Thursday, Mar. 04, 2004
Baseball, posted at 6:57 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Those dark circles under my eyes you're noticing are because I can't sleep. I can't sleep because I'm torn up inside about making cuts on the team tomorrow.I've basically got about 35 kids trying out for 20 spots. That "20" is a wiggly number, though, as I might and probably will carry more. We're buying jerseys this year - the kids decided to special order them so their names could be on them - and making kids over the 20 cutoff get their own $15 pants doesn't seem too big a problem. Or, I could work out some sort of system in which players dress for alternating weeks. So I could take more than 20, and I probably will.
That's good, because I have 21 right now who are on the team for sure. Pretty much, at least. I'm spending so much time copying and recopying the roster and the spots, analyzing the roster from every single angle, from current skills to potential for development of skills to how crushing of a blow will it be for me and for them if I cut them?
My current dillemmas include the following:
1. Should I give preferential treatment to the three returning seniors from last year's team, all of whom are about equal to many of the 9th and 10th graders trying out? I hate to cut a senior heading into his last ever baseball season, but I've got to look to the future as well. As of now, all three of them are on the team.
2. Should I concern myself more with getting seniors on the team who might never get a chance to play again, or freshmen who will three get more chances to try out but might benefit from the development?
3. I'm obviously biased against kids I had in class. What should I do about this?
4. What is the maximum number of kids I can have and still run effective practices and give enough individual attention? The Athletic Director recommends 18, the previous coach and I always took 20, but I want to take up to 25. My colleague, who coaches Lacrosse and Soccer, takes about 30 per team, with the argument that there's no JV team to develop players as the excuse. Of course, more players plan in those two sports than in baseball.
Being a head coach is a lot of fun so far, but tomorrow will not be a fun day at all.