Have you ever sat in the dugout watching a team loaded with kids with world class speed and wished your team could run that fast? You think boy, if we could run like that we'd be stealing bases all the time.

You actually don't need that kind of speed to steal bases. We confirmed that this weekend when we tested out something my pal Rich and I learned at the NFCA Coaches College.

My team is not exactly gifted with speed. As a result, we tended not to attempt many steals. We'd either have to bunt, hit or wait for a wild pitch to advance a runner. But at the Coaches College, they suggested videoing your team while they tried to get off the base on a steal. (Obviously you do this during practice.) We did it, and even told our girls to try leaving early. Then we watched the video on my computer.

What we (and they found) was not only weren't they on time, they were actually very late. It was no wonder we weren't very successful. So now that they understood the timing, we worked on getting a better jump. Sure enough, this past weekend we were successful on roughly 7 of 9 steal attempts. The nine attempts probably was more than we tried all last year. It was an amazing turn around.

If you have access to a video camera, give it a try. You may find it opens a whole new level of offense for you. You don't need to be fast. You just need to get going at the right time.