12 8-year-olds.  “I don’t know baseball that well” - did you see me lobbing balls underhand?  did you see me putting balls on tee for tee work?  It’s that simple and doesn’t take PhD in baseball to help…[/quote]

This, although I will note that everyone weighing in on Vienna Little League, which OP specifically referenced, made it sound like people were tripping over themselves to coach. Honestly, that would be awesome. Typically the only way to get parents to help is to have a bad enough coach that parents give up and step in.[/quote]

Yup, when I coached, I would just walk up to the folks sitting in the chair and ask "Do you mind lending a hand?"

If they said "I don't know baseball", they'd get a simple job like, place the ball on the tee and make sure the other kids don't get too close to the kid swinging[/quote]

I coached for many years…I never had anyone sitting around watching practice to even ask.  There were parents that agreed to help formally with the league and parents that opened the car door and were gone within 10 seconds.  Maybe you get a small group showing up near the very end of practice for pick up.

[/quote]

Really?  You never had a bunch of parents bring camping chairs and set up off in the distance to chat?

It literally has happened at every youth team I've been a part of (under 10, at least).  For soccer, football, baseball, softball[/quote]

Never…maybe this is urban LL vs suburban LL.  Parents may live just around the corner so it’s a 2 minute drive vs 15-30 minutes each way (so a parent may decide it’s easier to just stay vs driving home just to have to leave to pick up the kid soon after).

By 10 years old you have kids that were reasonably close walking to practice together with no parents.

I think it’s weird for parents to just hang around a practice and do nothing.  If I saw that I would also make them help in some way.[/quote]

FWIW, they don't usually "do nothing."  It's really not weird; they are usually socializing with other parents and enjoying a nice evening.  I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

And even better, when the kids were a little older and I would work on situations, I would recruit those parents to be baserunners, with the kids always loved.  [/quote]

Yeah…[b]it’s weird.[/b]  Sorry, sitting around socializing is doing nothing.  I didn’t literally mean they just sit there staring into space.

So, yeah I will make them help if they are sitting there and see there is only 1 or 2 adults managing a whole team that they don’t volunteer to help…yet they are coming to watch the practice?  Why didn’t they volunteer to help if they were going to be there anyway?[/quote]

It's called community.  Many of these people know one another.  They have kids in school together, or work out at the same gym, or little siblings are in the same cub scouts troop.

Tending to community and friendship is a far cry from nothing.

To be perfectly honest, I think its "weird" that you would find catching up and socializing with neighbors and friends to be weird.

And a lot of these aren't people that drive 30 minutes to the field.  We can walk to our local softball/LL field, as many other families can as well.  But they come because its beautiful spring evenings and friends/neighbors are hanging out.  It's actually really nice and creates a really great atmosphere for practice.  [/quote]

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