Ask Coach Wolff

Jeff Ourvan is an attorney and literary agent by day, but in his off-hours, he’s clearly a very involved and passionate youth baseball coach. It says on the back cover of his new book that he and his wife have three sons and that he’s coached all three of them on teams. And judging from the extensive content in his book, Jeff has most likely seen it all in terms of kids and baseball.

And to that end, Jeff’s new book clearly reflects the real-life experiences of coaching youth baseball these days, and he does a very nice job in presenting the various kinds of challenges that any coach can anticipate. His approach is strictly a pragmatic one — he provides prescriptive advice on how to draft your players, how to work to get your players at the bottom of your batting order to feel more productive, and along the way, he provides advice on every aspect of the game from how to slide to how to grip a baseball to throw a two-seamer or change-up.

True, there are a number of youth baseball coaching books these days on the market, but if you’re looking for a thorough approach of how to coach a kid’s team, this is one to add to your library. I also give the author bonus points as many of the color how-to photos in the book include girls playing baseball as well as boys. As a father myself who had a daughter play Little League baseball until she was 12, I was glad to see those photos.