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T-ball Time!
A Field of Dreams for the Whole Family By Mark Stackpole
"After a few practices, several parents took advantage of getting involved, and I encouraged it," says Bielski. "By the end of the season, half of the parents on the team were either running drills or just helping out. A single coach cannot teach a group of kids to do anything and still have fun it takes a group of parents."
Tony Argula of Spartan, N.J., has been an athletic coach for more than 10 years, beginning with martial arts but quickly branching out to T-ball, soccer, basketball and softball. "As my own children started to participate in sports, I felt the need to help out," says Argula. "When they were very young, they were shy and afraid to try new things. I found that their anxiety was erased when I told them I would be their coach."
When his own children began playing, Argula hit the field and tried to hit the books as well. At the time, though, there were not many resources about T-ball. "I was surprised that there was not much material out there on the subject, and many of the drills and strategies were not effective for younger children," he says. Still, Argula took copious notes and carefully planned his practices. At the end of that season, he was surprised at how much information he had actually pulled together during the course of the season.
"I figured there would be more people out there like me, so I rewrote my notes, added more material and added pictures and diagrams," says Argula. From those revised notes, two "how-to" e-books and a Web site, Coach Tee Ball.com, were born.
"At the T-ball level, teaching a player good hitting fundamentals is lower on the priority chain than teaching a player good sportsmanship and a fondness for the game," he says. "The lessons larned on the field help shape the type of person a child may become. If a coach can have the slightest bit of positive influence on a child's life, I believe the coach has been greatly successful."
