Category Archives: Coaching
Keeping up with the game
A while back I wrote about the willingness to change. In that post I talked about how players have to be willing to change what they’re comfortable doing in order to get better.
That thought applies to coaches as well. The worst thing you can do as a coach is get stuck in how you do things to the point where you’re not open to things that could help you and your players get better. Your methods may have worked for you as a player, or in the past as a coach. But if there’s a better way to do things, you owe it to your players to be all over it.
That seems to make sense. Yet that’s not always what happens. There are all kinds of coaches who refuse to consider anything that might different from what they’ve always done, whether it’s skill-wise or strategic. For example, as a coach you may have always bunted your runners to second when they got on first. But if your opponents are aces at bunt coverage and are throwing out your lead runner, or the pitchers are getting your bunters to pop up all the time, you might just want to change your game plan.
So why won’t some people change? Sometimes it’s ego — they already know it all (they think) so nothing new could be worthwhile. For some, they don’t want to admit that what they used to teach was wrong. That’s a form of ego too, but it’s also a form of trying to maintain or protect a reputation. Some coaches believe they need to be infallible in order to be effective. That’s not true either, but it’s what they think.
Those who are willing to change, though, can give their players an edge. Change isn’t always easy, but it’s necessary.
One thing I’ve changed in the way I teach hitting is more emphasis on a weight shift forward. For years I followed the standard fastpitch canon that said take a short, soft stride, keep the weight back. But after exposure to the idea of getting the weight moving forward from several sources, and seeing for myself how great hitters do it, I started changing what I teach. It wasn’t that traumatic, for me or for my players. I simply showed them what I’d seen, and told them I thought it could make them better. They made the change with little resistance.
Change can be trying, but it’s worth the effort when you find something better. Question everything you know all the time. You and your players will ultimately benefit in the end.
Practice v. instruction
Just completed the ASA ACE certification test, first level. Passed it too, in case you were wondering. I know I railed a few weeks ago about people being forced to take it, but hey, you do what you gotta do.
It’s pretty simple, mostly common sense. If you’ve been dreading it, don’t. Many of you could probably take the test and pass it without first watching the video. It’s on a par with traffic school — an online program I know well, unfortunately.
There was one question, though, whose answer I disagree with. Actually it’s the phrasing of the question. The point they’re trying to make is instruct/talk less, let the players do more. I agree with that. But what they ask is will players learn more by practicing, or by instruction/talking? Or something to that effect. Their answer is by doing.
That’s not necessarily true. You can practice a long time and with great sincerity on doing things wrong, and become good at being bad. Kids who throw with their elbows below their shoulders get to be pretty good at it, but it’s not a skill that will take you very far. Seems to me that poor throwing mechanics make you easier to cut in tryouts. They usually mean you blow a play at a crucial time.
Before you can practice effectively, you need quality instruction. Otherwise, you’re like most guys driving. When we get lost, we’ll troll around for hours rather than ask for directions. Eventually we get to where we want to go, but sometimes we miss the party.
Bill Hillhouse and the PCM
I admit I’m a little behind on my softball reading, but I just read a great article on Bill Hillhouse’s House of Pitching Web site. It’s a rant about what he calls the Pitching Coach Mafia (PCM) and how it’s ruining the chances of pitchers to have a great career. He couldn’t be more right on.
Bill is a somewhat controversial guy because he calls it like he sees it, and doesn’t mind it if people don’t like that. As I read the article, though, all I could think was “right on!” He is constantly crusading against some of the bad techniques that are being taught by various instructors who may mean well but shouldn’t be teaching.
One example Bill mentioned is locking the elbow while pitching. I have stood in gyms where kids I knew were taking lessons extended their arms out as far as they would go, locked their elbows, and pushed the ball through the circle. They tend not to continue pitching by the time they’re about 15. Other examples are “closing the door” (slamming the hips closed), exaggeration of the wrist snap, and slapping the leg with the glove. Ouch!
One I’d like to add to that list is touching the shoulder with the hand after the pitch. The reason given for doing it is to make sure the pitcher follows through. But she doesn’t really. A follow through involves bringing the elbow through, not just the hand. Trying to touch the shoulder with the hand is a proven way to develop elbow problems, and it will actually make you throw slower, not faster. It will also prevent you from learning other pitches.
In the article, Bill also talks about the folks who know nothing about hitting but teach it anyway — which is why this post is also classified under hitting. Things like slapping the back with the bat make no sense at all, yet enough girls do it that somebody has to be teaching it. Bill says he thinks the hitting problems are worse because while not everyone feels qualified to talk about pitching a softball, everyone thinks they know how to swing a bat.
Be sure to check out this article, as well as others on the site. He’s a great resource to tap into.
You can never hear this enough
Tonight at lessons two of my students were very excited. Both had pitched in a tournament over the weekend and couldn’t wait to tell me how they did.
They’re both very talented so I expected they would do well. But what really got them going was the success they had throwing the changeup. In each case they got several hitters with it. One even said she was striking girls out with it despite the fact that everyone was yelling to watch out for it. I reminded the other one that a couple of years ago when she was learning it she said she couldn’t do it. She sure can now!
Pitchers tend to spend a lot of time in the gym. Sometimes they find it hard to focus, or to remember exactly why we’re doing it week after week. But after a weekend like they had I can tell you both girls were primed, up, and ready to work.
As an instructor there’s nothing better than hearing all the hard work paid off. It’s what keeps everyone going when there’s a foot of snow on the ground and summer seems a long ways away.
The three-legged stool
There is a fairly standard analogy in the business world called the “three-legged stool.” The basis of it is there are three elements that are important to whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish, and all three must be both present and in balance. If you put too much or too little emphasis on any one area, or even two areas, the stool will not be stable and will not be able to fulfill its purpose.
In softball the three legs of the stool are physical skills, the mental game, and conditioning. You need all three to be successful.
Unfortunately, that’s not always the path that coaches follow. Many will over-emphasize one aspect to the detriment of the others.
Some will spend all their time working on physical skills. They will hit, field ground balls, chase fly balls, pitch, etc. until the cows come home. They may run a few random sprints at the end of the practice, but that’s about all they do. They won’t spend much time at all on the mental game — visualizing success, building confidence, controlling emotions. They may have success against lesser teams but they have a hard time winning the big games. Instead, they blame the field conditions, the umpires, the luck of the draw, or random events for their losses.
Then there are the conditioning fanatics. They read somewhere about the conditioning programs elite athletes go through and decide that they’re going to make their players elite athletes by following the same routine. Never mind that the elite athletes already had the skills before they got to the elite level, which is why strength, agility and conditioning makes such a difference. Of course, some coaches don’t know how to teach the skills, so they default to general conditioning drills and hope it will make the difference. It won’t. Conditioning may help you hit the ball an extra 20 feet, but first you have to be able to hit the ball at all. If you can’t do that, all the conditioning drills in the world won’t matter.
You rarely hear about coaches over-emphasizing the mental game. In fact, when you hear a mental game expert such as Jeff Janssen speak, you’ll hear that most coaches believe that confidence and a positive mental attitude are highly important to winning, yet they will spend very little time on it. That makes one of those legs very short.
If I were taking over a new team, and had limited time to get them ready, the first thing I would want to assess is their physical skills. Do they know how to throw, hit, field a ground ball, etc. If not, that’s where I would start. That’s kind of the survival level. I would also use that skill building time to start boosting confidence and an a believe that if we all do our jobs and work together we can have a successful season.
Once the skills were starting to come along, I’d start working with them on understanding the game better — what happens in various situations, how you make decisions, when to throw the ball and when to eat it, etc. We’d be moving from basic individual skills to using those skills in a team setting. That’s where I’d start introducing softball-specific conditioning. There are plenty of drills you can run, including those that combine two or more skills, that will help drive conditioning without sacrificing other aspects of the game. For example, you could have a player hit off a tee and run to first. A coach standing at first would say whether to run through the base or round it. If the player rounds it, the coach would say whether to continue or come back. If the player continues she goes hard and slides into second. Do that enough times and you’re building endurance, agility, and quick decision-making along with the physical skills of running through or rounding the base.
Should we get to the point where everyone on the team has built the skills and understands the game we could spend more team time on conditioning. At that point it could be the difference. Still, I’d probably expect more of that to be done away from the field than on it. Of course, at that point it would likely be a given that those athletes would understand the importance of training and would come to practice already in excellent physical condition.
Where coaches get themselves in trouble is when they do things out of order. They’ll focus on “brutal conditioning” first and foremost, then lament that they can’t hit. Of course they can’t — they haven’t emphasized it. What they miss is that softball is not a game like soccer or basketball where you can wear out the other team by running on them. There’s a lot of standing around in softball, and most plays are over in three to ten seconds. As my friend and fellow coach Rich says, on a home run you don’t get to keep running around the bases until the other team finds the ball.
Another thing they’ll do is push the skill level training beyond what the athletes can do, with no regard as to whether they are losing confidence in the process. Or they’ll believe they can berate players into executing the skills better. When was the last time you did something better because a boss yelled at you unmercifully while you tried to do it? It just doesn’t happen. Coaches ignore the mental state of their players at their own peril. Especially with girls. They have to feel good to play good. If you make them feel bad, don’t be surprised by the results.
Finally, coaches will separate conditioning from the other two legs — or use it solely as a punishment for infractions real and imagined. The right conditioning program can actually help build confidence and encourage competition. My preferrence is to include elements of speed and agility in skills drills, and then set up a competition at the end that has an element of fun. Last year our girls loved to see the agility ladders come out because they knew we were gong to have some sort of race or skills competition, and it would help end practice on a high. Sometimes those races involved running home-to-home while performing various drills. Separated from a context they would’ve brought groans. But because it was presented as an activity rather than a punishment the players pushed themselves to the limit to “win.” And that’s what conditioning is all about.
Again, it’s important to remember that the stool has three legs. The more uneven the stool becomes the harder it is to use it. Make any one leg too long and the stool falls over. Then it’s no good to anyone.
The Bob Knight school of coaching
The other day on the radio I heard a heated discussion about former Indiana University and Texas Tech basketball coach Bobby/Bob Knight. Much of it surrounded the validity of his coaching methods.
On the plus side, he produced three national champions and went to the NCAA tournament often. On the downside, not much of that happened in his last few years.
While it’s debatable whether that “break them down and get them to comply” approach was ever really a good one, it became pretty obvious that it was not working anymore. Today’s athlete is smarter and more independent, and is thus not as willing to take the grief in order to play on the team. They’d rather go somewhere else, or do something else if they can’t move, than sit there and be belittled all the time because a coach feels he/she needs to show who’s boss.
This is probably even more true in softball, where an even keel is far more important than getting “up” for a game. An excess of adreneline tends to degrade performance, not enhance it. The sports psychologists and their studies have shown that a calm approach is required for optimum play in a precision sport such as softball. The same can be said for golf and tennis, two other sports that require on timing and hand/eye coordination far more than brute force.
Softball coaches who stand in the third base coach’s box and scream at hitters, or stand behind players at practice and berate them to the point of tears for not fielding ground balls up to their standards are only hurting themselves. Well, that’s not true. They’re also hurting the players and the team.
This is not to say poor play should be tolerated or coddled. But there’s a difference between a lack of effort, a lack of ability, and a lack of execution. The first is more of a reason to yell. The other two are opportunities to teach, either physical (in the case of lack of ability) or mental (in the case of lack of execution) skills.
Setting up a positive atmosphere where players feel comfortable pushing their current limits helps build strong teams. Setting up a negative atmosphere where players feel they have to constantly look over their shoulders for fear of being belittled in front of their teammates creates a climate for failure.
And speaking of doing things in front of teammates, I once learned the hard way about singling out a player, especially a girl, in front of the team — even if she deserves it. I had a player (who was a team leader) lose her temper, throw her helmet, mouth off to an umpire, and generally conduct herself in a way that was unacceptable. After we lost the game, I sat the team down and tore into her for her behavior. It didn’t really help at all. If anything it made things worse, both with the rest of the team and that player. I eventually worked it out with her — I apologized not for what I said but where and how I said it — and she apologized for the behavior, which she came to realize was inappropriate. Since that time, if I’ve had anything like that to say again I’ve done it in private. It’s made a huge difference for me and my teams. That girl continued to play for me, and would run through a wall if I asked her to because we got past the problem and gave each other mutual respect.
That’s the point. Berating players in any sense may make a temporary adjustment, but it degrades trust. If you want more long-term success, take the time to build a relationship and a positive atmosphere and you’ll create a legacy that lasts long after the last pitch is thrown.
Confidence game
Coaching 101 dictates that a coach’s job is to help his/her players build their confidence. This is true in any sport, but it’s especially true in softball. The game is built on failure — as the saying goes, a hitter who fails 7 out of 10 times is an all-star — which means there is already a huge potential for negative feelings to brew. Coaches are supposed to build their players’ confidence to help them get through the tough times, and perhaps even avoid some of them. As they say, whether you think you can or your think you can’t, you are correct.
Not every coach seems to get that, however. Some seem not to know better, some have their own personal agenda, and some, well, I have no idea why they do what they do, but they seem to go out of their way to undermine their players’ confidence.
Bobby Knight is a good example of a coach who didn’t seem to know any better. From the outside it seemed like he thought that by constantly railing on his players he could drive better performance out of them. It worked to some extent, no doubt. But you have to wonder if maybe some of those players would’ve been even better if they had been built up instead of torn down. Even the Navy SEALs have abandoned the “tear them down and build them up” training for one that is based on confidence.
Then there are those with their own personal agenda. They will put down players not with a goal of trying to get more out of them or because they think it will be good for the team long-term, but because of some personal need or grudge they hold.
A good example is something that happened to one of my pitching students with her travel team last summer. This is a girl who is both very talented and very dedicated, by the way. She had joined the previous Fall, with promises of the opportunities this “higher level” team would provide. She did the training and conditioning with them, traveling roughly two hours each way a couple of nights a week plus weekends. She also came for lessons one a week and made great improvements there too. It looked like she was all set for a great summer. Then came the other shoe.
Turns out the team’s “pitching coach” was also the father of another pitcher. The other kid didn’t throw quite as hard as my student, nor was she able to throw anything other than a fastball as I understand it. So the “pitching coach” started setting up a situation where his daughter could succeed and my student would fail.
He made hitting spots with the fastball the main criteria for success. Not whether the pitcher could strike people out, get people out, keep them off the bases, or win ballgames. It was about hitting the exact location he called.
Now, hitting your spots is important to be sure. But it’s not the be-all and end-all of pitching. Just as their are no style points for hitting, throwing to a specific location in and of itself doesn’t guarantee success. Speed, movement, and cleverness all play into it too.
In any case, my student would have what most would consider a successful outing — 1 to 2 strikeouts per inning, few runs allowed. But instead of being congratulated for doing well she was being put down for not hitting the locations the pitching coach had called. (The fact that she was successful without hitting the locations probably indicates the pitch calls weren’t necessarily great ones, but that’s a story for another day.)
After a while, the pitcher lost confidence. She became very discouraged and by the end of May was ready to quit. The end of May, not even the summer! Her dad told her to hang in there, and did his best to bolster her confidence. He’d bring her to me for an occasional lesson too, not so much for the physical side but so I could help her rebuild her confidence too. The upshot is, when they got to Nationals, the team found that the pitchers they’d been using no longer could get the job done, they called upon my student, and she wound up doing very well. If she was good enough to win at Nationals, why not the rest of the season?
Today she is playing for a different team where they know how to handle players. By the way, she was 13 at the time all the negative stuff was going on. Hope that “pitching coach” felt like a big man, lording it over a 13 year old.
It is difficult to fathom why some coaches feel the need to destroy confidence but they do. Maybe they weren’t hugged enough as children. Maybe they’re unhappy and feel the need to let that unhappiness trickle down. Maybe putting others down builds their own egos. Who knows?
Whatever it is, it’s detrimental to their teams, and against the basic mission of being a coach — especially a coach of teens and younger players. A smart coach will do all he/she can to build player confidence and help them become the best they can be. He/she will look for the good in each player and build on it, rather than always looking for what’s wrong and putting them down. That’s the way you win games. And championships.
Managing v. leading
This is a subject that probably doesn’t get covered enough. It cuts right to the core of what a coach can do versus what coaches often limit themselves to doing.
There is a big difference between managing players and leading them. Managing players involves setting up tournaments, setting up practices, making sure everyone knows the team rules, putting together a lineup, changing players, and other tactical types of tasks. It is a very valuable function to be sure, and many coaches put their emphasis on trying to do those tasks well. But it isn’t leadership.
Leadership is about motivating players, getting them to believe in themselves, teaching them to do the right things (even if it means you might lose a game), and generally how to conduct themselves as human beings. Think of it this way: management is putting players in the positions where they can make the best contributions. Leadership is helping them find a way to improve their games to increase their contributions to the team.
A manager will remove a pitcher when she starts to get a hit. A leader will make sure that when she leaves her confidence remains high.
When they’re playing poorly, a manager will try to get his team going by yelling at them to “get their attention.” A leader will work hard to make sure that players understand it’s the responsibility of each player to do her very best every time she steps out on the field.
A manager will teach her players her “system” and try to get them to fit into it. A leader will adjust what she does on the field to suit the players she has. For example, a manager will place a lot of importance on pitchers getting strikeouts, even if she doesn’t have a dominant pitcher. A leader will recognize she doesn’t have a dominant pitcher and will come up with a new strategy to help the team win — usually shoring up the defense and/or putting extra time into hitting.
A manager see his players as chess pieces to be moved around the board. A leader sees his players as human beings, each with her own hopes, fears, desires, and goals. He will do his best to figure out what each player needs, and will work to build a relationship with each one.
A manager usually has a coaching style. A leader has as many coaching styles as she has players. This is not to say she favors one over another. To the contrary, she treats each one equally, according to her needs. Those who need positive reinforcement get it. Those who need an occasional kick in the pants get it. Those who need things explained in depth get it, while those who just need quick marching orders get what they need and are sent on their way.
The long and short of it is, every team has a manager. But not every team has a leader. To determine which you are, think about your relationship with your players. Do they comply with what you say because they have no choice, or do they look to you for guidance? The former is a manager, the latter is a leader. Do your players tolerate you the way they do hot and humid weather, or do they genuinely enjoy playing for you? The former is the sign of a manager. The latter is the sign of a leader.
It’s a lot tougher to be a leader than a manager. Being a leader means you need to question yourself constantly, and be aware of what’s happening around you. Being a manager only requires fulfilling the tasks that are part of your job. Being a leader, however, is much more rewarding in the long run, because while managers can help their teams win, leaders help the individuals on those team grow — both as players and as human beings.
So which are you?
Fear of failure, fear of losing drives bad decisions
Guess it’s about time for my annual rant on this topic. It’s a shame, because this line of thinking really limits kids in so many aspects of their lives — especially their ability to become fully functional adults.
If you watch what goes on in classrooms, on ballfields, and just about anywhere else in America these days you’ll see a very familiar phenomenon. We here in America hate to lose, and hate to either fail ourselves or see our kids fail. Now, that in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. We should want to win, and we should want to succeed. The problem is we want it so much that we’re willing to accept winning and success at any cost — especially the cost of longer-term success.
Look what’s happened in the schools. At one time schools held their students accountable to tough standards. Teachers would teach, students would learn. If the students didn’t hold up their end of the bargain they’d fail the class. They might even get left behind a grade if they failed enough.
Today, we don’t fail students anymore. We believe it’s bad for their self-esteem. Instead, we lower the requirements to make it easier for them to pass the class. If that doesn’t work, we lower the standards some more. We teach kids to learn how to pass the test instead of how to think. It’s no wonder America is falling behind in academic pursuits, especially math and science.
The same thing happens with fastpitch softball. If a pitcher struggles to get the ball over, well-meaning but ill-informed coaches will tell them to “slow it down and get it over.” Never mind that you’re destroying the mechanics that pitcher has worked so hard to acquire, and that it will probably throw her off for the next few games besides. It’s more important to win that game today, so just do whatever it takes to make it a strike.
The same goes with hitters. How many coaches have told their hitters not to worry about hitting the ball hard, just make contact? Well, if you substitute the word “outs” for contact you’ll be saying pretty much the same thing. It’s not that taking a good, aggressive swing is harder than taking a “contact” swing. It’s that the player hasn’t worked enough on her aggressive swing to make it easy. It is definitely easier to swing lightly and just try to put the bat on the ball. You won’t strike out as often, maybe. But you also won’t be developing the foundation you’re going to need later on in the game. At that point, you’ll have to completely relearn your swing — if you can. If not, you’ll probably be done playing before you should be. All because someone didn’t want you to strike out too often when you were eight.
It isn’t easy to watch our kids fail. But sometimes it’s necessary. Pain is a good teacher. If you stick your hand in a fire and feel no pain, you won’t know to pull it back out before all the skin burns off. If you lower the bar on pitching, hitting, throwing, etc. then players have no real incentive to work harder and learn to do things the right way.
Yes, it’s difficult to watch your pitcher walking batter after batter. If it happens, take her out and let someone else “just get it over.” If the pitcher is serious, she’ll work at not having that experience again. If the hitter has a good swing but isn’t hitting the ball with it, check if she needs glasses. If not, be patient. When she does start hitting it, and she will, she’ll do more for you than all your contact/out hitters.
Trust me. Nobody hates losing more than I do. But it’s part of the learning process. Give kids a safe environment to fail while trying to be their very best and they won’t disappoint you. Kids are resilient, overall. Dumb it all down for them, though, and ultimately you’ll wind up disappointing them.
From the bad ideas dept.: ASA forcing coaches to take their instructional program
I know this is true in the Chicago area, and based on what I’ve heard from other coaches I think it’s universal: the ASA is now requiring at least one coach from every team to complete their ACE program if the team plans to compete in state/metro/national tournaments. Here in the Chicago area, the Metro tournament is a requirement if you’re planning on going to any of the various nationals, so if you have any ambition about playing on a bigger stage you have to go there.
I have no idea what ASA thinks they’re doing. This is an organization that is facing increasing pressure from rival sanctioning bodies such as FAST, NSA, USSSA and others. Rather than reacting like a regular company would to competitive market pressures and becoming more customer-friendly, if anything this move is making them less customer-friendly.
I wonder how many coaches are going to look at it and say “forget it, I’ll just focus on another organization?” The top programs won’t of course, but you don’t build a business solely by focusing on the captive audience. Any business, any religion, any anything where people have a choice knows you have to make what you’re offering attractive to the newbies and non-believers so you can increase your ranks. That’s marketing 101. But this move goes beyond that.
Our Mundelein Thunder organization is an ASA “shop,” so we’re planning to do it. But trying to Git R done has been a nightmare. One of my fellow coaches has been trying to get it organized. He went to the ASA site to find out what to do, and all they say is contact your local commissioner. He contacted our local commissioner (who probably has better things to do than this) and it took a while to get a response. When it finally came, it was a link to a login that requires a user name and password that wasn’t furnished. We’re still trying to find out if we have to attend a class somewhere, go online, get something in the mail, whatever.
The father of one of my pitching students lives in Wisconsin, and he said there was one class being offered for the year there. All the coaches went to somebody’s house and gathered around a small computer or TV screen to watch a DVD. Then they took the test. He said his understanding was if he missed that class (which he almost did) he was out of luck for the year. For the year! Plenty of time for him to find other nationals to attend.
But here’s the kicker. I was ACE-certified several years ago. In fact, I went through two levels of it. I would’ve done more but ASA never notified me that it was time for the next one and I just plain forgot. The training itself was so rudimentary as to be laughable. Even a first-year coach could probably pass the test without watching the video. So there really isn’t much benefit, unless they’ve changed it. You’ll learn a lot more by attending the National Sports Clinics, or the NFCA Coach’s College. As for the general (non-softball) coaching principles, you’re better off attending an ASEP class.
I’m told there is a lot of focus on the rules. Hmmmm. I wonder if the umpires are being required to take the same class? I can’t tell you how many umpires I’ve run into at ASA-sanctioned tournaments who don’t know basic ASA rules such as those for courtesy runners. Twice in 2007 I was told I couldn’t use a courtesy runner for a pitcher or catcher with less than two outs, even though the rule book clearly states you can. That’s just one example off the top of my head. There are others as well. When you argue this is the ASA rule the umpire doesn’t want to hear it, and doesn’t want to consult a rule book, even in the dugout, so you wind up getting screwed.
Now imagine ASA is going to train more coaches to know the rules. They’re just asking for trouble. Before they worry about the coaches they ought to seriously look at how they’re certifying umpires. Don’t even get me started on enforcement of pitching rules.
Bottom line is this just looks like a bad idea on many levels. It may have good intentions, but we all know what the road to Hell is paved with.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 