The baseball coach booking checklist

Pre-season is the only window you get to fix the schedule. Once the first Tuesday class runs you're coaching, and every booking problem you didn't solve in August becomes a text message in September. The fix is a checklist you run once, before the season, in one evening at the kitchen table.

This is that checklist — eight items, in order, with the why behind each. If you want the full walkthrough of the system itself, that's in how to set up booking for a baseball academy. This piece assumes you know the shape and just need the punch list.

1. Audit last season's schedule

Pull up last season's calendar and answer three questions. Which classes filled, which ran half-empty, and which time slots generated the most "can we do a different day" texts.

Why it's first: this season's schedule should be built from last season's evidence, not from the calendar you inherited. A 9U class that ran at 40% capacity on Thursdays doesn't need a better flyer — it needs a different night. Kill the slots that never filled and give those hours to private lessons.

2. Build one event type per age band

Create a separate event type for each age band you actually coach: 6U skills, 8U–9U hitting, 11U–12U, high-school flex. Give each one a parent-readable name with the day in it, like "9U–10U Hitting (Tuesdays)", and its own duration.

Why separate types instead of one generic class: each band carries its own rules. Cap, price, coach, and time slot all differ by age. One event type per band means you can change the 6U cap without touching the 12U schedule. All of them land on one Schedule Page, grouped by day or age band, so parents still see a single URL.

3. Cap every class and turn on the waitlist

Set a hard capacity on every group type. Twelve kids in the cage is coaching; eighteen is crowd control. Then turn the waitlist on for the classes you expect to fill.

Why: the cap protects the session, and the waitlist does the recovery work you used to do by group text. When a family drops, the open spot offers itself to the next family in line with a claim window. No "first to reply gets it" message, no spreadsheet of maybes.

4. Open the tryout window with intake questions

Build the tryout as its own event type. Use date overrides so it only opens on the actual tryout dates (two Saturdays, say) and cap it at the number of kids you can evaluate in a session.

Then add required intake questions at booking: age, primary position, current team, seasons played. Why: the answers attach to the booking, so you walk onto the field with a roster and context. The alternative is a clipboard and twenty cold introductions while the kids stand around.

5. Set the reminder cadence

Turn on the default reminder cadence: confirmation at booking, a reminder 24 hours out, another an hour before. Every email carries a self-serve reschedule and cancel link.

Why: a class booked three weeks out is a forgotten class. The 24-hour reminder catches the family that double-booked, and the reschedule link means they fix it themselves instead of texting you at 9 p.m. Reminders follow reschedules and stop on cancel, so nobody gets nagged about a session they already moved.

6. Build your coach page

Parents don't hand their kid to a bare link. Before the season, put a Rep Card in front of the booking flow: headshot, a short intro, a couple of parent testimonials, and the book button.

Why: the page does the trust work once so you don't do it in every DM. A parent comparing academies at 10 p.m. sees your face, your background, and proof that other families came back — then books. Numbers beat adjectives here. "14 players placed on travel teams in two seasons" outsells any paragraph about passion for player development.

7. Print the QR code on the field flyer

Generate the QR code for your Schedule Page and put it on everything physical: the flyer at the field, the banner on the cage, the back of the team handout. The QR and share tools give you the code straight from the dashboard.

Why: the field is where the demand is. A parent watching Sunday skills decides right there that their kid should be in it. The QR turns that moment into a booking instead of a "how do I sign up" conversation you have forty times a season — nobody types a URL off a banner.

8. Publish, then book yourself

Publish the page, then test-book every event type from your own phone. Book a class, join a waitlist, register for the tryout, book and reschedule a lesson. Read every email that arrives.

Why last, and why non-negotiable: the test-book catches the buffer you forgot, the intake question with a typo, the class that's still sitting in drafts. Five minutes of pretending to be a parent beats a season of apologizing to real ones. Confirm the emails read right and the reschedule link works before a single family sees the page.

The shortcut through all eight

The Baseball Academy preset builds the skeleton at signup, everything as drafts: weekly classes grouped by age, lesson and tryout session types, the coach page. You still run this checklist, but you're renaming and tightening instead of building from a blank screen.

What the full system looks like for an academy is on the baseball academies page: capacity, waitlists, the page parents see first. Run the eight items on a Tuesday night, and by Wednesday the schedule answers the questions your phone used to.