Building a Schedule

One of the more time-consuming, but enjoyable, aspects of being the head coach of a youth travel team is building that team's schedule. I also believe this is one of the more under-appreciated and over-looked aspects of coaching at the youth level. The schedule you create for your team determines so many things for your upcoming summer that you cannot even imagine as you put it together. Therefore, I have some advice for and tips for coaches who don't have much experience doing this or who are coaching a new team.

Figure out how many events you're going to play in and your tournament budget

Before you even start to schedule events, it is best to plan on how many events you are going to participate in. In Northern Indiana, the youth baseball season typically starts in mid-April. This allows a team to have around 15 weekends between the start and end of a normal season. While playing every weekend sounds like a lot of fun, it's not! Don't do it! You won't have a team to coach the following season.

First of all, kids need a break. Young kids are not physically or mentally built to play 70 games over 90 days. Playing every weekend seems easy as an adult because they're kids and they have energy, but those kids wear down. Kids need time off to recover their arms and brains. Similar to the kids, parents need time off from baseball to recover their brains. When you expect kids to play 70 games in 90 days, you're expecting parents to be available for that many games in that many days too. That isn't fair to people who work and/or have other kids playing summer sports. One of the easiest ways to cause an unplanned confrontation with a parent is to be around that person as much as the people in your family. Emotions wear thin and people get comfortable speaking their mind. Plus, playing too many games in too many days will result in a dip in your team's performance because they are tired. That will always be one of the quickest ways to get people upset with the coach.

So let's operate under the assumption that you've got 15 weekends, but you'd like to have at least one off weekend each month. This puts most teams between 10-12 events. In our area, it is best to assume that you're likely to lose one event in the spring due to weather, so this is where having an off weekend in June and/or July comes in handy. Instead of losing an event entirely, you can now hopefully use that credit towards an event later in your season. More on this later.

Set a Budget

Once, you've determined how many events you're going to play in, think about the cost of those events. As the popularity of youth baseball tournaments has sky-rocketed, so has the cost over the years. I do believe that you get what you pay for in terms of facilities and competition, but a coach also needs to be mindful of his parents, talent level, and what other comparable organizations are doing as well. While the $895 events are played at nicer facilities against better teams, you multiply that 12 times and split the cost among 11 families and suddenly you're asking each family to pay close to $1000 just for the tournaments. Those costs do not include uniforms, insurance, and a facility to use to work out during the winter. Unless you are one of the premier organizations or these kids are entering their late middle school and high school years, you probably don't need to be spending anywhere near that on tournaments each year.

You also need to be considerate of all of the different income levels among your team families. For some families, spending $1000 on tournament fees is not that big of a deal. However, factor in how much traveling and hotel nights you'll have on top of this, and the cost of playing for your team has now doubled. Again, some families may have points and rewards with hotels through their jobs, but others might not have enough money to play travel baseball and take an additional family vacation. Baseball trips are their vacations. Try to find the sweet spot with the fees and travel when you're younger. Nobody is watching kids under 14 years old, and you don't want to drive parents away because your team costs too much money or drive them to a more elite team because they could play on a better team for the same cost.

Be Organized

Every year before schedules get released I create a spreadsheet that includes all of the tournament organizations and weekends we could possibly play. As organizations release their events, I add them to the spreadsheet on the appropriate weekends with the cost of each event. By the time all events have been released, I'm looking at a minimum of 40 events to choose from. However, all the information I need is now right in front of me. I am not going back and forth between different webpages trying to remember who had tournaments in which locations on which weekends and how much they cost. Put all of that information in front of you so you can start making the best decisions for your team without stressing yourself or your parents out. This will also allow you to be fully transparent with any parents that may question your budget or why you are playing in certain events on these weekends. If you're organized, you can hopefully avoid some of the potential pitfalls below.

Try to avoid playing in high dollar events in the spring.

Alright, so now that you're hopefully not going to play every weekend in the most expensive events, you now need to start being strategic with who you schedule your events with. A general rule of thumb when building a schedule is to try and avoid the more expensive events early in the season. There isn't much more frustrating for coaches and families than having events postponed or shortened due to weather. Event organizers are smart, so they know how to avoid giving people their money back. They don't care if you play in sub 40 degree temperatures or the rain in order to get your money. Therefore, it doesn't make much sense to play in those expensive events early in the season where the weather is usually not very accommodating. It only took me three straight years of playing in the cold, wind, and rain while staying in a hotel for the same annual event to come to this conclusion. Three years in a row I shivered on the diamond or had games canceled due to weather for one of the bigger events on our schedule in mid-May. Save your budget for when the weather will be nice.

Leave open weekends during the summer months.

The other thing I highly recommend, is not playing every weekend in June/July. No tournament organization will give teams/organizations back their money if an entire event/weekend is canceled due to weather. What they will do is offer teams/organizations a credit for a future event. This only comes in handy and is appreciated by the parents on your team if you have an open weekend to use that credit later in the season. This helps avoid people complaining that their son did not get to play enough games or wanting their money back. While it can cause issues with rest or playing too many weekends in a row, this is where you can get a pulse on your parents and players wishes. Some people may be locked into vacations that they booked months ago, so they may not want to play, so worst case scenario you decide not to play and everyone gets a weekend away from the ballpark during the summer. Either way, you have presented your parents with options versus losing games, money, and parent support that you cannot get back.

You can try and have a lot of open weekends early in the spring to avoid bad weather, but then it is difficult to get into a rhythm. There is also no worse feeling than sitting around on a spring weekend not playing baseball, because at that point everyone is chomping to get out onto the field. Also, you may have an event canceled due to weather, only to reschedule for another spring weekend and see that event hampered by weather as well. While there are no guarantees in the summer months, your chances of avoiding cancellations due to weather drop exponentially. So, I highly encourage open weekends in the summer for multiple reasons.

Know your talent level

It's not enough to try and balance your schedule over 15 weeks and manage costs, but one of the most important things to do is try and put together a schedule that fits your team's ability with all of those parameters in place. This is the most challenging aspect for every youth baseball coach when you consider everything above.

Let me first start with the perspective from my own team. We have been very successful for a number of years and have played in a number of high level events with a good amount of success, so I know we can go anywhere in the Midwest without fear of getting embarrassed.

After the season ends, as a coach I process a lot of emotions. I think about the successes and regrets from the year gone by. I contemplate the loss of certain kids and families with the excitement of the addition of the new kids and families. I start to think about the areas where the team is going to be better or worse and what it will all look like next year on the field. I envision this is how a GM or MLB manager of a highly competitive teams feels just before spring training. I start checking the various sites and organizations for their tournaments the following year. As the events start getting released, I get excited and think about how great it will be to play here and there. Next thing you know, I've got 18 events I'd like to play in or travel to that all cost between $750-$1200 apiece.

This is where the checklist from above comes in handy. I automatically know I've got to dial things back and think about what weekends I want to take off. Also, never lose site that you're not only scheduling your team's summer, but the families on your team are dependent on your decisions. Who they get to see and what they get to do as a family outside of baseball during the summer depends on your decisions. Typically, the 4th of July is an automatic weekend to take off for me. Next I start looking for a weekend that is around one of our local events. For me, I like having back to back weekends where our families do not have to travel. It almost feels like having back to back off weekends when you know you're sleeping in your own bed for over two weeks in a row.

Now that I've sort of settled on my weekends, I try to look at competition levels. As you get older, the difference in most tournament costs negligible, so it's about finding the best events for your kids. I truly do not care about wins and losses, but I recognize that they are both psychologically important. I don't want to send my kids to event after event where they are going to get beat down, but I also don't want to go to event after event where we rack up win after win. The events where you win big can serve a purpose to give kids opportunities to pitch, play secondary positions, or build confidence, but they don't help form habits that lead to long-term success.

Likewise, going to events where your team is going to be overmatched doesn't do much good. Yeah, it's great going to a nice venue or showing your parents what high level talent really looks like, but what fun is it showing up and knowing you're going to likely get run-ruled? Plus, you don't want to have to run your better pitcher/s out there 3 days in a row to try and remain competitive. I've always felt like that was throwing money away. Most tournament organizations are now doing a great job of offering teams multiple levels of competition, so know your team and plan accordingly. If you're going 4-0 or 0-4 with run differentials that total over 20 runs you need to re-evaluate things.

Schedule Early

The earlier get your schedule together, the more time your families have to prepare and arrange their schedules and vacations for the following summers. Some people work in places where they have to submit time off requests months in advance, especially around holidays. Be considerate and try to have your schedule completed before the end of the calendar year so those families can plan accordingly. Also, as you get older, scheduling early guarantees you games on feature fields at college venues. While it is exciting to go to new college campuses as the kids get older, you won't get a game on the main field if you don't schedule early.

Stick to Your Schedule

Everything I mentioned above got thrown out in 2020 due to Covid, but as a coach you need to be respectful and not add or change things throughout the season. There may be times when you signed up for an event months in advance only to find out that two weeks before the event that the number of teams or competition level isn't what you anticipated. Yeah that sucks, but learn from it. Maybe the organization that you scheduled through doesn't do a good job communicating in advance or attracting good competition. Maybe it is the region or venue where you have decided to play. Honor that commitment and learn from it moving forward. Asking parents to cancel hotels and get new ones is not how you want to treat people you want to treat you well. Asking parents to give up an off weekend because you found a great event you want to add in a couple weeks is not cool.

Learn from your schedule each year. Evaluate what went right and what went wrong with different organizations and venues. Evaluate where your team had success but was challenged. Avoid events where you cannot compete. Don't travel just to go somewhere. If your team can find success and be challenged without spending every weekend in a hotel, then try to take advantage of that. It's so much fun looking at all of the possibilities as they come rolling out this time of year, but don't lose site of doing what is best for your kids and your families. If you don't have a pulse on them, you won't have to worry about making out a schedule the next offseason.