With many local leagues offering a "practice-only" season starting soon (which is awesome!), I thought a quick blog with some advice on how to run a great practice could be helpful for parents who will find themselves trying to keep their squad's skills sharp and motivation high, but without games to look forward to or prepare for. I hope this helps!

1. Keep "team meetings" really short. Kids have had the least amount of opportunities for athletic activity over the last 10 months than during any other stretch of time in their lives and they are CRAVING action! They don't want sit in the dugout and listen to 10 minute lectures on bunt defenses or double cuts, so keep the skill instruction and drill explanation super short and sweet and get them moving! I promise that your players will improve more from 1 minute of groundball instruction followed by fielding 100 groundballs each than they will from 8 minutes of groundball instruction followed by fielding 15 groundballs total.
2. Use skill stations to keep the practices extremely active. Rather than have 1 kid hitting batting practice from home plate and 9 kids sort of standing around shagging for him, divide your group of ~9 players in 3 groups that can all be active in a drill at the same time. For example, 3 kids can be in the "live hitting group" at Home Plate while 3 other kids are catching fly balls thrown by a coach in the Outfield, while the final group of 3 kids can be in the bullpen practicing their pitching. Of course, make sure the live hitters aren't bombing balls into the outfield group, but especially at the younger age groups (4-9), this shouldn't present a huge safety concern. Depending on the Covid guidelines for how many adults are allowed at each practice, you might have to alter the size of each group, but your goal should be to get all of your players being actively engaged in a drill during every minutes of practice.
3. Keep the skill stations short. I recommend that each station should last a maximum of 15 minutes. Switching to the next station relatively quickly will help you get through the skill work before they lose focus and will keep them engaged the whole time (therefore increasing the quality of their reps). It's better to do a shorter amount of highly focused and high intensity skill work, than a longer amount of unfocused and low intensity skill work. Quality over quantity! And if time allows, you can go through your entire rotation of skills twice in a practice. Meaning, rather than have 1 group catch flyballs for 30 minutes straight, that group would be at the flyball station twice, for 15 minutes each, in between getting to do the other skill stations. This will keep practice moving, keep the player's attention sharper while they're at each station, while also making sure that no player is stuck practicing a skill he doesn't love doing for too long.
4. Use competitions in the stations. If you feel like you're having trouble keeping your ballplayer's attention or their energy starts to drag, make the drill a competition. Team vs. Coach competitions are always fun. If you're hitting groundballs, for example, give the team 1 point for every groundball they field cleanly and give yourself 1 point for every ball they bobble. Immediately, you'll see their focus kick up a notch as they try to beat you! Get creative with this, but mostly try to avoid player vs. player competitions as these will always favor the more skilled and experienced players and only cause the less skilled and less experienced players to get discouraged and frustrated. There's nothing wrong with a fun competition between players of similar skill sets, but if you pit a kid who plays year-round baseball against a kid who just signed up for Little League for the first time, that's not going to be fun for either of them!
5. Be insanely positive! This is the golden rule of youth sports coaching at all times anyway, but it is especially important now because for 10 months our kid's mental and physical health needs have almost entirely ignored by the decision-makers in government - sorry, I couldn't help myself there :-). I promise that the kids on your "practice-only" squad who are FINALLY able to get back on a team and be around their friends are way more excited about the social and athletic aspects of baseball right now than they are about what their batting average is going to be or how many games their team might win. Your primary goal as a Little League coach is not to win championships or have the most number of players make the All-Star Team; your job is to make sure 1) every one of your players has fun at your practices and games and wants to sign up again next season as a direct result of the atmosphere you create on the field, 2) they learn new skills that will help them improve and therefore enjoy baseball more 3) they learn to be good teammates and solid citizens. Adult's goals for youth sports (winning the division, beating that coach from the other league who you really don't like, preparation for making the High School team, etc) rarely align with kid's goals for youth sports (having fun with their friends) - make sure you're there for them, not for you! We can all be part of the solution in making sure more kids stay involved in sports - it's a big responsibility but I know we're all up for the challenge!

And as always, a HUGE thank you to all parents who volunteer in anyway to make our Little Leagues run! I'm absolutely positive that 2021 will be a better year for baseball than 2020 was. Play Hard and HAVE FUN!