Every coach knows that being afraid of the ball, whether said ball is being hit, pitched, or thrown at a player, is one of the greatest performance-killers. It’s kind of like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: players need to feel safe before they put all their energy into whatever activity it is they’re trying to do.

Those who have coached the littles know exactly what I’m talking about. You can see it when they step sideways to catch a thrown or fly ball, or automatically back out of the batter’s box when they’re hitting, or do the “matador” as they try to field a ground ball.

This isn’t just a problem with the littles, however. Many older players also harbor some level of fear of the ball; they’re just better at hiding it.

The typical coach reaction when these things happen is to yell at the player to “stay in there” or “stay in front of it.” But given a choice between being yelled at and actually feeling physical pain, it’s pretty obvious what their subconscious is going to opt for.

I think the thing coaches with players who are afraid of the ball have to acknowledge is that in many or even most cases those kids aren’t wrong. If the ball hits them instead of their bat or glove, it’s going to hurt. That’s just science.

So if you want to get your daughter or your players past moving away from the ball preemptively it’s going to take more than telling them “don’t do that.” Here are some tidbits that may help you with that task.

The Fear Is Often Worse Than the Reality

A lot of the kids who are afraid of the ball haven’t necessarily experienced the pain before. Their brains are simply making assumptions based on other past experiences.

Take a hitter who backs out of the box when the ball is pitched. She’s never been hit by a pitch before. But…

She has been hit by other flying objects before. Maybe a sibling threw a toy at her with sufficient force that it caused bruising or bleeding.

She also knows from picking it up that the ball is hard. So even though she has never actually been hit with a ball while hitting she is afraid of similar pain.

Once she has been hit by the ball, however, she’ll then have a frame of reference for it and it won’t seem so bad after that.

Does that mean you should throw balls with the intention of hitting your players? Of course not. But you can toss them lightly into their arms to help them start overcoming their fear.

You can also give them some incentives. When I pitch to girls who like to automatically step back I tell them if they do it again I will start throwing behind them, and may even toss one back there (lightly) to give them more reason to stay in.

If you’re going to do that, however, be careful. I have hit one or two unintentionally because I didn’t get it far enough behind them. It worked to solve the problem, but it’s not exactly the way to build the player-coach relationship.

Take the Reason for Fear Out

Most of the time a fear of the ball is driven by a lack of confidence that the player can avoid being hit. She feels like she doesn’t have the skills to catch the ball, for example, so she sidesteps to avoid any mishaps that may result from that lack of skill.

The solution here is to give them something less threatening to work with. For example, have players who are afraid play catch with foam balls like a Jugs Lite Flite ball.

The light weight and softer texture will make the entire process less threatening to them. And unless they’re hit right on the nose by a hard-thrown ball at close distance – something you should control in practice – being hit by the ball won’t produce any pain.

When they realize that they will be less inclined to bail out right away, enabling them to build proper skills so they are more confident when a real ball is introduced again.

SIDE BENEFIT: The lighter weight will also encourage them to adopt better throwing mechanics because you don’t need as much strength to throw them.

Be Smart With Practice Reps

One of the temptations coaches have when hitting ground balls is to hit them as hard as they can so the girls “are ready” for hard-hit balls in games.

The problem is, an adult coach (male or female) can hit a ground ball a lot harder than a 99% of 10 year olds will at that age. So rather than teaching their players to get in front of the ball and move into it, they’re teaching their players to sit back and try to avoid getting nailed with the ball.

This approach not only instills fear, it also teaches them to wait on the ball rather than charging it if it’s not hit hard. I don’t know how it is where you live, but the majority of ground balls in a 10U game in my area require being charged.

A better approach in my opinion is to start easy and let them build the confidence in their glove skills – especially if you’re playing on a dirt field that hasn’t been laser-leveled and groomed. Then gradually build the speed until it’s realistic for what they’re going to face.

You might even want to start by rolling balls to them rather than hitting them so they can put their entire focus on learning how to field and make the throw properly. THEN get into hitting them.

This isn’t just for the littles by the way. College and even national team-level teams do this all the time to refine their skills.

Obviously they’re not dealing with fear of the ball at that level (at least hopefully not). But this approach works for both.

Acknowledge the Fear

As an adult it’s really easy to think players should just ignore their fear of the ball. You have 2X, 3X, maybe even 4X as much experience dealing with the issue.

But try to think of it from your players’ experience. As mentioned above, maybe they’re never been hit and so have built the outcome up in their minds more than the reality will be.

Maybe they have been hit and it’s the worst pain they’ve experienced so far in their young lives. You know may know that getting by the ball is nothing compared to a kidney stone or an automobile accident injury, but they don’t. It’s all a matter of scale.

Whatever the reason, it’s not a monster under the bed you can tell them to ignore. It’s very real.

Be understanding and help them work through it little by little. If they feel safe with you they’ll overcome the fear quickly – and could turn out to be your best players in the long run.