This is one of those mysteries of fastpitch softball coaching that just stumps me. Every year when the HS softball season starts I hear tales of coaches trying to “rebuild” the swings of players in the two or so weeks they have before they start playing every day.

It’s pretty unrealistic to think you can make significant improvements in a swing in such a short amount of time. What really gets me, though, is that these coaches rarely focus where it might do them some good, i.e. the kids who can’t hit a lick, and for whom any instruction might yield some benefits.

No, instead they decide to focus on the team’s top hitters. That’s just wrong on so many levels. The most significant of which is there is a reason those players are your top hitters.

There’s an old coaching saying that says if a player can hit .400 standing on her head, the coach’s job is to get her a pillow. In other words, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Now, I’m not in 100% agreement with that way of thinking; truth is it’s always broke to some extent. But if the player is a good hitter the odds are she’s had some training and all she might need is a little tweaking here or there. Yet Mr. or Ms. “Helper Coach” ignores that fact and instead tries to completely change what these players are doing.

When you have limited time and a wide range of ability, it’s not the top of your order you need to mess with. Let’s face it. On most HS teams if you’re lucky you have five good, solid, reliable hitters. That means nearly half your lineup still needs help. A smart coach will work with those hitters and try to get them up to the level of the top five to give them a better chance of avoiding the dreaded bottom of the lineup black hole — that place where hopes of victory go to die.

Yes, it’s tempting to want to put your own stamp on good players. Everyone wants to claim they helped those players get to where they are. But that’s not where your efforts will pay off.

Instead, work with the players who really could use the help — the ones without a clue — and not only will you raise their games, you’ll avoid screwing up the players who are your best hope of gaining more wins. Just sayin’.

What has your experience been? Do you know coaches who mess up their top players (and teams) by trying to change what’s working? Or do you disagree and think the coaches should work with the top ones instead of the bottom-level players?

This is the third part in my series about working with various ages of fastpitch softball players. Today we’re looking at high school age and up — generally speaking 16U-18U and college players.

As a private instructor, working with older players is a lot of fun — assuming they are there voluntarily and not being forced to come to me by their parents. Usually these players have experienced some form of failure, so they’re highly motivated to listen, learn and get better. They work hard on their own, and tend to make quick progress. They often have a broad enough experience base to understand certain concepts quickly, and want to know the “why” behind what we’re doing instead of just executing it because I say so.

At a team level it can be a little more challenging. If you have the right players they will also learn quickly. But you may find you have some who aren’t interested in learning anything new. They want to do what they’ve always done — especially if they’ve had some level of success. For them, the best thing you can do is expose them to players with better skills so they can see they’re not quite as all that as they thought.

What does make it fun with the right team is you can get into more complex concepts and plays. The game is faster, so execution becomes more important.

There’s nothing like the satisfaction of seeing your players recognize a situation and make an adjustment without you having to tell them what to do. It could be a defensive change — moving into slap defense against an obvious slapper — or something as simple as recognizing a changeup when it’s thrown and stealing a base.

Of course, at that age they can definitely have attitudes — some more than others. But if you take the time to get to know them as people you can often overcome that. In fact, you can build relationships that will last long after the last pitch is thrown. Just tonight I had a Facebook exchange with a girl who last played for me about 10 years ago.

Most importantly, with players this age you can really make a difference in their lives. Giving them confidence, helping them to overcome adversity or fear and teaching them to give everything they have to whatever they do. You can also help them build softball memories that will last them a lifetime.

With younger players coaches tend to need to exert a lot of control. With the older group, if you’ve trained them properly, you get to sit back more and watch all the hard work pay off. Which is a lot like parenting when you think about it.