"Easiest" sport to coach...

[JJ Husker]

 

Bowling

 

Wait. Can you coach and drink beer at the same time?

 

-Serious now

 

The time, in season and out of season, in high school coaching is crazy. Summer camps, film break down, mandatory study hall, etc. Our baseball team this spring break is doing a 3 day, 2 night "boot camp", 24 hours per day - sleep in the locker room. No wonder coaches burn out and/or get divorced at a high rate.

 

Outside of knowledge of the game, this is my list of "easiest on the coaches" sports based on length of season and time spent in season.

1) Golf

2) Cross country

3) Bowling

4) Track

5) Swimming

6) Wrestling

7) Baseball

8) Volleyball

9) Basketball

10) Football

Lol, coaching volleyball is NOT harder to coach than baseball or wrestling.

Uh, yes it is. I have coached baseball, softball, hockey, and basketball, and I have been extremely familiar with volleyball for 10 years of my daughter playing competitive club and school vball. Volleyball is definitely tougher to coach than baseball, and I would imagine tougher than wrestling also. It looks easy when a team is well coached and knows what they're doing but looks can be deceiving. Also, athletes can somewhat overcome bad coaching in baseball but not in volleyball.

[ScottyIce]

Sure, baseball is simple, catch, throw, hit, it's that simple boys.

 

If you look up, this is my EXACT POINT. I know nothing about volleyball other than how simple it is for me to teach the basic skills. Now game planning? I know nothing about that specific part.

 

I'd argue that good athletes can also overcome bad coaching in volleyball.

 

This is such a pointless argument, that I'll step out now.

[teachercd]

I did not mean for the word "easy" to be a negative.

 

With that said, I still stick with golf and probably cross country.

[JJ Husker]

Sure, baseball is simple, catch, throw, hit, it's that simple boys.

If you look up, this is my EXACT POINT. I know nothing about volleyball other than how simple it is for me to teach the basic skills. Now game planning? I know nothing about that specific part.

I'd argue that good athletes can also overcome bad coaching in volleyball.

This is such a pointless argument, that I'll step out now.

IDK, I've seen a couple volleyball coaches take a team of very good players and absolutely make them suck by having the wrong players in the wrong positions, bad lineup rotation, stupid systems, etc. I guess I've just never seen a baseball coach screw stuff up as bad as I have in volleyball.

 

But yeah, for high school sports, I'm thinking golf and CC has to be the easiest.

[knapplc]

I know nothing about volleyball

 

“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt."

- Homer Simpson

[huKSer]

 

Bowling

 

Wait. Can you coach and drink beer at the same time?

 

-Serious now

 

The time, in season and out of season, in high school coaching is crazy. Summer camps, film break down, mandatory study hall, etc. Our baseball team this spring break is doing a 3 day, 2 night "boot camp", 24 hours per day - sleep in the locker room. No wonder coaches burn out and/or get divorced at a high rate.

 

Outside of knowledge of the game, this is my list of "easiest on the coaches" sports based on length of season and time spent in season.

1) Golf

2) Cross country

3) Bowling

4) Track

5) Swimming

6) Wrestling

7) Baseball

8) Volleyball

9) Basketball

10) Football

Lol, coaching volleyball is NOT harder to coach than baseball or wrestling.

 

I was thinking summer leagues in volleyball taking a lot of time. Baseball has American Legion and wrestling the individual wrestlers go to separate camps.

[ScottyIce]

I've changed my mind. You guys have given plenty of ammo. We will continue this tomorrow with more time available. Volleyball lovers, prepare to go down!!!!

[teachercd]

Okay, I am going to toss tennis into the mix.

 

I coached baseball at the high school (JV) level...baseball practice at that level is great, super easy and laid back. Game strategy was a little different though, much harder than golf, tennis or cross country would be.

[darkhorse85]

No conditioning in golf? My HS coach must have missed that memo.

 

These days I do the John Daly approach to conditioning when I golf.

[Red Dead Redemption]

 

No conditioning in golf? My HS coach must have missed that memo.

 

These days I do the John Daly approach to conditioning when I golf.

Or the walrus, Craig Stadler

[NUinID]

I have coached HS Football, Wrestling, Track, for many years and one year of VB. In Jr High I coached those sports and some BBall. I have also coached legion baseball and some girls softball.

 

I think it is easier to coach a sport if you really like the sport.

 

Football is and always has been my first love as a sport. Since leaving the teaching profession it is really the only think I miss about teaching. Football requires a lot of prepwork. Scouting and putting together a game plan and then putting your practice schedual together is time consuming. You have to be terribly orginized to coach football even before you get to the practice field. I had to do a lot less prep work because I was a lowly freshman assistant coach on the staff. I wasn't required to break down film for varsity games or spend my Sundays game planning for the next week. I have done it before and was happy not to be doing it.

 

I coached wrestling for 16 of the 21 years I taught school. It is a great sport that allows any kid of any size to complete against other athletes that are his same size. It truely is a sport that the harder you work at it the better you will get. Being athletic is always a plus, but even a marginal athlete can see the fruits of hard work. Wrestling is my least favorite sport to coach. For me, wrestling practice is terribly boring and a grind. Wrestling practice is not really a lot of fun. It is work and it is sweating and tiring and so much about conditioning and repitition. HS wrestling coaches spend every Saturday from Dec 1 to the end of February in a gym. They generally get up and are on a school bus at about 6 AM to get to a wresling tournament and if they are lucky they may walk out of that gym and get home by about 6 that night. My wife absolutely hated this about wrestling and I didn't care much for it either. Most wrestling coaches love it and live for those days in a gym at a tournament, I dreaded it.

 

Track is a very easy sport to coach. I always enjoyed it, getting outside after being cooped up inside all winter. Not real tough I generally coached hurdles, and relays. A lot of kids don't understand the sport though and don't like it. I always told them the first day of practice that in track we run and we will do it every day so if you don't like to run than this is the wrong sport for you.

 

Played a lot of Baseball and coached it a little. Baseball to me is a sport that a lot of coaches make to difficult. When i played baseball in HS practice consisted of BP and taking some infield and never lasted more than about an hour and a half. Onec the season started we rarely had practice because we usually played at least 4 games a week. We were always good, I never finished lower than 2nd in a 10 team conference. To me too many coaches try and change what there players are dong to much and make them think to much. My son played legion ball last year and they used to have practice every day for 2.5 hours and never got any better and were about a .500 team. I bit my lip and said nothing. The one thing they never did at practice was take infield, but they worked on situational base running all the time.

 

teach, you are right though, Golf is a stupid easy sport to coach at the HS level.

[BigRedBuster]

 

Played a lot of Baseball and coached it a little. Baseball to me is a sport that a lot of coaches make to difficult. When i played baseball in HS practice consisted of BP and taking some infield and never lasted more than about an hour and a half. Onec the season started we rarely had practice because we usually played at least 4 games a week. We were always good, I never finished lower than 2nd in a 10 team conference. To me too many coaches try and change what there players are dong to much and make them think to much. My son played legion ball last year and they used to have practice every day for 2.5 hours and never got any better and were about a .500 team. I bit my lip and said nothing. The one thing they never did at practice was take infield, but they worked on situational base running all the time.

 

Your son's coach really didn't know what he was doing then. Batting and infield defense (including pitching in this) is the biggest part of being successful.

 

Base running???? Understand the infield defense and teaching the baselining is easy.

[huKSer]

Okay, I am going to toss tennis into the mix.

 

I coached baseball at the high school (JV) level...baseball practice at that level is great, super easy and laid back. Game strategy was a little different though, much harder than golf, tennis or cross country would be.

Crap, forgot tennis. But then, most people do, too.

[teachercd]

I think with some sports you really end up more of a babysitter...I am really just talking about HS sports now. While some sports you are really doing a lot of work, like NU said with football.

 

I did wrestling too and you either love it or hate. I hated it

[NUinID]

 

 

Played a lot of Baseball and coached it a little. Baseball to me is a sport that a lot of coaches make to difficult. When i played baseball in HS practice consisted of BP and taking some infield and never lasted more than about an hour and a half. Onec the season started we rarely had practice because we usually played at least 4 games a week. We were always good, I never finished lower than 2nd in a 10 team conference. To me too many coaches try and change what there players are dong to much and make them think to much. My son played legion ball last year and they used to have practice every day for 2.5 hours and never got any better and were about a .500 team. I bit my lip and said nothing. The one thing they never did at practice was take infield, but they worked on situational base running all the time.

 

Your son's coach really didn't know what he was doing then. Batting and infield defense (including pitching in this) is the biggest part of being successful.

 

Base running???? Understand the infield defense and teaching the baselining is easy.

 

 

I wouldn't say that, he just wanted them to be really agressive base runners. So they worked on that a lot. They also ran them selves out of big innings because they were so agressive on the bases. He was one of the kids dad and he was enthusiastic and knew the game he just thought we could outscore the other team. They did work some on fielding, just not the way it should be done. When the team is 12 and younger a ground ball play should be at first almost all the time unless it is a an easy get at another base.