About a week ago Coach Greg wrote to me to tell about his team’s performance in an early spring tournament. They came in second, which was a great start to their season. Along the way, though, he brought up an interesting topic.

It seems that one of his pitchers had hurt her wrist. Greg knew it was painful but the girl said she was ok to go, and she wound up pitching four innings. Later she went to get the wrist checked out and discovered it wasn’t just sprained but broken.

Greg said had he known the injury was that severe he would never have allowed her to pitch. The girl probably knew it too, soo she hid the true degree of her injury from him. Therein lies the dilemma.

As coaches, we have to rely on what our players tell us regarding injuries. We can try to test it, of course, but without formal medical training we’re really just guessing. The mind can be a powerful thing, even when it comes to pain. If a player wants to play bad enough, she may be able to push pain out of her mind in order to stay on the field.

The problem is pain is there for a reason. It’s our body’s way of warning us that something is wrong, and that we should cease whatever we’re doing before it gets worse. When we ignore those signs we do so at our own peril.

While there is a very small percentage of coaches who would knowingly allow a player to play with a major injury if they thought it meant winning a big game or a tournament, most would not. The key word is knowingly.

In the end, you have to follow your gut. I’ve certainly allowed players to play on serious injuries because I’ve wanted to believe them when they said they weren’t hurt too badly. But somewhere deep down inside I knew.

Players who are wincing every time they perform a skill, or who are favoring an arm, leg, or whatever are hurt enough to come out. Better to get them out now than risk more serious damage to their careers or their bodies down the road. They may not like it, but there’s a point where you cease being tough and instead are just being stupid.

By the way, this also applies to heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Players who are sick to their stomachs, dizzy, pale, etc. have no place on the field. Take care of them even when they’re not willing to take care of themselves. It’s your responsibility as coach.

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.