Joey Kamide: Organization, Preparation Key in Coaching

Organization, Preparation Key in Coaching

Team huddle between innings in our game against Sokol Hluboka last month.
I've always felt that being organized and prepared gives you an advantage in life, whether it's in the classroom, workplace or on the playing field.

I'll freely admit that as a baseball coach, I've worked with and gone up against other coaches who know the game better than I do, know how to coach up and motivate players better than I do, and how to manage a game better than I do. So, while I feel I've closed that gap a bit over my eight years in coaching, I still feel the need to use other strengths of mine to help level the playing field.

I was raised in a military family, and while I did not completely grasp the discipline that enabled both of my grandfathers to serve in World War II and my father to have an admirable 23-year career in the U.S. Army, I do feel I've taken a couple of traits from the military lifestyle, being organized and prepared, and applied them to my coaching.

Those traits, I've found, are necessary more than ever while coaching in Europe. Back in the states, I was a part of high school staffs that usually had at least five and sometimes as many as eight coaches on the field every day. We'd have coaches focusing on the pitchers, the catchers, the outfielders, the middle infielders, the corner infielders, the base runners, the hitters, guys whose main job was just to keep the clock and make sure we remained on schedule with the practice plan, you name it. Even while coaching travel ball during the summer and fall, in what is a much more relaxed atmosphere, I'd have at least two assistants with me at practices and games.

Having that many coaches on the field really helps in our ability to develop a player's individual skills, to maximize practice time, make sure that nothing gets overlooked whether it's a player's footwork when turning a double play or a hitter slowing his hands down on breaking balls away. It's the no-stone-unturned methodology that I learned while coaching under Pudge Gjormand at James Madison HS in Vienna, VA, and helped with implementing when I moved over to assist Morgan Spencer at Centreville HS in Clifton, VA, in 2008.

That frame of mind had to be adjusted when I came over here, as I initially discovered when I hopped on late last summer to help Anthony Bennett out with his Szentendre Sleepwalkers team down in Hungary. During more than half of our practices and games, I'm the lone coach on the field. And that was certainly an adjustment from what I was used to back home. I don't always have an assistant to lean on to throw batting practice if my arm is dangling, to ask for their opinion on potential lineup adjustments, to pass off some administrative duties to, or to hit fungos to the infielders so I can go watch bullpens.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

It's forced me - and this may scare some people back home who already think I'm an OCD-crazed maniac at times - to become even more prepared and organized to make sure everything is in order when I arrive at the field and I can just focus on getting our team through that day's practice or prepared for that day's game.

In addition to the usual on-field and off-field coaching responsibilities, I make a point to email weekly schedules to players each Monday, and a spreadsheet is put together of who can and cannot attend each practice or game; practice plans that are detailed down to the minute are put together and emailed to our club's offices to be printed up and posted in the dugout every day; lineups for both games of our doubleheaders are put in our iPad scoring system, on our lineup board that is posted in the dugout and on the lineup cards the night before our games; heck, I even map out best- and worst-case pitching changes and substitutions for each game as I know I sometimes won't have the time to think them out on the fly while trying to manage everything else that's going on during a game.

In practices, I've tried to stress the importance of our guys focusing during drills so we're able to get through them more quickly, to sprint on and off the field as that saves time and keeps the Baseball Gods happy, and might designate outfielders to hit ground balls to infielders, or pitchers to hit fly balls to outfielders once they're done with their bullpens, long toss or running. I've had to reach to find ways to effectively get our team through a quality practice, and it's honestly been fun to try and think up new ways to do so. 

As a coach, you're always telling your players to think before the pitch is thrown so you know where to go with the ball if it's hit to you. You tell them to mentally begin their at-bat while on the on-deck circle, so you can just react and not think once you step into the batter's box. You're expecting your players to be prepared, so my feeling is that you had better follow suit and be prepared yourself.

Not having a pitching coach has forced me to study and learn more about that aspect of the game, which was undoubtedly my weakest trait. I appreciate when my one designated assistant, Ales, is able get away from work and come to practice because I know our outfielders will be getting some good work in that day. And when we do have someone come and throw batting practice, I make sure to take advantage of being able to watch our hitters more closely and help them make adjustments with their swings, or simply be able to give them a pat on the back and tell them how well they're swinging the bat if that is the case.

Don't get me wrong, our club does absolutely everything it can to support me and give me what I need. I've had former players come out to throw batting practice and swing a fungo, I have Ales and our general manager, Jiri, come out as often as they can to lend a hand, and I am always being asked if there's anything I need. But it's simply too difficult to find quality baseball people that can get away from work on a consistent basis to come and help out, and it forces you to make adjustments to how you go about your coaching responsibilities, to become even more prepared and organized, or else you will let your players down because they're not getting developed like they should be.

I feel that if a coach ever becomes stagnant and content with what he is, then it's time for him to get out of the game. I couldn't dig up the quote from Tony LaRussa, but remember reading somewhere him saying that in four decades of coaching the game, he still learned something new about it every day. That's how I'm treating my experience over here. Use it as a learning experience, and hopefully I'll get better at the trade in the process.

At the very least, I'll know what substitutions I'd like to be making in the eighth inning of the second game of our doubleheader that weekend.