There are several reasons why taking ten minutes to organize softball practices will pay huge dividends down the road. In addition to reducing or eliminating wasted time, coming into practice prepared with a posted plan shows players (alliteration!!) that the coach is just as serious about the sport as they are, which in turn helps establish the coach’s credibility. Structured practice helps the players get into a routine and gives them an expectation of what is to come for the next 90 minutes. Finally, a good practice keeps players from becoming bored – a deadly coaching sin, in my book.

A typical 90 minute practice will have six parts: Warm up, Batting Practice, Water Break, Fielding Fundamentals, Specific Activity, and Closing Comments.

Warm-ups take 10 minutes. What’s important to factor in here, at least for Rec League teams (well, at least my players), is that there is always a player or two who arrives late. I just have the late player(s) join their teammates wherever the team is in practice – which means that those late girls may not get the warm up that their teammates are getting. But that’s OK, because…

Batting follows warm-ups, and lasts for 25 minutes. I like having Batting practice right after warm-ups because batting involves the whole body, especially the core muscles. Even the girls who showed up late and missed part (or all!) of warm-ups still get their blood flowing and muscles loose by batting. You are using Batting Stations for your batting practice, right? (See my handy-dandy article on batting stations for more info!)

Fielding fundamentals comes next, so it makes sense to have a water break after batting since the girls are going to the dugout anyway. I give the players five minutes to hydrate and grab their gloves – any longer and the water break turns into a chit-chat session.

Just as it is important to swing the bat in every practice, it is important to work on Fielding fundamentals every practice. How to conduct Fielding fundamentals will vary depending on where we are in the season. If it is early in the season and we are still trying to figure out positions, everyone will work on infield and outfield drills. Later in the season, we will divide the girls into infielder and outfielder groups and work on specific drills for their positions. We spend 25 minutes on Fielding fundamentals.

The Specific Activity is dedicated to a part of the game with which we want to work. This could be base running, bunting, sliding, internal scrimmages, etc. Just as Batting and Fielding, this activity will get 25 minutes of practice time.

Finally, we spend five minutes on Closing Comments to summarize the day. We review new things we practiced and we ask for any final questions for the day (hopefully, they ask questions throughout practice if they do not understand a concept). We end with a team cheer.

You have kept every girl busy for all 90 minutes. Your team has taken another step toward softball proficiency. The parents are pleased because they now have tired daughters AND they are leaving on time. It’s (insert beverage of choice here) time!