Coach them everyday

I had lunch with a friend of mine yesterday who was a very accomplished coach in a sport other than baseball.  He said when it came to

practice, he had a slogan he adhered to.  It was, “every player, every day.”  What he meant by that was he would make it a point to coach every single player, every single day.

To do that, he would make time to talk to every player during a practice in order to address something the player needed to work on.  This is actually a lot harder to do than you’d imagine.  Especially in baseball where you often have 15-20 players scattered all over the field doing various drills.  Although it can be a challenge to do, touching base with everyone at some point in the practice has the following benefits:

• It shows the players that every single one of them has value.
• It shows that you care about all of their progress and not just the stars or starters.
• It allows you to get a good feel for the mood of the team on a day to day basis.
• It shows that you care about them personally since conversations often turn to things unrelated to baseball.
• You are improving every player’s skills on a daily basis which makes the team continually better as well.

Give it a try.  It takes time but the rewards can be very high for all involved.