A friend of mine, Dr. David Grossman, is currently writing a book about the art of coaching Little League baseball. I’m helping him out with some minor geek work that will smooth things out a bit, while Dave Roberts is supplying his marketing expertise. As well, the eleemosynary efforts of David’s sister, Wendy, his brother, Joel, and his friend, Bill Bercik, have energized the project. The editorial experience has been enthralling — if every now and again exasperating. We are essentially an extremely eclectic editorial ensemble: an energetic educator, a couple of eccentric egotists, a People Magazine writer, and a medical oncologist. In spite of all our enterprising machinations, at once esoteric and earthy, all of us editors endured. Elatedly entering the end game, we expect this educational and enlightening epic to emerge later this year.
The team member who is doing the real work, of course, is the author. Let me tell you a little bit about David Grossman. He and his wife Catherine are parents of one son, with another child on the way. David is a professor at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), teaching computer science. He also does consulting in computer science for the U.S. government and owns his own consulting firm, Grossman Labs. He lives in Reston, Virginia, and commutes to IIT in Chicago. In his remaining spare time, David coaches Little League. He has done so for five years. Just when he finds time to sleep, I do not know.
This year, David is commissioner of his T-ball league.
If you are even mildly interested in Little League baseball, you owe it to yourself to visit David’s nascent blog, Coaching Youth Baseball 101. In it, you’ll find narrative about his current exploits with his league and his team, as well as regular updates about the progress of his forthcoming book.
I wish David great success with his book and I thank him for allowing me to play a minor role in its creation.
And, yes, I am fond of alliteration.
Share this:
Discover more from The Nittany Turkey
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Dave Roberts says
Thanks for the mention…
Dave’s book takes an approach that’s different from the other coaching books that teach the coach how to teach specific skills. Dave’s primary interest, as he says in the book, is for the players to learn the good lessons that they can learn from Little League, and that they enjoy themselves.
He says that the best measure of whether they are enjoying themselves is whether they return the following year. I wonder if any Little Leagues compile those statistics on their coaches…and then do something with those statistics?
If you look at a chapter of the book, I think you’ll find the style enjoyable, and you’ll also find that Dave knows a LOT about how the game can be played enjoyably by a group of kids. The bonus is that it’s written in a casual, easy-going style.
Ben doesn’t mention it, but he is a serious student of baseball. He and Dave have been ardent fans for years. His editing of the book is adding considerable merit to it. Then Wendy’s smoothifying will help a lot with style.
If you visit the site, http://www.coachinglittleleaguebaseball.com and leave your email address, as soon as there’s a sample of the book ready we’ll send it to you.
Dave Roberts