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[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]

This is something I noticed as an urban parent whose child has played sports in DC but also joined teams in the burbs... urban parents stick around, suburban parents pull up in the SUV, dump the kids out and go back home. The seasons where my kid has practice in walking distance, I typically stick around, just because it's nice and I run into the neighbors (often teammates' parents) and the times it's at another park in another neighborhood, I just stay because the effort to drive east/west in DC, finding parking, etc. I might as well just stay for the 60-90 minutes and hang out. I don't hover, but I'm around. On the suburban teams, it's a bit bewildering because I don't want to be the overbearing parent, but it makes even less sense to drop them and run home.[/quote]

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