Over the Fourth of July weekend, I made my co-managerial debut with my cousin John Gall…
John and I grew up battling it out on the playground then playing together on the iconic Morey’s team in Alpine Little League. We played together at St. Francis and we were also teammates on the Menlo Park Brewers (Joe D’s team) that went an unprecedented 44-2 in route to a state title…
John went to Stanford and became the all time Pac 12 hits leader during his Hall of Fame collegiate career. He also won a bronze medal as a member of the 2008 Olympic team and got a cup of coffee in the big leagues with the St. Louis Cardinals and Miami Marlins…
John, his beautiful wife Megan and his two kids, Drew and Johnny stayed with us over the fourth, so we decided to try to put together a baseball team to play in the annual 4th of July Tahoe wood bat youth baseball tournament…
The problem was that the lowest division available was 10U and Johnny is only 8 and my biscuit Colton is only 7….
John reached out to the 9U Hillsborough Hawks team, and we were able to recruit 6 of their players to join us… After recruiting my old UCLA teammate Jason Green’s kid, Cullen, and another ace in the hole, our dude Leo from the SLU program, we were in business.
There were 4 teams in the tourney, a 10U travel team, a 10U All Star team, a 9U All Star team and us…
In a nutshell, with our rag tag group of castaway Go Hards, we were out manned, out sized and out skilled, yet in the 4 games we played in 2 days, we BATTLED our asses off, going 2-2, taking home a remarkable second place finish…
To be completely honest, I never had a burning desire to coach, but going through my first real coaching experience, I absolutely fell in love and learned a few lessons along the way:
- Kids Feed off OUR Energy – Just like music sets the tone of a party, coaches set the tone of the game… STAY HYPED. 👊
- Let Them Play – Just about all technical coaching needs to be done in practice and before the game… When the game starts, LET THE KIDS PLAY.
- Mix It Up – Typically, we all want to put our best player at shortstop, pitcher and catcher… Yet in order to properly develop the skills of ALL kids, including the advanced ones as well as the ones who need more work, we must teach the kids to play ALL positions. Versatility is quite possibly the most underrated virtue we have the ability to possess.
- Just keep RUNNING – First thing we told the kids was to HUSTLE HARD and STEAL every time they get on base. The aggressiveness of the coaches is revealed in the aggressiveness of the kids… We play the music, the kids get to dance. 🕺
- Control the Controllables – Bad hops, tough plays and terrible calls are part of the game… Address the issue, vent quickly then MOVE ON. As soon as the coaches move on, the kids will follow.
-EB