Category Archives: General Thoughts
Congratulations to Wisconsin pitcher Kirsten Stevens
Huge congratulations are in order for University of Wisconsin – Madison pitcher Kirsten Stevens on being named the Big Ten Pitcher of the Week. Can’t say it comes as a surprise, though, after the weekend she had. 
Kirsten toss not one but two shutouts in earning her third and fourth wins on the season. And this after being sidelined for most of the off-season with a broken foot.
When the accident first occurred it looked like the Badger might miss the first part of the season. But with a strong work ethic and help from the Wisconsin coaching staff and trainers, she beat the prognostications and is back on the field.
And what a pre-season it’s been. Kirsten is currently sporting a miniscule ERA of 0.28, which is what happens when you’ve only allowed one run for the season so far. Over the weekend she also had a personal best 11 strikeouts against Hofstra, continuing the blistering pace for Ks she set as a goal before the year.
And the best part? Kirsten is one of the nicest human beings you’ll ever meet. Always with a smile on her face, always remembering to have fun, and always making time to speak with and encourage the young players who look up to her (literally as well as figuratively) when she meets them.
All we can say here is keep up the good work! And again, congratulations to both you and the team who helped you achieve a well-earned honor.
5 Tips for dealing with difficult parents as a youth softball coach
In the mockumentary All Stars, at one point the frustrated coach of a girls 10U fastpitch softball team tells his wife “The ideal team is one where all the parents are dead.” While that may be a bit extreme, it can be challenging for youth coaches – especially volunteer coaches – to deal with parents. In this guest post, writer Jessica Kane of SteelLocker Sports offers some advice on how coaches can deal with parents more successfully. 
In this day in age, fastpitch softball and other youth sports coaches struggle with so many different components that are not necessarily associated with the game. Emotional health of their athletes, physical health and abilities of their athletes, but most of all, parent interactions. Generally speaking, these youth coaches are volunteers who are also likely parents of a child on the team themselves who have minimal formal coach training and are trying to give the athletes the best experience they can. Here are a few tips for dealing with difficult parents.
1. Ask the parents what they want.
More often than not, these coaches are volunteer parents who are out there to pass on knowledge of past playing greatness they once had. As a result, most of these coaches have other professions and are not there to be a sounding board for the parent group. They are there for the kids first and foremost. When interacting with parents, it is essential that coaches establish quickly what the issue is and what the parent hopes to get out of the discussion. Setting boundaries about what coaches will and will not discuss with parents helps guide both parties during conversations. Asking the question, “what is it that you want to see as a result of this conversation?” helps establish an end goal and thus creates a working platform for both parties.
2. Let the kids speak for themselves.
It is important for athletes to learn life skills. Having a conversation with an authority figure (who is not their parent) allows for young athletes to practice many skills they will use throughout life. If a player is unhappy about their playing time, it is crucial to allow them to attempt to communicate with their coach first before parent involvement. Encourage the athlete to discuss their concern about play time, team dynamics, injuries, timing, etc. with their coach independently first so they can practice asking questions and listening and responding appropriately to questions, developing trust between coach and athlete, dealing with disappointment appropriately, and other extremely valuable life skills.
3. Trust the coach to know the sport.
Coaches now are heavily screened and required to know the rules of the game and what that means for their athletes. Trust the coach to develop practice plans, game plans, and outside activities that will benefit the team on and off the competitive area. As parents, you know your child, but as coaches, they know the game. Trust them to do their job effectively.
4. Set a good example.
As a parent it is critical that you set a good example for your child. Screaming at them from the sidelines rarely yields desired results. Typically, this type of behavior embarrasses the athlete and may cause their development to falter as they are constantly worried about what their parent will say in the car or yell from the sidelines. Encourage your athlete. Let them start the conversation on the way home and don’t try to over coach them.
5. Don’t live vicariously through your child.
Many parents today work so hard to afford to put their child into a sports activity. Once they do, they feel very tied to each event. Keep in mind that while as a parent you help fund these activities, they are for fun and for the benefit of the child. Less than 1% of youth athletes are able to make a strong living from athletics as a profession. Allow your child to develop a long love of the game by encouraging them rather than pushing them into burn out.
Jessica Kane is a writer for SteelLocker Sports. A leading provider of sporting goods, softball equipment and training programs for coaches, players, parents and institutions with a primary focus on youth sports.
Yes, there can be such a thing as winning too much
Let’s face it. Whether your activity of choice is fastpitch softball, soccer, basketball, auto racing, marching band competitions, tiddlywinks or something else, everyone loves winning. As Nuke LaLoosh says in Bull Durham, “I love winning. It’s so much better than losing.” (Warning: the full quote is NSFW so turn down the volume.)
Yet there can be a thing as winning too much. This is something a lot of parents (and some coaches) don’t seem to understand.
In America in particular, we tend to measure success in terms of wins and losses. The more you win, the better you are, right?
Not necessarily, because there’s another factor that comes into play – the level of competition. Think about it this way: how much satisfaction do you get out of winning a game of tic-tac-toe? Probably not much, because once you learn a few basic moves is only possible if your opponent makes a really, really stupid mistake.
Or if you are an adult, how much satisfaction would you get out of beating a 6 year old at one-on-one basketball, or chess, or ping pong, or pretty much anything else? Not much, because there’s no challenge.
And that’s the key to what I’m saying. If your team wins every tournament it goes to, especially if it goes undefeated every weekend (or even worse dominates every game) it’s not that the team is so great. It’s that you’re not playing the right level of competition.
You don’t get better if you’re not challenged. Winning a tournament shouldn’t be easy. It should be really hard. If you’re winning more than 60% of your games, 75% at most, you’re playing the wrong teams.
Sure, it’s fun to get those shiny plastic trophies, or medals, or t-shirts, or whatever they’re handing out these days as prizes. You have the big ceremony at the end, everyone takes pictures and maybe goes out for dinner afterward. But how special is it if it happens every weekend? Not very.
Keep in mind that iron is forged in fire. That’s what shapes it into something useful. Fastpitch softball players are the same way.
In order for them to get better, they need to play competition that is either at their skill level or better. It’s what will challenge them and force them to go beyond their current skill level. It’s also what keeps it interesting and makes the wins when they come extra satisfying.
Because you’ll know you didn’t just beat up on some lesser team. Instead, you put something on the line – the very real possibility of losing – and came out the other side on top. Your players probably learned a little something along the way, too.
The same goes for making it to every championship game, by the way, even if you don’t win. That just means one other team was probably in the wrong tournament too.
It can be tough to lose. Another of my favorite baseball movie quotes comes from Moneyball: “I hate losing. I hate losing even more than I wanna win.”
But that’s a good thing. If you’re concerned about losing, you will work harder to make sure it doesn’t happen. And you will get better. If losing isn’t a real concern, however, you’ll probably let up and your skills won’t develop. And that will catch up with you one day.
Parents, especially today’s parents, like to see their children succeed. But that doesn’t mean they should shelter them from losing, which is what you’re doing when winning becomes so important that failure to win every game at every tournament means you start looking for a new team that will.
Again, shoot for that 60-75% winning percentage and you can be pretty sure your favorite player is being challenged and growing as player. It will also mean that the fruits of victory will taste ever so much sweeter.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane Makes the List
Had to share this with all of you, because it’s always nice to be included. This blog, Life in the Fastpitch Lane, was recently featured in a blog post from Decker Sports highlighting their picks for the 7 Best Softball Blogs to Follow. Wow, that’s a lot of “blogs” in one paragraph. 
It really does feel good to be selected to the list, especially looking at some of the others that made it. Unlike coaching, where you can see and measure the results with each session, blogging is kind of a solitary activity. You throw things out there you find interesting and/or helpful, and hope it resonates with at least one other person. But unless someone leaves a comment (hint, hint) you just never know for sure.
So it’s great to see the kind words the folks at Decker Sports shared. From the beginning, my goal has been to make Life in the Fastpitch Lane helpful and informative. Despite the fact that I’ve been coaching girls fastpitch softball for more than 20 years now, I still learn new things every day.
I credit not only other coaches in the field but also my students. They’re constantly driving me to come up with new ways to explain something, or to create new drills and ideas to help them learn. One of the biggest challenges is trying to get into the head of each individual to understand why she is (or isn’t) doing what she’s doing, what it feels like or looks like or sounds like to her, so I can teach her in a way that will work for her and more importantly help her achieve success on the field.
That can be challenging enough with an older player. It can be mind-boggling for an old coot like me to try to think like an 8 year old girl. Yet that’s what also keeps it fun and exciting. I hope I never get to the point where everything just works automatically the first time all the time. How boring would that be?
So as I discover new ideas and approaches, I will continue to share those insights with you. If each post helps just one softball player achieve success and feel better about herself, it’s more than worth the time and electrons.
And thank you again to the folks at Decker Sports. Be sure to check out their website for the softballs and training products they offer, and their blog for more training tips.
Evidence of the value of team sports
Those of us involved in team sports such as fastpitch softball like to talk about all the benefits they provide. Most of the time, however, it has been more opinion and belief than anything that could be proved.
The folks at Ohio University have done some research and put together an infographic that shows both the value of participating in team sports (based on survey information) as well as some data on an apparent decline in participation in team sports in high school. The culprits, as you might suspect, include obesity, spending too much time in front of screens (TV, texting, surfing the Internet, etc.) and aggressive coaches who created a poor experience.
The full infographic is below. Definitely worth a look – including the evaluation at the end.
Why you should never let anyone else set your limitations
If you’ve been a regular Life in the Fastpitch Lane reader, you know I love inspirational stories about real softball players. Not just the ones who make all the headlines, but also those who you may not see on TV but inspire anyway.
(If you’re not a regular reader, be sure to search through some older posts!)
Today is a great example. I first met Kaylee Arendt when she played for me at 14U. She
Hope College’s Kaylee Arendt, with her parents Roger and Deanna, show what can be done when you don’t let others set your limitations.
actually didn’t show very well in her first day of tryouts, probably because she was nervous, but she really wanted to make the team so she came back the next day and made a great showing.
I had the pleasure of coaching her that season, and also working with her in private lessons. I found her to be a coach’s dream – engaged, driven and very coachable.
A couple of years later she started playing high school ball. The varsity coach there (who I am happy to report was finally let go this year) didn’t seem to agree with my assessment. Despite the fact that Kaylee had tremendous power and a great attitude, he flat out told her that she would never play varsity softball. She just wasn’t good enough and never would be, according to him.
That might have devastated a lot of players and cause them to leave the game. Not Kaylee. She did quit playing HS ball, but she continued to play during the summers. Her goal was to play in college.
As you can probably tell by the accompanying photo, that goal was achieved with the support of her parents Roger and Deanna. She played at another school her freshman year, and is now playing first base for Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Go Flying Dutchmen! (Unfortunately the roster hasn’t been updated yet.)
I heard she had a strong fall ball season, and I have no doubt she’ll be tearing it up come spring!
This is an important lesson for any softball player. Softball is a game of adversity and disappointment. Even when you’re doing well you’re often failing more than you succeed, especially at the plate. It takes a special kind of person to play this game at all. But if you believe in yourself, and work hard, you can overcome the obstacles that get in your way. That applies to life in general too, by the way.
Personally, I’m happy to see Kaylee doing so well, and I thank her mom Deanna for allowing me to share her story. If you’re a player who maybe didn’t make the team you wanted, or aren’t getting on the field as much as you would like, or have been told you don’t have what it takes, remember this story.
Don’t be defined by what others think. Just keep working and pursuing your goals. You may just surprise a lot of people, and wind up on the winning side after all.
Sports administration not just a boy’s game anymore
With today being the last day of Women in Sports Week, it seemed like this would be a good way to finish it out – talking about opportunities for women in sports administration. Once the almost exclusive enclave of men, more women are now finding success off the field in sports. – Ken
Guest post by Ohio University’s Athletic Administration Program.
While men outnumber women in sports administration roles, Women’s Sports Week celebrates the females who are quickly moving into higher positions in the industry. With the fact that ESPN now has 48 female anchors, reporters, analysts, and contributors, they’re also paving the way for a new generation of younger women who want to hold professional positions in the industry.
Starting at the college level, intercollegiate athletics programs are experiencing an increased female presence. Of the 969 NCAA D1 head coaches for 2014-15, 40.2% are women with field hockey, lacrosse, equestrian, golf, and fast pitch softball leading the way. Keep in mind, however, that men coach over 43% of women’s teams while women coach only 3% of men’s teams.
One way to help increase female representation in athletic administration and professional roles is to provide these girls with successful role models like Mary Alice Hill, the first female Athletic Director in the country. She also played an instrumental role in obtaining the first NCAA scholarships for female athletes, 75 years after the NCAA was created.
To learn more about the growing female presence in the business sides of the sports industry, check out this visual resource created by Ohio University’s Athletic Administration program.
The growth of women’s sports in America
Guest post by Ohio University’s Athletic Administration Program.
As women’s sports gain more fans it isn’t surprising that just last year the women’s College World Series averaged almost 440,000 more viewers than the men’s College World Series. In celebration of the growing popularity of women’s sports, and Women’s Sports Week, here’s a look at the big impact women are making in athletics.
Girls’ participation in sports has grown an average of 50% a year over the last 5 years. In fact, there were over 364,000 high school girls participating in fast pitch softball during the 2014-2015 school year.
Athletic clothing and shoe companies have taken notice and have geared television campaigns specifically towards women for the first time. With half of shoppers on the NBA online site coming from the female population and sales of $5 billion on Nike’s women’s athletic wear in 2014, this group is clearly becoming powerful.
To learn more about the evolution of women’s sports, check out the visual resource below created by Ohio University’s Athletic Administration Program.
Defense can make a fastpitch pitcher look good – or bad
While it may same rather obvious on the surface, after watching the National Pro Fastpitch (NPF) championship game on TV I thought it might be worthwhile to bring it up again. It, of course, being the effect defense has on making a fastpitch pitcher look good or bad.
(By the way, kudos to my hometown team, the Chicago Bandits, for taking the title for the second year in a row.)
Normally at the NPF level you expect to see a lot of dominant pitching. While the pitching was good in this game, I wouldn’t call it dominant. The definition of dominant being a lot of strikeouts or weak infield hits. 
There were some of each, but there were also plenty of balls that got tagged pretty well; all three runs came off of solo home runs.
So in the absence of huge numbers of Ks, it becomes pretty obvious that the other 7 players who are not part of the battery had to step up to keep this a 2-1 game. If you watched the game you certainly saw that.
Which brings me to my point. The game ended 2-1, but the score could have easily been much higher were it not for some spectacular plays on both sides, both in the infield and outfield.
Those defenders made their pitchers look awfully good. And that’s ok, because I really believe the pitcher’s job isn’t to strike everyone out. That’s just fortunate when it happens. Instead, a pitcher’s job is to induce weak contacts that are easy to field.
In other words, the perfect inning isn’t 9 pitches for three Ks. It’s 3 pitches, all easy popups to 1st base so the first baseman can just pick up the ball and step on the bag if she drops it.
So contrast that defensive performance with others I’ve seen or heard about over the years, where the pitcher does her job. But instead of weak grounders or popups resulting in outs, they result in runners on base because of errors or lack of effort on the fielders’ part.
And what happens after a few of those? The coach calls time, heads out to the circle, and replaces the pitcher (who hasn’t made an error yet). It’s clearly not the pitcher’s fault, but I guess it’s easier to replace one pitcher than four defensive players.
So in the stats as well as in live action the pitcher ends up looking bad. Especially if those errors get marked as hits. (Anyone ever seen a box score that showed one error when you know there were at least 6? I sure have, especially in high school games.)
The thing is, having a porous defense doesn’t just have a short-term effect on the team, i.e., losing a game or a tournament. It also has a long-term effect. Because good pitchers don’t want to look bad, or have to work overtime every game to get three outs. So what happens? Good pitchers will leave, and tell other good pitchers why. Then it gets tough to get good pitchers, so the team has to settle for lesser pitchers, who give up more contacts that turn into even more baserunners. Then you’re in the death spiral.
Here’s another way to think of it. What coach would sign up for a tournament where the rules stated certain teams would be given 6 offensive outs per inning while theirs only got 3? You’d have to be crazy to agree to that. But that’s what happens when the team can’t play good defense behind their pitcher. And that makes it tough to win.
So while it’s easy to blame the pitcher, or give too much credit for that matter, the reality is the better your defense is the better your pitching will look. Just ask the world champion Bandits.
The definition of sportsmanship – and class
This isn’t a fastpitch softball story, but it’s still one I found worth sharing because it demonstrates everything great about sports and what they teach you. Full disclosure: I am friends with Abbey D’Agostino’s uncle Tim and Aunt Janet Boivin so the story has a little extra impact for me.
If you haven’t heard, this happened during the women’s 5000 meter race at the Olympics. Everyone was running in a pack when Nikki (no relation to Hillary) Hamblin of New Zealand tripped, and the USA’s Abbey D’Agostino fell over her.
Understand that Abbey has waited a long time for this opportunity. If I recall correctly she just missed the cut for the 2012 Olympics while she was still in college, so making the team and having the opportunity to go for the gold was the fulfillment of a dream.
After falling like that, many runners would have just gotten up and tried to make up the time. That’s what being a competitor is supposedly all about. But Abbey saw that Nikki was hurt, and instead of taking off she stopped to help Nikki up off the ground and start running again.
Then, in an interesting turn, after both ran a few meters Abbey went down again. (Later we would discover she tore her ACL and meniscus when she fell originally. Nikki stopped to help her up, and the two of them proceeded to help each other finish the race. (Shades of Cool Runnings, eh?)
The other thing to understand is they weren’t friends before. They didn’t know each other at all. But they are bound together for life now.
We see a lot of negative things out there in the world. At softball parks we see all kinds of bad behavior from players, coaches, parents and fans. But this story is a reminder, on the biggest stage of all for most sports, of what it’s really all about.
If you’d like to learn more, here’s one of the many stories that have come out of this incident, complete with an interview of both runners.
Hopefully Abbey will be back on the track sooner rather than later and will have another shot at a medal. But if she never runs competitively again, she’s set an amazing standard for all athletes. Watch for the Disney movie in about five years. 🙂
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 