Saw an excellent article this week on Jeff Janssen’s Championship Coach’s Network that talks about coaching the Milennial (kids born 1982 and later) athlete, and how it’s different than days gone by. One of the key things mentioned is that these kids have grown up in bubbles, being told they’re good and that there’s nothing they can’t do. The old “break ’em down” mentality doesn’t work with them. You will break their spirits and they will struggle to recover.

It certainly explains why coaches who may have been successful in days gone by are now struggling. If you don’t keep up with the world and understand your “market” you can quickly become out of touch with your athletes. At that point you think you’re coaching apples when you’re really coaching oranges.

Parent coaches get knocked a lot of times for the things they do, and rightfully so. But one advantage parent coaches do have (if they leverage it) is being more in touch with kids the age of their players. They’re around it all the time, and participate in the upbringing, so they may be more in tune with how those kids think. Coaches who haven’t had kids, or whose kids grew up a while back, may not understand that the generation has changed, and the Milennials have different expectations even than the Gen Xers.

Right now is a good time to take stock of your own understanding. Do you have a Facebook account? Have you ever played a video game? Do you still tape TV shows on a VCR instead of DVRing them? What’s on your iPod — if you even have one?

Everyone knows the same Xs and Os more or less. Most elite coaches will tell you succeeding is more about the relationships and the personal side. If you can’t relate to your players anymore, and in a way that fits them, you’d either better figure out how in a hurry or hang it up. They can play without you. You can’t coach without them. One big clue: the “command and direct” style doesn’t work anymore.

For more understanding of how the various generations operate and interrelate, you should read The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe. It’s a tough read but well worth slogging through. Today’s youth is very much like the generation that won WWII — confident, optimistic, and with a sense of entitlement too. They don’t suffer fools lightly.

This topic came up the other night. A student came in to a pitching lesson with her own softball. It was one her mom had gotten. She complained that it had very high seams. When I felt it I agreed. The irony was it was a Dudley, which I always remember having very low seams.

In any case, I had her use one of the ones I carry — a Worth Dream Seam. I like the Worth balls for pitching lessons because they seem to hold their “tacK’ longer than other balls. I always feel like the Wilson balls, which are the other readily available ones in my area, get a little slick after not a lot of use. Probably find for a game, but rough for practicing pitching.

Which leads me to my questions: What’s your favorite ball for practicing? Is it the same as your favorite for a game? Do you even have a preference? And if so, why?

Please share. I’m sure there are others looking to make a decision on ball purchases who’d love to hear your reviews.

Generally speaking, I have made a concerted effort to keep Life in the Fastpitch Lane positive and informative. But every now and then something just gets to me and I have to speak out. Tonight is one of those nights.

I was teaching lessons when the mother of one of my students, a 10U girl I’ve been working with since September came in with a horror story — her third in three weeks. You see, about three weeks ago they joined a travel team. During the “courtship” phase everything was wonderful. They said all the right things and really made it seem like she had found a home.

Since that time, however, the experience has been anything but good. Part of it stems from the head of the organization who apparently fashions himself a pitching coach and general softball guru. He told the mom that all the girls in the organization are taught by him, and essentially said my student should be too. The mom resisted, as she is happy with the progress her daughter is making and can see the value. She also saw that what this guy is teaching the other pitchers is not what you see in high-level pitchers.

He wants them all to touch their shoulders with their hands after release (both pointless and dangerous to the elbow), and bring the right foot past the left, stepping through (pointless and detrimental to speed and control). Worse, when the 19 girls he has lined up for pitching don’t do those and other stupid things he screams at them.

When she wouldn’t kowtow to him, the abuse started. He began telling her that her daughter was the worst pitcher there, that she couldn’t throw overhand, and basically that she is a terrible player. Her daughter was segregated out with a couple of other new kids during defensive work, so that while the rest of the team (returning players) were working on defensive team drills, the newbies were just fielding ground balls. I don’t work with her on that part and haven’t seen the others so I don’t know where she fits in skill-wise, but you would think that at 10U everyone could use some work on ground balls, and all the kids need to learn team defense. This was apparently more punishment for not getting with the program.

Now, understand this girl is about as enthused about softball as any kid I’ve ever met. For Christmas she asked for (and received) a Club K pitching mat and some other softball training items and was thrilled! She couldn’t wait to tell me about it. But her mom told me she asked if she could just skip team practice. That’s not like her at all. In three weeks, the a** clowns for coaches they have in this program have managed to destroy her spirit. Nice job, jerks.

I talked to the mom about it for a while, but of course I do have a personal stake here. Fortunately, my next student experienced a similar situation a couple of years ago, so I asked her dad to talk to this mom, give his perspective as a neutral observer, and generally see what he thinks. He could care less where she plays or what else she does, so it’s about as neutral as you can get. His advice? Run. Run as fast and as far as you can from this program before they destroy her daughter’s confidence completely and drive her from the game. He told me later that as she described the experience, he was able to finish her thoughts and she his. It was the same thing, although his was a different program. And his daughter pitches for one of the top programs in Illinois, not to mention the US.

The final nail is the difference in this girl between our sessions and her practices. At her last practice, her mom said 48 out of 50 pitches hit the ceiling. When she was with me tonight she threw far more strikes than balls, and never hit the ceiling once. It’s the difference between a positive atmosphere and a toxic one.

I don’t get it. I don’t get why people like that go into coaching. I don’t get why people sign up to be coached by them, or don’t run from them when they see what they are. It’s not like there’s some great payoff. This program is a bottom-feeder — they go into low level tournaments and leagues so they can rack up wins and talk about how good they are. I’ve never seen any of their teams in tournaments I’ve coached in, and neither has the dad.

There is simply no reason to put up with behavior like that, or the abuse that comes with it. Coaches like that give the entire sport a black eye. Hopefully others will wise up and move on to better situations. We really don’t need girls getting turned off to the game by jerks.