By: Laura Lane
Howard Kass, the league vice president, said, We run free clinics for our managers and coaches, but we don-t make attendance mandatory. We teach them how to manage a team. Most of these volunteers, this is their first time managing and coaching.
Kass, who runs the clinics, said the seminars offer pointers on how to run a practice, the best way to teach skills to an individual child or group, and how to speak with parents.
The clinic also reviews the Merrick-North Merrick Little League's philosophy. Part of being a good manager is to make sure your team is a fun, secure environment for all the kids," said Kass. We teach this in the clinics. Not all the coaches and managers will do ideally what the league wants them to do, but we try to teach them the best we can.
The Little League handbook, a booklet containing the regulations and playing rules, which is given to all managers, includes a section on leadership skills. It states, It cannot be stated too strongly that qualified adult volunteers must be enlisted as team managers and coaches. It is not enough that candidates for these important roles have previous experience in the game.
Little League offers seminars, videos and clinics through its education program. At Little League's Eastern Regional Center in Bristol, Conn., Al Price and Al Herback, who have taught coaching for 20 years, train Little League managers and coaches. The pair review ways to improve communication among managers, coaches, players and parents.
No Merrick-North Merrick Little League coach has attended the clinic, because it's simply too far away. There are other training options.
Some leagues use groups like Athletes Helping Athletes, a non-profit organization that offers coaching clinics. Warren Breining, who will conduct an upcoming workshop for the Community Wellness Council of the Bellmores and Merricks, said, We offer 1 1/2 hour workshops for youth coaches to give them knowledge on the basics of child development and tools to reach out to parents effectively. And we encourage the coaches to create a more sportsmanship environment. When we deliver our workshops, we find people want to do this right. Problems happen when a coach doesn-t know what their role is out there and what the objectives should be.
Athletes Helping Athletes believes the volunteer's role is to teach children that sports aren't only about winning, but also about learning skills they can carry with them throughout life. Breining said, The goal of a youth coach should be to try to get the kids to be committed and disciplined. Twenty years later, the kids don-t remember the scores. You-re a teacher and an educator when you coach.
The Hewlett-Woodmere Little League recently had Athletes Helping Athletes present a lecture for its coaches. League Vice President Richard Kahn made the meeting mandatory. He believes Breining-s presentation was informative. Hopefully, our coaches got some good ideas from him, mainly the philosophy of not putting pressure on kids, said Kahn. I mean, it-s nice to win, but kids need to know how to lose too. It-s important to make Little League fun for the kids.
Mitch Zyman, the Merrick-North Merrick Little League president, said, "One of the Little League mandates is learning about winning and losing. My thing is to teach the kids baseball, the skills, sportsmanship, and how to be a good loser and a good winner.
