Today Steve and I interviewed for a position as travel coaches for a U9 HP tournament baseball team. I frankly am NOT excited about the prospect at all. Practices start end of January/beginning of February. We then play our first tournament at the end of April, then on Memorial Day, and then have 3 more in June (so basically every weekend), one on July 4th weekend and then we’re done.
I am not excited because I don’t feel like my baseball skills are up to coaching a travel team. I am not excited because for a little under two months I will have a THIRD team I am going to be responsible for and am going to lose more of my already precious free time. I’m doing this because Steve is incredibly psyched about the prospect.
But maybe we won’t get the job. We interviewed with Brian (basketball boss for me) and Kevin (runs the baseball league Steve and I have volunteered in). I’m not sure how happy Brian was with us. Kevin? Kevin loved us. So my guess is I’ll get a call Friday offering us the job.
And so suddenly rather than having a relaxing winter break as I expected I’m going to be cramming for baseball.
Showing posts with label job hunt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label job hunt. Show all posts
Monday, December 10, 2007
Sunday, May 13, 2007
BoSox vs. Marlins
Travel Basketball Convergence
As we’re warming up before the game, who do I see but Dante, from my travel basketball team, there for his soccer team. We didn’t have much time to say more than hello. He did ask me if I was going to coach the team next year and I said “I don’t know” which is pretty much a lie because I absolutely plan on going back.
Then during the game, Eric came up to me and we were chatting a little. And basically he offered me a position coaching for them. While I didn’t accept, I did express interest and explain that I would need to coach either 4th or 6th grade, and would only coach the upper division team (as HP has teams in both the upper and lower divisions) and he was amenable to that. I now just need to decide if I have the time, when I’ll likely be switching teaching positions, to coach two teams, because with the new administration, coaching for my home town is a lot more appealing. However, I couldn’t run out on my team from last year, especially not with their moving up from the lower to upper division, assuming at least two of the triplets return.
The Game
Yesterday was not great. Going into the sixth and final inning we were down by 7, which also happens to be the most you can score in an inning, meaning the best we could do was tie. Anyhow seems like a good time to do a good, bad, and ugly for the game.
Good
Our 6th Inning hitting: We came out and rocked their pitcher who was accurate but slow. We had the absolute heart of our order up and it showed as we had 2 singles followed by 4 doubles, a sac fly, and two more singles which netted us our 7 runs. It showed once again that we were a team who could come from behind.
Justin: It was Justin’s first day back after breaking his thumb. He pitched moderately well, made a stupid play in the 5th inning at 3rd, but it was his hitting that we really missed. He had a good at bat in the 3rd, which ended in a walk. He then proceeded to steal two bases. In the sixth he was the first one to start our extra base hit rally. It’s good to have him back.
Cameron: The kid isn’t fast (not slow, but not fast) and so the fact that he’s hitting .667 is a testament to how well he’s hitting. He once again did well at the plate going 2-2 in clutch places.
Matt S: He pitched fairly well again recording two strike-outs though he did let up a couple of runs. He suffered from some bad bounces on those though. He also had a near homer, over the fence, during the sixth.
Jeremy Me’s fielding: He made an incredible play in the 4th at second diving for a hard hit ball with the bases loaded that saved us two runs when he caught it for the third out.
The Bad
Jeremy Ma’s pitching: He didn’t have the same snap on it that he normally does and just couldn’t close the game for us. He actually look bad enough in the 5th that I considered having Nick, who hadn’t pitched for us, come in and pitch the sixth. And frankly after he walked the a batter in the sixth I should have likely pulled him. I didn’t since I figured Jeremy was better under the pressure, but he just didn’t have it on Saturday, or rather I should say he didn’t have what he normally had. After the kid he walked, which had followed a double and a steal, a guy came in and won the game on an infield single. If they hadn’t won the game after the first run they would still have been going strong and he could have easily allowed 3 or 4 runs during the inning.
Our bats against good pitchers: The last couple of games we’ve faced more good pitchers and we have not been able to hit them. This game we eeked out a run in the second, getting lucky scored a couple in the third, but we were basically shut down for the day. Last game was a similar story for most of the game. We’re only going to see more of the good pitchers and less of the bad pitchers, so this is a problem.
Sean’s head: Kid is wildly inconsistent. Some days he’s definitely our best catcher, but other days he’s just out of it. No real rhyme or reason as to which day it’s going to be either, as far as I can tell.
The Ugly
Jeremy Me’s pitching: Basically he’s a relief pitcher. I think coming in with the pressure causes him to throw hard and thus better. When he starts an inning he just doesn’t look as sharp. He ended up allowing 4 very ugly runs, and we had to pull him after four walks and a hit batter. Between this and Cameron, it’s a good thing Justin’s back because our next best pitcher is Jared, who we need to catch. Jeremy Me will be our good to reliever, but I hesitate to put him in to start an inning again.
Our throwing: We ended up allowing all sorts of trouble as several consecutive throwing errors on a steal at third base allowed two runs to score. It was bad news. We’ve done some work on this at practice and looked pretty good last game, so I hoped we’d moved forward, but it appears one of those two steps forward, one step back things.
The twin’s minds: If you asked them they’re both the reason we lost. We were warned that they would play mental games with themselves and they did. For the most part they played well. The exception being Alec who made the first throw on that awful play, even after both Steve and I said not to throw the ball. But their moping required some extended talks, mostly by Steve, to keep them focused.
All things considered, if we’d tied the game it would have been an incredible victory after our seven run inning. However, the Marlins won, getting their revenge after we beat them pretty decisively, and it was the better team that walked away with the victory. Tuesday’s a new chance and hopefully we’ll put out a better showing.
As we’re warming up before the game, who do I see but Dante, from my travel basketball team, there for his soccer team. We didn’t have much time to say more than hello. He did ask me if I was going to coach the team next year and I said “I don’t know” which is pretty much a lie because I absolutely plan on going back.
Then during the game, Eric came up to me and we were chatting a little. And basically he offered me a position coaching for them. While I didn’t accept, I did express interest and explain that I would need to coach either 4th or 6th grade, and would only coach the upper division team (as HP has teams in both the upper and lower divisions) and he was amenable to that. I now just need to decide if I have the time, when I’ll likely be switching teaching positions, to coach two teams, because with the new administration, coaching for my home town is a lot more appealing. However, I couldn’t run out on my team from last year, especially not with their moving up from the lower to upper division, assuming at least two of the triplets return.
The Game
Yesterday was not great. Going into the sixth and final inning we were down by 7, which also happens to be the most you can score in an inning, meaning the best we could do was tie. Anyhow seems like a good time to do a good, bad, and ugly for the game.
Good
Our 6th Inning hitting: We came out and rocked their pitcher who was accurate but slow. We had the absolute heart of our order up and it showed as we had 2 singles followed by 4 doubles, a sac fly, and two more singles which netted us our 7 runs. It showed once again that we were a team who could come from behind.
Justin: It was Justin’s first day back after breaking his thumb. He pitched moderately well, made a stupid play in the 5th inning at 3rd, but it was his hitting that we really missed. He had a good at bat in the 3rd, which ended in a walk. He then proceeded to steal two bases. In the sixth he was the first one to start our extra base hit rally. It’s good to have him back.
Cameron: The kid isn’t fast (not slow, but not fast) and so the fact that he’s hitting .667 is a testament to how well he’s hitting. He once again did well at the plate going 2-2 in clutch places.
Matt S: He pitched fairly well again recording two strike-outs though he did let up a couple of runs. He suffered from some bad bounces on those though. He also had a near homer, over the fence, during the sixth.
Jeremy Me’s fielding: He made an incredible play in the 4th at second diving for a hard hit ball with the bases loaded that saved us two runs when he caught it for the third out.
The Bad
Jeremy Ma’s pitching: He didn’t have the same snap on it that he normally does and just couldn’t close the game for us. He actually look bad enough in the 5th that I considered having Nick, who hadn’t pitched for us, come in and pitch the sixth. And frankly after he walked the a batter in the sixth I should have likely pulled him. I didn’t since I figured Jeremy was better under the pressure, but he just didn’t have it on Saturday, or rather I should say he didn’t have what he normally had. After the kid he walked, which had followed a double and a steal, a guy came in and won the game on an infield single. If they hadn’t won the game after the first run they would still have been going strong and he could have easily allowed 3 or 4 runs during the inning.
Our bats against good pitchers: The last couple of games we’ve faced more good pitchers and we have not been able to hit them. This game we eeked out a run in the second, getting lucky scored a couple in the third, but we were basically shut down for the day. Last game was a similar story for most of the game. We’re only going to see more of the good pitchers and less of the bad pitchers, so this is a problem.
Sean’s head: Kid is wildly inconsistent. Some days he’s definitely our best catcher, but other days he’s just out of it. No real rhyme or reason as to which day it’s going to be either, as far as I can tell.
The Ugly
Jeremy Me’s pitching: Basically he’s a relief pitcher. I think coming in with the pressure causes him to throw hard and thus better. When he starts an inning he just doesn’t look as sharp. He ended up allowing 4 very ugly runs, and we had to pull him after four walks and a hit batter. Between this and Cameron, it’s a good thing Justin’s back because our next best pitcher is Jared, who we need to catch. Jeremy Me will be our good to reliever, but I hesitate to put him in to start an inning again.
Our throwing: We ended up allowing all sorts of trouble as several consecutive throwing errors on a steal at third base allowed two runs to score. It was bad news. We’ve done some work on this at practice and looked pretty good last game, so I hoped we’d moved forward, but it appears one of those two steps forward, one step back things.
The twin’s minds: If you asked them they’re both the reason we lost. We were warned that they would play mental games with themselves and they did. For the most part they played well. The exception being Alec who made the first throw on that awful play, even after both Steve and I said not to throw the ball. But their moping required some extended talks, mostly by Steve, to keep them focused.
All things considered, if we’d tied the game it would have been an incredible victory after our seven run inning. However, the Marlins won, getting their revenge after we beat them pretty decisively, and it was the better team that walked away with the victory. Tuesday’s a new chance and hopefully we’ll put out a better showing.
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Intro
This is going to be a dynasty of my experiences as a travel basketball coach for a 9 year old boys travel team. I completed, over the spring/summer, a dynasty detailing my days as a little league baseball coach. I found it helpful for me as a coach, and several people said that they enjoyed reading it. Due to my schedule I anticipate that this will be shorter than that, but once I start writing, I write, so who knows.
Finding a position
As I mentioned a couple of times in my Little League write-ups I am, at heart, a basketball coach. Well really, at heart, I’m a guy who enjoys working with youth. But when it comes to sports I am a basketball guy. I realized that I had been having too much fun coaching little league and so it was time to step up and try and find a basketball coaching position. I had done some coaching in a semi-competitive high school intramural league. Practices were once a week and games were once a week. Depending on how you look at it, I either do so well, or so poorly, that last year I was co-commissioner of the league. While I was well received as a co-commissioner, and will likely be getting a phone call in a month offering me the position again, I really I missed coaching and decided that I needed to coach a basketball team again.
I knew, from the start, two things, well I guess really three things. First I didn’t want to coach a house league team. I really believe in the idea of personal growth and development that you see in a house league. However, I wanted the more serious atmosphere of a travel team. I have a standing offer from a couple different teams in the league that I could be a coach for them if I wanted, but this sort of somewhat relaxed atmosphere wasn’t really wasn’t what I was looking for. This dovetailed nicely with my second point, which is that I wished to be paid. Baseball is a lot of hours, and I’m happy to give it, but I felt I needed some kind of compensation if I was going to do basketball, which has a longer season. My third thing was that I did not wish to get a position for the Park District in the city where I live. I basically want to keep the baseball and basketball coaching parts of me separate. In baseball I’m a volunteer. In basketball I am a paid coach. This decision, which actually came first, also dictated the travel part, to a large extent, as my city is the only one nearby, that I could find, which pays coaches in its house league.
So knowing I wanted a paid coaching job, I started searching out positions. I looked at middle schools and park districts, primarily. There are several other basketball organizations in the area, but without an “in” there I was unlikely to get a position for one of them. After a lot of thinking I decided to only apply for one job. I figured I would either get the job, and be happy, or not get the job, and spend the time on my teaching/relaxation and coach a team in the league that I had been a part of for a few years.
I applied for a job in a neighboring suburb. This suburb is smaller than the one I live in, but I also taught in the district for a year and have a good grasp of the community. I thought it would be a good fit that way, and also has the advantage that the gym they use to practice is nearly as close as the gym in my own suburb.
The Interview
A couple weeks after sending in my resume I got a call for an interview. It was shortly after the position had closed. With my background, I’d have been surprised if I didn’t get at least an interview. I setup the interview. I thought the interview went well, though afterwards I regretted that I didn’t show enough of my basketball knowledge. The one question where I think I could have shown that, “Describe to me a practice”, I ended up talking more about how you have to be flexible with the talent you work with, varying up the practice so you’re not doing the same thing for too long (and also so you reinforce skills in a different way than you might initially teach them so you give kids multiple opportunities to understand the concept), and doing drills which either allow full participation of having kids “shadow” the ones participating so that there isn’t a lot of sitting. I think it was a solid answer, but I later regretted having taken that approach rather than really showing my basketball knowledge. But I felt like besides not really showing my basketball knowledge, the interview went well. It also helped, I felt, that I supplied a couple of references of parents of kids I had coached.
At the interview, the coordinator indicated that they expected an answer by late in the week of August 28 or early this week. When I hadn’t heard from them yesterday I had pretty much decided I hadn’t gotten the position. It was something I really had coveted and I was, I admit, disappointed. However, with so much going on with the start of school, I didn’t let my disappointment bother me too much and focused my energies elsewhere.
So when I got a phone call today right as school was ended, after having been nervous every time my phone range on Thursday, Friday, and Tuesday, I figured it was my mom and sent it right to voice mail as I was in the middle of doing something. Of course it turned out to be the Park District Person offering me the job.
Tryouts
I have to admit the whole tryout thing is what has me more nervous than anything. Not only is it immediate, tryouts are next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but I have never conducted tryouts before. I have been told to expect between 12 and 18 kids with the goal of selecting a team of between 10 and 12. 18 kids is a pretty small number, considering I teach a class of 21, so that part is good. I am reading up on tryouts and have begun to put a plan together, though it’s rather rough at this point.
Basically with 9 year olds this will be the first serious basketball they will have played. As such selecting good athletes seems to be important. However, I philosophically believe that too often teams look for athletes rather than basketball players. This could come out of my own experiences as a youth, where I was not an athlete but I had basketball talent, not the least of which was pure size, which was never really cultivated as only the athletes made the travel team. But again at 9, as I know from teaching 4th grade which is what grade most of my kids will be in, there is only so much basketball talent. So a majority of the kids I take will likely be athletes who I am hoping I can shape into basketball players. I admit that I will have a definite bias for soccer players, as I believe footwork and movement is an essential part of basketball, and while this is covered in young soccer leagues, it is often ignored with young basketball players. With only 18, or less, players I can do more basketball drills than I could with 25 kids as there will be less standing around waiting since there are fewer kids who’d need to take a turn.
Besides the athletics, I will say that attitude is a huge deal. As a teacher I know I’ve helped kids mature and grow. However, the kids really deserve the credit since they had reached a point where they were ready for what I had to offer and might have grown and matured just as much with another teacher. In other words, unlike many a woman in a relationship, I am not foolish enough to believe I can change these kids through my miraculous coaching. If a kid doesn’t pay attention, and doesn’t seem to have a willingness to try new things, he best be the 9 year old Michael Jordan, if he’s going to make the team. The willingness to try new things is important. At 9, I don’t really expect them to be able to dribble with both hands, for instance. But if I ask them to dribble with their left hand I’d rather see a kid botch that, than dribble with his right hand proficiently. I can teach them, especially at 9, how to use their other hand. But again they have to be ready.
Between now and Monday
First I am going to nail down my plan for day 1 of tryouts. With the tryouts there are three days and a kid has to show up to two of them to be considered. A fair amount of kids really do show up to just two, so I can’t hold that against them. But it also makes trying to see a variety of things harder as I can’t teach a drill on Day 1 and assume on Day 2 every kid will know the drill. Anyhow, so I will likely post my try-out plan here sometime before Sunday.
The other thing I am going to try and do is get an assistant coach. I want to have an assistant both because I like being able to bounce ideas off of someone and because it makes life easier having a second pair of eyes and ears. The salary for the position is not large, but really I’m not doing it for the money. I do think of myself as a professional, as noted above. The money is such a small amount compared to what I expect to make hour, that the money is more important for the professionalism it infers than the actual amount. As such I have no qualms about giving some of it to another person. Plan A is to send notices to a local liberal arts college job center and education and athletic departments and see if I can find an assistant that way. I have no idea if this’ll be successful. Plan B allows me to keep the money but still get an assistant. I know many high school students through my various work and would simply try and get one who I know knows basketball to agree to be the assistant. The disadvantages of this are clear, which is why it is Plan B. While tryouts are next week, practices don’t really start until the end of October so there is not a huge rush on this front.
And that’s where I’m at. Comments, suggestions, criticisms, about basketball are always welcome. I also hope you find this an enjoyable read and if there is something I can do to make it more interesting for you as a reader please let me know.
This is going to be a dynasty of my experiences as a travel basketball coach for a 9 year old boys travel team. I completed, over the spring/summer, a dynasty detailing my days as a little league baseball coach. I found it helpful for me as a coach, and several people said that they enjoyed reading it. Due to my schedule I anticipate that this will be shorter than that, but once I start writing, I write, so who knows.
Finding a position
As I mentioned a couple of times in my Little League write-ups I am, at heart, a basketball coach. Well really, at heart, I’m a guy who enjoys working with youth. But when it comes to sports I am a basketball guy. I realized that I had been having too much fun coaching little league and so it was time to step up and try and find a basketball coaching position. I had done some coaching in a semi-competitive high school intramural league. Practices were once a week and games were once a week. Depending on how you look at it, I either do so well, or so poorly, that last year I was co-commissioner of the league. While I was well received as a co-commissioner, and will likely be getting a phone call in a month offering me the position again, I really I missed coaching and decided that I needed to coach a basketball team again.
I knew, from the start, two things, well I guess really three things. First I didn’t want to coach a house league team. I really believe in the idea of personal growth and development that you see in a house league. However, I wanted the more serious atmosphere of a travel team. I have a standing offer from a couple different teams in the league that I could be a coach for them if I wanted, but this sort of somewhat relaxed atmosphere wasn’t really wasn’t what I was looking for. This dovetailed nicely with my second point, which is that I wished to be paid. Baseball is a lot of hours, and I’m happy to give it, but I felt I needed some kind of compensation if I was going to do basketball, which has a longer season. My third thing was that I did not wish to get a position for the Park District in the city where I live. I basically want to keep the baseball and basketball coaching parts of me separate. In baseball I’m a volunteer. In basketball I am a paid coach. This decision, which actually came first, also dictated the travel part, to a large extent, as my city is the only one nearby, that I could find, which pays coaches in its house league.
So knowing I wanted a paid coaching job, I started searching out positions. I looked at middle schools and park districts, primarily. There are several other basketball organizations in the area, but without an “in” there I was unlikely to get a position for one of them. After a lot of thinking I decided to only apply for one job. I figured I would either get the job, and be happy, or not get the job, and spend the time on my teaching/relaxation and coach a team in the league that I had been a part of for a few years.
I applied for a job in a neighboring suburb. This suburb is smaller than the one I live in, but I also taught in the district for a year and have a good grasp of the community. I thought it would be a good fit that way, and also has the advantage that the gym they use to practice is nearly as close as the gym in my own suburb.
The Interview
A couple weeks after sending in my resume I got a call for an interview. It was shortly after the position had closed. With my background, I’d have been surprised if I didn’t get at least an interview. I setup the interview. I thought the interview went well, though afterwards I regretted that I didn’t show enough of my basketball knowledge. The one question where I think I could have shown that, “Describe to me a practice”, I ended up talking more about how you have to be flexible with the talent you work with, varying up the practice so you’re not doing the same thing for too long (and also so you reinforce skills in a different way than you might initially teach them so you give kids multiple opportunities to understand the concept), and doing drills which either allow full participation of having kids “shadow” the ones participating so that there isn’t a lot of sitting. I think it was a solid answer, but I later regretted having taken that approach rather than really showing my basketball knowledge. But I felt like besides not really showing my basketball knowledge, the interview went well. It also helped, I felt, that I supplied a couple of references of parents of kids I had coached.
At the interview, the coordinator indicated that they expected an answer by late in the week of August 28 or early this week. When I hadn’t heard from them yesterday I had pretty much decided I hadn’t gotten the position. It was something I really had coveted and I was, I admit, disappointed. However, with so much going on with the start of school, I didn’t let my disappointment bother me too much and focused my energies elsewhere.
So when I got a phone call today right as school was ended, after having been nervous every time my phone range on Thursday, Friday, and Tuesday, I figured it was my mom and sent it right to voice mail as I was in the middle of doing something. Of course it turned out to be the Park District Person offering me the job.
Tryouts
I have to admit the whole tryout thing is what has me more nervous than anything. Not only is it immediate, tryouts are next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but I have never conducted tryouts before. I have been told to expect between 12 and 18 kids with the goal of selecting a team of between 10 and 12. 18 kids is a pretty small number, considering I teach a class of 21, so that part is good. I am reading up on tryouts and have begun to put a plan together, though it’s rather rough at this point.
Basically with 9 year olds this will be the first serious basketball they will have played. As such selecting good athletes seems to be important. However, I philosophically believe that too often teams look for athletes rather than basketball players. This could come out of my own experiences as a youth, where I was not an athlete but I had basketball talent, not the least of which was pure size, which was never really cultivated as only the athletes made the travel team. But again at 9, as I know from teaching 4th grade which is what grade most of my kids will be in, there is only so much basketball talent. So a majority of the kids I take will likely be athletes who I am hoping I can shape into basketball players. I admit that I will have a definite bias for soccer players, as I believe footwork and movement is an essential part of basketball, and while this is covered in young soccer leagues, it is often ignored with young basketball players. With only 18, or less, players I can do more basketball drills than I could with 25 kids as there will be less standing around waiting since there are fewer kids who’d need to take a turn.
Besides the athletics, I will say that attitude is a huge deal. As a teacher I know I’ve helped kids mature and grow. However, the kids really deserve the credit since they had reached a point where they were ready for what I had to offer and might have grown and matured just as much with another teacher. In other words, unlike many a woman in a relationship, I am not foolish enough to believe I can change these kids through my miraculous coaching. If a kid doesn’t pay attention, and doesn’t seem to have a willingness to try new things, he best be the 9 year old Michael Jordan, if he’s going to make the team. The willingness to try new things is important. At 9, I don’t really expect them to be able to dribble with both hands, for instance. But if I ask them to dribble with their left hand I’d rather see a kid botch that, than dribble with his right hand proficiently. I can teach them, especially at 9, how to use their other hand. But again they have to be ready.
Between now and Monday
First I am going to nail down my plan for day 1 of tryouts. With the tryouts there are three days and a kid has to show up to two of them to be considered. A fair amount of kids really do show up to just two, so I can’t hold that against them. But it also makes trying to see a variety of things harder as I can’t teach a drill on Day 1 and assume on Day 2 every kid will know the drill. Anyhow, so I will likely post my try-out plan here sometime before Sunday.
The other thing I am going to try and do is get an assistant coach. I want to have an assistant both because I like being able to bounce ideas off of someone and because it makes life easier having a second pair of eyes and ears. The salary for the position is not large, but really I’m not doing it for the money. I do think of myself as a professional, as noted above. The money is such a small amount compared to what I expect to make hour, that the money is more important for the professionalism it infers than the actual amount. As such I have no qualms about giving some of it to another person. Plan A is to send notices to a local liberal arts college job center and education and athletic departments and see if I can find an assistant that way. I have no idea if this’ll be successful. Plan B allows me to keep the money but still get an assistant. I know many high school students through my various work and would simply try and get one who I know knows basketball to agree to be the assistant. The disadvantages of this are clear, which is why it is Plan B. While tryouts are next week, practices don’t really start until the end of October so there is not a huge rush on this front.
And that’s where I’m at. Comments, suggestions, criticisms, about basketball are always welcome. I also hope you find this an enjoyable read and if there is something I can do to make it more interesting for you as a reader please let me know.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
