Coaching Background

Coach Phil Proper brings seven years of travel softball coaching experience with the Tri-Valley Twisters and is entering his second year as the Varsity Softball Head Coach at North Branch.

Throughout his coaching career, Coach Phil has focused on developing athletes both on and off the field. His philosophy goes beyond teaching the physical skills of softball. He believes athletes should develop a deeper understanding of the game, learn how to compete with confidence, and carry the lessons learned through sports into everyday life.

Hitting Lessons

Coach Phil provides individualized hitting instruction designed to help athletes build a strong foundation while continuing to develop as they advance.

Lessons focus on:

-Contact points
-Increasing bat speed and hand quickness
-Developing a positive plate mentality
-Proper extension through the ball
-Tee work and purposeful repetition
-Strength training
-Situational hitting
-Understanding the approach behind each at-bat
-Building confidence and consistency at the plate

Lessons begin with a breakdown of the athlete’s basic mechanics and fundamentals. As the athlete develops and becomes more comfortable, instruction progresses toward more advanced concepts, adjustments, and game situations. Each lesson is tailored to the individual athlete’s current ability and areas of development.

Lessons are conducted in 30-minute intervals unless scheduled differently.

Coaching Philosophy

Coach Phil believes that successful athletes are built through fundamentals, confidence, accountability, effort, and a willingness to learn.

The goal is not simply to make an athlete a better softball player. It is to help them understand why they are doing something, how to make adjustments, how to respond when things don’t go their way, and how to continue working toward improvement.

Most importantly, Coach Phil wants athletes to enjoy the game. Hard work and competition should exist alongside fun, friendships, confidence, and a genuine love for the sport.

Every athlete develops at a different pace. The goal is to meet each player where they are, help them identify where they want to go, and provide the instruction, encouragement, and tools needed to get there.

Build the fundamentals. Develop the confidence. Understand the game. Work through adversity. And most importantly, have fun playing the game you love.

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I take pitching instructions very seriously. I refuse to give in to the temptation to conduct lessons with more than one pitcher at a time (unless explicitly requested) simply to increase revenue. I take reach pitcher's development personally. The desire to see them succeed and continuously improve causes me to critique myself frequently to make sure I am giving each pitcher the best opportunity to reach her goals.

Pitching mechanics are broken down to their bare minimum and built back up incrementally in explicit, easy to comprehend terms, so even the youngest pitchers can understand the "how" and "why" behind each aspect of the mechanics they're learning.
Each pitcher has her own profile folder where significant lesson bullet points are noted after every lesson to ensure we're progressing right where we left off previously, and to track progress throughout her career.

Along the way, lessons are sometimes paused briefly and appropriately to learn, or reflect on mental coping strategies for real game situations, so young pitchers have a bank of mental reinforcements to reference when things get challenging, or when practice routines get monotonous. The goal is to mold pitchers whose "stuff" is exceptional, and whose mental fortitude is unbreakable