One of the core jobs of a coach is to help his/her players improve their performance. Sometimes, though, that desire can make things worse instead of better.

Take the third base coach who knows that 1) the pitcher has a tendency to throw high pitches and 2) the hitter has a tendency to go after high pitches she can’t hit. In his desire to help, the coach will shout out “Lay off the high ones!” Well, if anyone is paying any attention at all it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out what the next pitch will be.

On the other side, a coach who yells to the catcher to keep the ball down and out on the next hitter is also asking for trouble. A big part of pitching is keeping the hitter off balance and guessing. If she knows where the next pitch is going (assuming the pitcher can hit that spot!) it should be a whole lot easier to hit, because the zone she has to cover has narrowed considerably.

Those are just two examples. A coach who tells a hitter to make sure she moves up in the box in an obvious bunt situation, or tells the baserunner to make sure she gets a good jump on the next pitch is taking the element of surprise out. Again, assuming the opponent is paying attention, the coach might as well just say flat out “Hey, we’re bunting” or “Hey we’re stealing.”

It can be hard to hold your tongue sometimes, especially when the outcome is really important. But you have to learn to do it. Otherwise, you’re doing more to help the other team than your own.

Not too long ago I saw an article in Bobby Simpson’s Higher Groundnewsletter recommending a book called Small Unit Leadership, written by Col. Dandridge (Mike) Malone, U.S. Army (ret.). Although it’s really written to help sergeants, lieutenants and captains learn how to lead military units, there are a lot of great lessons in there for coaches too.

One of them is understanding the makeup of players on a team. Col. Malone breaks them into four grorups based on two criteria — the willingness of players to learn skills, and the ability of players to execute those skills. Essentially the groups are:

Willing and able
Willing and unable
Unwilling but able
Unwilling and unable

Obviously the group you want to have the most players in is the willing and able. They are enthusiastic about learning and getting better, and they have the skills you need to excel. Your job as coach for them is to encourage them to keep growing, and enjoy the ride. They are also your potential team leaders.

The second most desireable group in my mind are the willing and unable. They want to learn, they just haven’t acquired the skillset yet. Your job as coach is pretty obvious — teach them how as quickly as they can handle it. The difference between this group and the first group is probably experience. Even the willing and able need training to improve their games. But they already have a basic skillset, where this group is more raw. In softball it also tends to be younger.

The third group is the unwilling but able. Now we start getting into the negatives. This group of players has the skills and talent to play, but they are unmotivated to work hard or raise their game to a higher level. They may also be in it more for themselves than for the team. Your job as coach is to try to move them into the willing and able category. That’s a tough row to hoe, but it can be done. Doubtless it’s going to take more of your time than you’d like, and there’s no guaranteed outcome. But if you can do it you’ll have valuable players you can count on.

The final group is the unwilling and unable. Or as I like to put it, the “what are you doing here?” group. Maybe their parents signed them up for softball as a babysitting service while they work out at the health club or watch Oprah. Maybe they thought their daughters needed some exercise or a team experience whereas the daughters would rather go to the mall. Maybe they’re just kids with negative attitudes. Whatever the case, this group is going to take the greatest part of your time, and provide the least return on investment. Look how much time they’re taking in this post. Try to save them if you can, but realize it may be a futile effort, and that you may just have to cut your losses. Even Col. Malone tells military officers that the best strategy with this group is get them out of there as quickly as possible. This group can be a cancer on the team. Not only won’t they contribute much, but they’re likely to take other players down with them. Group 3 is vulnerable, but so is Group 2, and you’d really hate to lose them. Group 4 can ruin a season faster than bad weather, so recognize the risk and deal with it accordingly.

Now that you understand the groups a little, here’s an exercise you can do. Take the chart below and write the last name of each person on your team where you think they fit along the two parameters of willingness and ability. Hopefully you wind up with lots of players in the upper right, and none in the lower left. If not, you’ll at least know what you’re working with and can adjust your plans accordingly.

Good luck. And if you do pursue this activity, let me know what you found out. Post a comment. I think we’ll all find it interesting and helpful.

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.

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.

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 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.