Customer Reviews

Coaching Baseball Successfully (Coaching Youth)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have been a coach on the college and high school level for 6 years now. I have also been a college player and had many pro tryouts. This book has given me a different outlook on how to go about my business in a more structured and professional manner. After reading it, you will see why Andy's teams have always been top notch.

Lopez, an extremely successful highschool and college coach, touches all the bases on how to build a successful upper calibre baseball program. Though basic enough for the laymen coach to benifit from, Lopez shares with the reader his personal insight on how he created a winning program at both the high school and college levels.

Coaching is like creating its own jigsaw : a lot of books will only show you how to shape a certain kind of pieces. This book will help you to define the entire picture and then refine it in many different pieces. It will provide you with datas that should be applied and confronted in real life, not only read and understood. Other coaching books usually give skills and drills. This fields are fast-covered here. Even if Andy Lopez has chosen to emphasize the development of a good pitching staff, his chapter gives insufficient direction, poor skills advices, no tools to evaluate pitchers progression... I don't recommend this book to players who are searching for new drills and new techniques. I recommend it to young coaches who doesn't know where they should be headed, and where they should bring their players.

This book is good for the first time coach. It lacks detailed specifics on hitting and pitching. Covers organizational items well and touches on items that most coaches would never even think about.

Andy Lopez has written a book which not only covers drills and strategies, but discusses coaching philosophies, evaluating players, working with school administrators, fund-raising, game and practice preparation, and player motivation, among others, and he does it very well. In covering more than just on-field aspects he goes beyond all other coaching manuals I have read. He presents his ideas in an advanced way that makes them useful for high school and college coaches alike. As a high school baseball coach I've found Lopez's ideas to work very well when put into practice and I highly recommend this book to any prospective high school or college baseball coach

I played for Coach Lopez at the University of Florida and don't have many positive things to say about the experience. I found him to be very media savvy and personable when necessary with administration, but he was a poor leader, a below average coach, was well below average with his interpersonal skills with players and is unecessarily cruel and vindictive to a fault. Coach Lopez also alludes to his faith frequently, but acts very contrary to the bible and its teachings on the field from what I have seen. I strongly question his ability to coach anyone effectively or to write a book as a purported authority on the subject.

Don't buy this book, don't believe what he says... It's an act.

Lopez does an excellent job of explaining the complexities involved with coaching high-level baseball, that alone makes his book a success. What makes this book stand out is that he goes beyond coaching baseball, to coaching life. He talks about attitudes and ideas that will carry over from the field to the "real world" and that is what many high level coaching books leave out. The baseball instruction in this book is second to none. A must have for any serious coach.

The approach that Coach Lopez has to baseball is unique and could benefit experienced or young coaches at any level. I recommend this book to all players and coaches who love to learn and teach baseball.