At the beginning of the season I told all parents that there were too many kids for me and my assistant to keep track of at practice and so I expected parents to help out every practice. The kids were 7 and under. Every practice I’d have 4 or 5 parents participate, and I’d separate the kids into groups of 2 or 3 and rotate them through 5 stations (live hitting, tee hitting, soft toss, grounders, pop flies). Each station was around 15 minutes.

By doing this (1) kids were almost never just standing around during practice, (2) kids got 4-5x more practice reps in than they would have if just I ran the practice, (3) the parents were involved, had ownership of team performance, and were able to see first hand of their kid was good or not compared to the rest of the team. I also had a designated team mom that was responsible for coordinating treats.

I never had any complaints during the season, and all parents appreciated me volunteering. I’m not sure if this will always work out so well, but it worked this year.