Category Archives: Coaching
Playing the softball time game
Let me start out by saying I’ve made it pretty clear in the past that I am NOT a fan of time limits in fastpitch softball. The game was designed to be played across seven innings, no matter how long that takes.
Yogi Berra’s statement “It ain’t over ’til it’s over” doesn’t make as much sense if you’re playing against a clock, because there is a definite point when it’s over. But then again 
Yogi never had to make sense to be quotable.
In any case, whether we like it or not time limits have become the norm at nearly every summer tournament. The desire to get as many teams to play as many games as possible on a finite number of fields drives that. Maybe it’s greed, maybe it’s the “bigger is better” syndrome, but whatever it is as long as that’s the prevailing sentiment among those who are running tournaments you’re going to see time limits.
With that comes a new set of challenges for coaches. For example, if you’re dedicated to all of your players playing at least half the game, that’s fairly easy to accomplish when you know you have seven innings. Not so much when you have 1:15 no new inning with 1:30 drop dead. You have to keep an eye not only on the innings but on the clock, and may have to make substitutions at times you don’t want to.
The drop dead time limit can also change the strategy as far as whether you want to be the home or visiting team. If your team starts off hot at the plate but tends to fade in the field later in the game, you may want to take visitor if given the choice. You get to start out hitting, and if your team is booting the ball around in the bottom of the last inning it may not make a difference. In fact, if you’ve blow a lead you may even want to have them not get outs so the inning isn’t completed and the game defaults back to the previous inning when you were ahead.
And that brings us to today’s sermon topic, which is the games some coaches play when facing a time limit. The above being just one of the more egregious examples.
Some might call it being strategic. Others might call it short-sighted, since it’s kind of legalized cheating – you’re playing within the rules of the game, but not the spirit.
Not that I was always a saint about it, but after experiencing time limits a few times I quickly came to the philosophy that if you’re not good enough to win the game outright, you’re not good enough to win it.
As my buddy and assistant coach Rich Youngman once pointed out to me, what does it tell your team if you have to play these games? That you don’t have confidence in them to be the better team and win it outright, so you’re resorting to tricks?
Here are some examples. Your team is on defense, clinging to a one-run lead. You don’t want to go into a new inning because you know the heart of your opponent’s order is coming up, along with the bottom of yours. So you call a timeout to talk to the pitcher and gather the rest of your team in for your talk, which apparently becomes a manifesto. Tick tick tick.
Or you’re the home team on offense and don’t want a new inning to start. So you tell your team to walk slowly to batter’s box, and be sure to take a few practice swings between each pitch. If time is still moving too slowly you call a batter over for a conference. I even heard an instance of a coach telling a player to tie her shoe when it was already tied.
There are all kinds of ways to run a couple of extra minutes off the clock. Even an argument with an umpire can take up some precious time. A fake injury that doesn’t take too long to deal with can run some time off without stopping the clock too. Fielders taking a little extra time to throw the ball around after a strikeout, and maybe even throw it away on purpose or let a ball go by so they have to chase it down qualify as well.
This is not to say every strategy for killing time is bad. If you want to tell your players to take pitches until they get a strike on them, I’d consider that smart. Maybe you get a walk, but maybe you put your hitter in a hole that speeds up the at bat. That’s legit.
More borderline ethical is telling a hitter to strike out on purpose to kill an inning. I wouldn’t do it, but if it results in an extra inning being played you’re potentially not affecting the outcome of the game as much – both teams still have an equal chance to do something in that inning.
It’s the ones where you’re preventing the game from being played that get to me. If you’re there to play fastpitch softball, then play fastpitch softball. Man up, or woman up, and have confidence that the best team will win. Without the need for gimmicks. The lesson that will teach will mean a whole lot more to your kids than a $10 plastic trophy or medal.
Sometimes you just gotta go with what you’ve got
As both a fastpitch softball instructor and general fanatic for the sport, I have to admit I spend an inordinate amount of my waking hours looking at information and analyzing techniques to try to become as educated as I possibly can. Hi, I’m Ken, and I’m a softball technique-aholic
It’s well-intentioned to be sure. I firmly believe, based on roughly 20 years in the sport that the better-trained a player is, the higher the chance she has for success. And the less raw athletic ability she has, the more specific training she requires.
But I also believe (again based on experience) that there is a Law of Diminishing Returns when it comes to trying to perfect technique. While it’s true that optimal technique should yield the best results, that’s also only true if it’s implemented with optimal effort or enthusiasm.
This is where a lot of players seem to get hung up. Especially the most dedicated. They are focused so much on trying to achieve the optimal mechanics that they get in their own way.
Hitters become tentative trying to achieve the best bat path and as a result slow their swings down. Or they focus so much on one part of the swing that they let the rest fall apart.
Pitchers work so hard on getting just the right launch technique, or keeping the arm circle exactly where it should be, that they get all tight and don’t let their bodies work for them. Catchers worry so much about how they’re making the transfer on a steal that they become over-conscious and thus too slow.
Every part of the game can be affected, regardless of position, or whether you’re on offense or defense.
So here’s my advice: as they say in auto racing world, sometimes you gotta run with the one that brung you. Or in the case, go with what you’ve got.
If you’re a hitter still reworking her swing, do the best you can to use what you’re learning. But don’t focus on doing it perfectly. Do it the best you can while still coming at it with full energy.
After all, the ball doesn’t care how you hit it. A strong contact with an ugly-as-sin swing will beat a soft contact with a perfect swing every time. A strong swing with much-improved mechanics will generally yield better results than a tentative swing that looks good only on slow-motion video.
The same goes for the rest of the game. You may not have perfected that backhand or rake technique on ground balls, but if you go after them like you mean it you may just surprise yourself. Pitchers who continue to try to throw hard will be much more effective than those who again look like they’re trying to make the perfect video instead of getting hitters out.
Believe me, I’m all for perfect mechanics. But they should never be a conscious effort, at least in a game situation. When you’re in the game, go with what you’ve got. You can always work on perfecting it at the next practice.
Calling pitches: Make the pitcher’s strengths a priority
Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching a lot of fastpitch games on TV and in-person lately, but it seems like it’s time for my semi-annual rant on pitch calling. I never cease to be amazed at how often pitch selection seems to be based more on arbitrary rules or expectations about hitters than what the pitcher is good at throwing. 
Here’s an example. Watching a college game last night, a pitcher who is ok at best with her drop but a natural riseball pitcher had the bulk of the pitches called low. It didn’t take long for the other team to adjust and start hitting her hard.
Now, I’m sure those complex and detailed charts in the dugout showed that the opponents had a history of struggling with drop balls. But what the charts didn’t explain was they had trouble with GOOD drop balls – the kind that come in thigh-high and flat, then fall off the table.
Clearly, they had no trouble with drop balls that started low and didn’t move much. A better strategy might have been to at least mix in more up pitches, if for no other reason than to keep the hitters from looking low. And if the pitcher had her rise working (as her replacement did), she could have used her strength to better advantage, and her team would have advanced in the conference tournament.
This sort of thing seems to happen at levels. A coach will fall in love with a particular pitch, or a pitch location, and want the pitcher to throw their constantly. That isn’t really a good idea under any circumstances – you want to mix it up and keep hitters guessing. But when the pitch or location the coach loves happens to also be a weakness for the pitcher, no one should be surprised when it doesn’t go so well.
Part of this also has to do with a pitcher’s psyche. To be successful, pitchers must feel confident overall, as well as in the immediate pitch they’re about to throw. The situation may call for a rise, or a change, but if the pitcher isn’t feeling good about her rise or change that day she probably won’t give it all she’s got. And on those two pitches in particular, a mistake can quickly turn into a disaster (aka a home run).
Personally, I’m an advocate of catchers calling games. Especially in travel ball where you’re unlikely to have any extensive history on a particular hitter and her tendencies. Catchers are right there close to the hitters, and have a bird’s eye view of what’s working for the pitcher, what isn’t, and what her mindset is.
If a catcher sees fear in the pitcher’s eyes when a change is called in a non-pressure situation, she likely will know best to steer clear of that pitch when the pressure is on. You can’t see that from the dugout.
But if coaches are going to call pitches, they need to understand as much as they can about their pitchers overall, as well as what’s happening with them today.
Coaches calling pitches should really make an effort to understand what each pitcher does well, and develop their game plans accordingly. If your pitcher has a strong rise and a weak drop, you’re probably better off planning on more riseballs even if the opponent is a good riseball hitting team. Or better yet, throw a pitcher who has a strong drop. (Hopefully the staff’s strengths are more complementary than matchy-matchy.)
On game day, watch the pitchers warm up, and talk to them and the catchers. The pitchers will tell you what they feel confident in, and the catchers will give you another data point/reality check based on the knowledge of that pitcher they have accumulated through hours of working together. Those things should also be factored in to the game plan.
Once the game is on, pay attention and make adjustments. If the drop is working and the screw is not breaking at all, work the drop in and out and put the screw in your pocket for that day. Or use it as an offspeed fastball instead of expecting it to miraculously start breaking. If the screw is running in too much, use it as a waste pitch when ahead in the count rather than when you need a strike. That can be particularly effective when a right handed pitcher is facing a lefty slapper.
All of this reminds me of a story from the classic book Ball Four, one of my all-time favorites. In one part, the pitching staff is talking about how to pitch to a particular hitter when one of them offers that when he was with the LA Dodgers, Sandy Koufax used to get him out by smoking him inside. To which the author, Jim Bouton, comments, “Which is great if you could throw fastballs like Sandy Koufax.” In other words, what worked for one of the greatest pitchers of all time may not work for ordinary mortals.
Charts and such, whether they are general guidelines or specific to that team, can be helpful. But they’re not the last word.
Call pitchers to your pitchers’ strengths – overall and that day – and you’ll have a much greater likelihood of success.
Quick tip on helping pitchers get whip
One of the keys to achieving maximum speed for a fastpitch pitcher is getting whip at the end – the sudden acceleration where the lower arm goes flying past a stable upper arm as you go into release (sometimes referred to as internal rotation). A quick survey of videos of top pitchers actually pitching in games will confirm that’s how they do it.
To make that happen, however, young pitchers must do something that makes no real logical sense to them. They must forget about (or at least quit worrying about) the ball.
Because when they are thinking about the ball, they have a tendency to try to get it to come through too early so they can guide it. As a result, at the most crucial point of the pitch where the ball should be trailing the upper arm, it instead starts to lead through.
That’s easy to say and maybe even do for an adult. We think differently. For a young player, especially one under age 14, they may understand what you’re saying consciously, but their subconscious mind is still more focused on making sure the ball goes where it’s supposed to go (especially if they’re being told to “just throw strikes”), and nothing feels like you’re in control like bringing the ball through first.
There are lots of ways to express explain what you want. But one that worked recently for me was simplicity itself: bring the ball through last. No talk of bending elbows, or rotating your arm this way or that, or making other complex movements. Just bring the ball through last.
Here’s why I think it works. If the pitcher is thinking of bringing the ball through last, she has to put her arm in a position where that can happen. That action naturally creates a little elbow bend. The idea of bringing the ball through last also helps separate the lower arm from the upper arm, giving the lower arm the opportunity to accelerate as it comes through.
That doesn’t mean it will accelerate automatically. You may have to encourage the pitcher to achieve that acceleration. But at least she’ll be in a position to make that happen.
There is one caveat to all of this: this tip won’t work if you’re telling the pitcher to turn the ball back toward second base and push it down the back side of the circle – an action which no high-level pitcher actually performs. If the pitcher is doing that the arm is going to come through all at once and there will be no opportunity for that extra bump of speed that comes with the whip.
If, however, she is learning to keep the ball facing forward/up or toward third base on the back side of the circle, lead the upper arm/elbow down, and then whip at the end, it will work. Or at least it has on the girls I’ve used it on.
If you’re facing that issue of the upper arm slowing down too soon and the ball leading through the finish, give this one a try. And let me know if it works for you too.
4 softball coaching traps to avoid
One of the biggest challenges of coaching softball is keeping up with the game. As you coach, you accumulate a set of knowledge; the longer you coach the more knowl
edge you gather.
That’s a good thing in some ways. But it can also be a limiting factor, especially in these days of high speed video and greater interest in analyzing mechanics. What may have been believed to be “true” 15, 10 or even 5 years ago may not be so anymore. The more study, evidence and analysis that goes in, the higher the likelihood that what is considered the optimum mechanics or strategy today is different than it was then.
We certainly see that with the one of the signature plays of fastpitch softball – the sacrifice bunt. Statistical analysis shows that overall teams will score more runs with a runner on first and no outs than with a runner on second and one out. Not necessarily with this runner, this hitter and this pitcher, but in the long. Which means the idea of automatically bunting a runner to second should come out of the coach’s playbook, replaced by a more specific situational analysis.
But I’m not here to discuss the sac bunt specifically. More the ways of thinking that can get coaches in trouble if they’re not aware. Here are a few of the common traps you’ll want to avoid to ensure you are and remain the best coach you can be.
The Backfire Effect
This is the name given to the phenomenon that says in an argument between two people with opposing views, the more hard evidence one side presents, the more the other side will cling to their beliefs. (The Backfire Effect, by the way, can be easily seen in every political argument on Facebook ever.)
You would think that once hard evidence was presented, the other person would change their mind. But the opposite is true. People hate to be proven wrong, and thus will do all they can to avoid that feeling.
For a coach it goes double, I think. You’ve been teaching something one way for years and having success. To all of a sudden find out it’s wrong is hard. Believe me, I know, because I’ve definitely been guilty of it.
Yet as a coach, your goal should be to impart the best information and training to your players that you possibly can. To cling to your beliefs because you don’t want to admit there is a better way than you’ve been teaching is doing your players a disservice.
Best to take a cue from former UCLA head coach Sue Enquist here. She was presenting at a clinic one time and saying things that contradicted statements she’d made in her previous skills videos. When someone in the audience challenged her on it, she shrugged and said “I know more now than I did then.”
As long as you didn’t go out of your way to present bad information there is nothing to be ashamed of. You did the best you could with what you knew. Now you know more. Everyone should consider that a good thing – and an indication that you always have their best interests at heart.
Confirmation bias
This one is often a cousin to The Backfire Effect. Having Confirmation Bias basically means you will look and look for any evidence that supports your current beliefs, and if you find it will value that evidence above all else.
For example, let’s say you’re still teaching “squish the bug” for hitting. You go online and look at dozens of video clips until you find one example that appears to be a player squishing the bug. In other words, you ignore all dozens of others until you find the one that supports your beliefs and take it as gospel.
When you’re looking at the evidence on your own, don’t just look at what agrees with you. Look at everything, and see where the patterns are. Doesn’t necessarily mean the majority is right – most innovations start out with a very small sampling. But if you add in old teaching versus new, you’ll probably start to get a better idea of whether the evidence actually supports you or you’re just discounting the majority that doesn’t.
Fallacies in logic
There are many different types of fallacies in logic. When it comes to coaching, here are a few of the most common.
Post hoc ergo proper hoc. Doesn’t everything sound more important in Latin? Basically, this means B followed A so A must have caused B. This is probably the basis for most of the softball superstitions we love so much.
Let’s take an easy example. I stepped on the chalk line before the game and we lost, so stepping on the line caused the loss. (In this case, everyone chooses to ignore the four critical errors, two baserunning mistakes at home and total lack of hitting.)
Sounds silly, doesn’t it? But it happens all the time, especially when analyzing video clips. The key to so-and-so’s power in hitting is this one move she makes that no one else does. It might be. Or it might not. The two may not be related at all.
Or with pitching, you could say this pitcher bends extra low when she starts, and she’s super fast, so her speed must come from the bend. It makes no biomechanical sense, but because the two things happen in close proximity it’s assumed one causes the other.
Don’t make that assumption. If there is a cause/effect relationship it will become obvious with further testing. If not, that will become obvious too.
Ad hominem. This involves discounting someone’s information because you don’t like or respect them personally.
This is an easy but dangerous trap to fall into. We’d all much rather work with/take advice from people we like and/or respect. But the validity of what they’re saying is independent of their personalities.
Speaking from personal experience, I have learned plenty from people I didn’t particularly care for. Don’t let that fact determine whether you’ll listen. As the saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day – assuming you’re working with an analog clock.
There are plenty of others, but you get the gist. You want to be sure any arguments you use, for or against, are based on real information rather than flawed logic.
Seeing what you want to see
Have you ever listened to or read an online argument where two people were looking at the same piece of video and drawing completely different conclusions? If you’re a coach who is always looking for information no doubt you have.
That’s the risk with something like video. I see X, you see Y. We both have our interpretations based on our own experience and beliefs. It’s sort of like confirmation bias, only this time you didn’t have to weed through a lot of videos to find the one that agreed with you. In this case, it appears they all do.
We all tend to filter things through our own lenses. That’s good most of the time, but it can also lead us to conclusions that may not be true.
The best thing you can do is keep an open mind and continually challenge your own beliefs. If someone says something different than you see or believe, try looking at it from their point of view. Make an assumption they’re right, and then see if you can support it. If you can, it’s worth re-examining your own opinions. If you honestly cannot say you see where they’re coming from, after making a real attempt, you just may be right.
Continue to learn
It’s easy to get stuck in your ways, and it’s hard to admit you may not have known as much as you thought you did. But if you can avoid these traps you’ll come out the other end a better coach.
Have you ever been in that uncomfortable position of having to change what you teach/believe? How did you handle it? Was it an easy transition or was it like rubbing a lemon on an open wound? Most importantly, are you glad you did it? Leave your answers in the comments below.
Softball Never Ever list
As at least some of you know, my day job is working for Amendola Communications, a PR agency that specializes in healthcare and health IT products and services. (How many thought softball was my day job?) Through that I have become familiar with many terms used in the healthcare industry. 
One of the most interesting is the concept of “never events,” which are things in healthcare that should never happen because the lead to adverse outcomes (healthcarespeak for death or serious injury/illness). From that comes the concept of the “never ever list.” This is a list of things doctors in particular should never, ever do in order to avoid never events.
Why am I talking about all this? Because the topic came up (in a way) at a catching clinic I was conducting today. I saw a catcher do something and told her she should never, ever do that.
That got me to thinking. Maybe it would be a good idea to create a “never ever” list for softball. So with that in mind I’d like to ask the larger softball community – those who read this blog, members of Discuss Fastpitch and anyone else who would like to participate – to help me put together a great list. It would be something coaches could copy, print out and hand to their players to ensure they’re playing to the best of their abilities.
If you’d like to play, please leave a comment, either below on Life in the Fastpitch Lane or on DFP. Just a few ground rules.
I’m not looking for things like “don’t take lessons (or listen to) so-and-so,” or stay at such-and-such a hotel or play at a particular tournament. That’s what apps like Yelp! are for.
Instead, I’m looking for things where a decision is involved, especially during a game but also around it. I am thinking about making this an upcoming Softball Magazine column too, so if you contribute and would like to be credited under your real or screen name, please include that with your contribution.
Ok, to help get the ball rolling here are some of the things I think should be on the “never ever” list. The first one, incidentally, is the one that kicked off this whole idea.
- Fielders, never ever pick up a ball on the ground with your glove.
- Fielders, never ever block the base without the ball. That is obstruction and it’s being called more and more. Get the ball and then get into the baseline.
- Fielders, never ever throw to a base when it’s obvious there is no play. Only bad things can happen. Instead, look for another play or eat the ball.
- Hitters, never ever swing at a pitch you’ve already decided to take (unless you already have two strikes).
- Hitters, never ever use more bat than you can swing quickly and well.
- Pitchers, never ever do wrist flips. They are a waste of time and make you worse, not better.
- Pitchers, never ever force a follow-through (hello elbow).
- Base runners, never ever slide directly into a tag. Do a slide by, turn and go back, do anything but let yourself get tagged out.
- Base runners, never ever take a lead off third in fair territory. If the ball hits you, you’re out. If you’re in foul territory it will still hurt, but you (or your replacement) will be able to return to third.
What would you add? Players, you are welcome to add to it too. Don’t let the coaches have all the fun!
Too positive can be (almost) as bad as too negative
Before I get into the main topic for today, let me start by confirming that I am a huge believer in positive coaching. I believe the authoritarian yelling and screaming style of coaching is outdated and counter-productive. It may produce some short-term benefits, but in the long term it does more harm than good.
That said, when it comes to fastpitch softball (as well as other activities) there is also danger in going too far the other way.
How could that be? If negative is bad, isn’t the opposite of negative positive – and therefore good? Not exactly.
The danger in going unrealistically positive is it often tends to kill the incentive to improve. If players are constantly being told how wonderful they’re doing, even when their skills leave a lot to be desired, they may not feel the urgency to step it up to the next level.
There are all kinds of examples. A hitter who is crushing the ball against weak pitching despite weak mechanics won’t develop the mechanics she needs to hit higher-level pitching. That’s fine if she never wants to move up in class, but if she does she will find it difficult. Then she’ll be left wondering what happened.
Another example is the pitcher who relies only on her fastball, or the catcher who never learns to block a ball in the dirt. Skills that help better-than-average athletes succeed early generally do not hold up as they get older or face better competition.
What players really need from coaches (and parents) is honest feedback. Praise them for their good work now, but also inform them that they can do better, and become better.
Build that work ethic and sense of striving to improve constantly and you will do more for their self-esteem, and their long-term success, than simply telling them how great they are all the time. It’s how the truly great become great.
Why it’s easier to destroy softball skills than build them
Sooner or later in your fastpitch softball coaching career you’re likely to run into this phenomenon: You spend months working with a player, helping her build her skills little by little, working through the kinks until it seems like the skills are locked in come easily to the player.
Then you hand her off to some other coach and in no time she’s struggling. All that hard work seemingly undone in just a few sessions. You wonder how could that possibly happen?
Actually, it’s easy to understand if you take it out of the coaching context and think about building something (a chair, a shed, a house, some crazy contraption to carry all the team equipment at tournaments) in the physical world.
Let’s take a chair. Not one of those slap-it-together Ikea chairs but one you build from raw wood. You carefully cut and/or carve the wood. You sand it, stain it, polish it. You put it together piece by piece, taking care that all the legs are level and every joint fits together tightly. It takes weeks, or even months, to get it all just so.
Then some knucklehead comes along, picks it up and smashes it against the wall because his favorite pro sports team choked in a big game and got eliminated from the playoffs. All that hard work destroyed in seconds.
The same thing happens to players. Complex skills such as pitching and hitting have a lot of moving parts, and they all need to work together in the proper sequence. Throw off just one part of – say insisting a hitter swing down on the ball and then standing there in an intimidating way until she does it – and the whole skill unravels. The player gets confused, loses confidence, and then she doesn’t perform at nearly the level she’s capable of.
Of course, once she’s not performing she gets benched so everyone loses. Especially the team that could’ve used the skills she walked in the door with.
This is something to keep in mind before messing with a player. Someone who has worked hard to get where she is right now is probably best off being left alone, especially if she is performing when it counts. It takes a long time to build those skills. But it just takes a few misguided ideas and a short amount of time to destroy them.
Private softball instructors level the playing field
As someone who has a broad interest in the state of youth sports in general as well as fastpitch softball specifically, I’m always interested to read articles on the topic. There’s no doubt that the U.S. (along with more and more other countries) has become sports-crazy, to the point where it is having a negative effect on young players. 
There is one aspect that always strikes me as missing the mark, however, which is their description of instructors. Maybe it’s because I’m a private softball instructor myself, but I don’t think it’s just me taking it personally.
When they talk about how crazy parents have gotten, sooner or later the articles will refer to how on top of everything else parents “then drag their kids to an instructor to spend even more time on their sport, usually in the hopes of acquiring that D1 scholarship.” Or something to that effect. It’s not an actual quote, just a sort of paraphrase of what I’ve seen.
That may be true in some cases. But for the most part I see the role as being somewhat different.
In the good old days these pundits like to talk about, they say kids just showed up at the field and learned to play there. They didn’t need all these adults around.
Well, the reality is that was wonderful for the kids with great athletic ability. You know the ones I’m talking about – you give them a ball, or a stick or some other piece of athletic equipment and they’ll instinctively know what to do with it. But maybe not so much for the kids for whom it didn’t come naturally, or who hadn’t grown into their bodies yet, or who were a little slower in developing their motor skills.
Basically what happened was they got left behind quickly and never had the opportunities to advance in a sport they may have loved but weren’t particularly good at yet. They got weeded out early.
That’s why I say a good instructor can level the playing field. He or she can take a player who may not be the greatest athlete and teach him or her to be competitive and find success on the field, court, rink or whatever. Success being defined by the player and his or her family.
I’ve worked with a lot of kids who had no ambition of playing in college – not just at the D1 level but at any level. Some just wanted to be successful in high school, or on their travel team, or in their rec league. They wanted to get off the bench and become important to their teams.
Is there something wrong with that? I don’t think so, and if I can help them achieve that goal where they might not have otherwise it’s terrific.
Not everyone was blessed with great DNA or grew up in a family that played sports all the time. A good instructor can help make up for those “disadvantages” and level the playing field, giving them opportunities they may not have had otherwise and helping them to achieve all they can achieve.
Of course, even the best athletes can use a little help along the way to shortcut their learning curve, and they’re fun to work with too. My point is that most of the parents who take their kids somewhere for instruction aren’t the ones you see in TV documentaries and NY Times ads, relentlessly trying to drive their kids to sports success they themselves never achieved. They’re just trying to help their kids feel good about themselves and build some great sports memories.
Sometimes injuries create opportunities
Over the past couple of days I’ve been emailing back and forth with my friend Stan Goplen, who has been working with his granddaughter JJ to get her ready to make a statement pitching for her high school team this spring. Stan told me that JJ hurt her finger playing volleyball and may not be able to throw for a little. 
Some people would see that as a problem. But I often find that injuries create opportunities. How?
No matter how good it might be for them, sometimes it is tough to get kids to spend the amount of time required to work on one part of the pitching, hitting, throwing or other motion/skill. They get bored easily (especially these days) and want to move on to the complete skill.
An injury takes care of that issue. For example, a pitcher with a hand issue can either sit out, or can work exclusively on her leg drive (which is what Stan planned to do with JJ).
Conversely, a pitcher with a leg issue can work on her arm circle, spins, whip and so forth. I had that happen earlier this year with a 10U pitcher named Jenna. She’d hurt her ankle, so while it was recovering we worked from the waist up, which helped her immensely. By the time she could use her legs fully again she was much better prepared to take advantage of them.
The most extreme case I had was a few years ago when a pitcher named Devin was in a cast from her ankle to her hip. We found a high stool and she sat on that as she worked on her spins and arm path for her curve and drop balls. By the time she was healthy both pitches were considerably better than they had been – because we were able to lock in the arm mechanics she required.
The same concept can be applied to other aspects. Hitters with injured legs can get into a turned position and work on taking the barrel of the bat to the ball (instead of dropping the hands and sweeping the bat through the zone). Fielders with a broken wrist can work on lowering their hips to a ground ball (without catching, of course) or learning to track fly balls over their heads. All it takes is a little creativity and imagination.
So the next time you see a player with an injury, don’t think “oh darn.” See it as an opportunity. You’ll be amazed what you can accomplish.
So how about you? What have you done to take advantage of player injuries? How did it work out for you ?
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 