Tim Kline grew up in South Buffalo when it was possible to play virtually every sport. So he did. Basketball, hockey, football, and most passionately, baseball. Today he’s the head coach of the South Buffalo Baseball Boys 12U team, and focused on helping kids develop not only skills, but a love for the game that means so much to him. We sat down with Tim to find out a little about his coaching philosophy, and the reasons why he’s an advocate for PowerPlayer.

​

​

Let's start at the beginning. What's your sports background, and how did you become a coach?     Growing up in South Buffalo in the 70s, you tended to play any sport, whatever the season. Hoops, football—big Bills fan!—and Buffalo is a very wintry city, so also hockey. And I lived a block away from one of the city parks that had one of the larger police athletic leagues, so it was always baseball. I was probably better at baseball than any of the other sports, but probably not very good at any of them! I became a coach after I entered my son, who’s now 12, into T-ball. As he got older, there was no one to coach the eight year old team, so I volunteered.

​

​

You're currently coaching 12 year olds. Can you talk a little bit about your approach to working with kids that age?      I’d describe myself as old school, so I'm no doubt drawing on things that were taught to me, but it's a very different time now. When I was 12, there was none of the technology, none of the things that kids have today that keep them attached to the world, but in somewhat of a superficial way. But throwing a baseball was the same in 1924 as it is in 2024, same with fielding, catching, hitting. So I focus on basics and fundamentals so that they can establish a rock hard foundation in the fundamentals. If kids can get the basics down—those fundamentals—physical talent will take them from there. And my main philosophy is that as long as those kids are striving to get better and they’re having fun doing it, then I'm doing my job.

​

​

What’s your goal in providing feedback to your players, not just in a team setting, but on an individual basis? Why do you think that matters?     It's easy to correct a mistake when you're on the field. If I'm standing in the outfield and I see someone do something wrong—if it's not an effort error, it's a mechanical thing—I can pull them aside and say, “Hey, this is what you did wrong” and then demonstrate what to do.

What Power Player allows me to do beyond that is to find and share videos, films, clips of things that are educational, maybe related to something that I’ve gone over with an individual player or with a group of players. I have my PowerPlayer roster grouped into pitchers, infielders, outfielders, and everyone, and most of the videos and comments go to everyone because at twelve, everyone does almost everything, but I can grab something specific—for example I’ve got a couple of kids focusing on becoming catchers—and I can send something just to the two catchers, and I can add personal notations.

Because of the way PowerPlayer is set up, everything also goes to the parents, so I’ve asked the parents that when they get a PowerPlayer post, that they please go over it with their son, watch the video, and talk about it. Next practice, I'll ask the player, “Hey, did you see that video? What did you think of it?” I find that for players, the educational aspect of PowerPlayer is one thing, but the other is the contact they have with the parent who's showing them the PowerPlayer stuff. It's easier for a young player to learn if they're getting the same instruction from home as they are from their coaches. It makes the experience better for the players and the parents.

 

​

You're currently coaching 12 year olds. Can you talk a little bit about your By engaging those parents, are they better connected to what you're trying to teach their kids?     Yeah. The parents are all engaging, and they’re asking what they can do to help. They all want their child to improve, and that's really what we as a coaching staff want. We want them to love the game, and we want them to get better, not only fundamentally, physically, but also with what happens in the game, by being a student of the game and understanding situations and scenarios. The parents recognize that by looking at the kind of clips that I give them through PowerPlayer.

Baseball is a thought process. It's a nine person chess match that has some physical attributes to it. You have to throw, run, catch, and hit, but there’s strategy and thought on every pitch. And that's what we're trying to relay. If parents understand that, and they help their kids understand that, it's easier for us to get it across.

 

​

What do you think better connections between coaches, players, and parents can do for youth sports?     That's a really great question. I think you get better results if the players and parents all understand what the expectations are from the coaches. First, we're trying to teach the kid, we want them to be a better player. If they hit .500 and we win a bunch of games, that’s secondary. If the parent understands that, well, everything’s in place for the development of the player first. When everyone’s on board, it makes coaching easier, and it makes things easier for the player. A coach doesn't have to put the brakes on a parent’s expectations, and the player gets a better sense that they’re standing on level ground. They’re not dealing with unrealistic expectations.

 

​

So beyond player skill improvement, what other results are you seeing from your coaching philosophy?     My coaching staff and I, we're completely voluntary, but we're also parents. Our sons are on this team. We’re providing examples of how they should behave, do things the right way. Like the reason why we want you to do this is because it's the right way, it's the most effective way. And if you extend that beyond the physical aspect of baseball to the reasons why you're being polite and getting along with your teammates and the umpires and the other team, it’s all part of the life lessons that you learn and take to a future when I'm no longer your coach and when you're no longer this involved in baseball. I called one of my assistant coaches one day—he's basically the associate head coach—because the boys all came to my yard and they were playing ball. I told him we must be starting to get through to them because they’re using terminology and techniques that we’ve taught them while they're playing three on three on a lawn with a wiffle ball.

 

​

Do you provide motivation or positive feedback via PowerPlayer when your players need it or deserve it? Do you use PowerPlayer for other things?     Yeah, absolutely! I’ll often send out a postgame note in PowerPlayer that goes to everybody. You know, “That was a great game,” or “That was really hard fought.”

We just lost our overall league championship game five to three. It's hard to get twelve year olds to not be upset and sad about that. So I sent a PowerPlayer note to everybody to let them know that I thought it was a really hard fought game, and that I was very proud of how well they played, and how well they handled the loss. On an individual basis, I sent a note to my starting pitcher. “Hey, that was great. You showed a lot of heart, and your improvement this year was awesome. And I'm proud of you.” Things like that. To the new kid on the team, it was, “Hey, don't take this loss too hard. We’ve had a great year, and I hope you've had as much fun being on this team as we've had having you on this team.” Things like that. It's not all “You're doing this wrong”. It's like, “Hey, nice job.” I'll even send out goofy questionnaires, like whether or not the Bills should have traded Stefon Diggs. That might have been one of my most popular surveys!

 

Any other thoughts you want to share with me about Power Player?    The initial question I got from my team parents was “Why are we using another app?”

Well, PowerPlayer is totally unique. It allows me to individualize my instruction and my communication like nothing else out there. It makes it easy for me to reach out and communicate with players in groups—pitchers, catchers, outfielders—but if one kid is struggling, I can communicate with him individually, privately, not on a thread with ten other players. PowerPlayer allows coaching to be individualized.
 

​​​

Tim Kline
Head Coach
South Buffalo Baseball Boys 12U