Category Archives: General Thoughts
Very proud of one of my students
A rare double post from me today, but this is worth calling out. Tonight I had a lesson with one of my hitting students, a high school junior named Emma. We had a great session – she ought to have an amazing season crushing the ball – and after I got home I texted her mom to let her know how well Emma was doing. That’s when I heard a story that trumped softball.
After her lesson, Emma stopped at Starbuck’s before heading home. While she was there an elderly woman pulled in and parked in the middle of the parking lot. She seemed confused, so Emma stopped to talk to her.
Emma quickly recognized the woman was having trouble, and contacted the police to get some help. Turns out the woman suffers from Alzheimer’s and didn’t know where she was – or how to get home. Emma stayed with her until the police came, talking with her and comforting her.
We hear a lot about what’s wrong with the younger generation. We sometimes focus too much on how well a kid can hit or pitch a yellow ball. Tonight shows the world is going to be alright as long as there are people like Emma in the world. She’s a winner no matter what she does on the field this season.
Daylight Saving Time – yes or no?
This might seem a bit of an unusual topic for a softball blog but bear with me. Over the past few days (because of the changeover this weekend – hope you changed your clocks) I’ve been hearing a lot of talk in the media about getting rid of Daylight Saving Time (DST).
As a longtime softball coach, I would hate to see that happen. Wouldn’t you? Yeah, it’s kind of a pain to lose an hour of sleep in the first weekend of March. But the tradeoff is more softball time at night in the summer.
Where I live, for most of the summer it stays light outside until about 9:00. That means plenty of light to start a game at 6:00 and have it go for two hours without lights on the field. Even if it goes a couple of extra innings there’s plenty of extra light.
But without DST, by the time late July comes along you’d be pushing it to have enough light to finish a two-hour game. That seems wrong.
We have a summer sport. We need the extra daylight. If you’re given the opportunity to take a poll, be sure you say “yes” to DST!
So what have you been hearing? Would losing DST affect your season?
How To Make Yourself Stand Out At Softball Tryouts
Editor’s note: Next week begins high school tryouts in many states. This guest post by Brandon Capaletti, vice president of Cisco Athletic, offers some timely tips on how to have a successful tryout.
Tryouts can be a nerve-wracking process. Players are being scrutinized en masse, coaches are assessing needs and talent levels, and families are trying to determine if certain programs are worth the commitment (and money, in some cases).
Whether your daughter is attending tryouts for her high school softball team or a fall/summer travel squad, keep the following tips in mind during what often can be a grueling and anxiety-filled process:
- Punctuality. Be on time. In fact, subscribe to the following credo: Early is on time, on time is late. That means cleats on, and glove/bat/helmet at the ready come starting time. Don’t give coaches and evaluators a reason to put a check mark next to your name for the wrong reason before tryouts start.
- Hustle. Any coach worth his or her salt values hustle and effort. Coaches will notice when you hustle (during drills and when moving from station to station) and when you don’t hustle. Hustle, which doesn’t require talent, says something about your character and level of desire.
- Listen/pay attention. In addition to assessing skills, evaluators will want to know: Are you coachable? Looking a coach in the eyes and following directions are imperative in athletics. Appearing disinterested or staring off into the distance while a coach is speaking and giving instructing can be construed as disrespectful. If you can’t or won’t listen to a coach during tryouts, the coach is likely to think you’ll do the same as a member of the team.
- Be the boss. On the field, a player needs to trust her instincts and preparation — and take ownership of her tryout. Nothing turns off a coach or evaluator more than a player who constantly looks to a parent for guidance — or a meddling parent who wants to “coach” from the other side of the fence. Those are red flags. A player who asserts her independence is an intriguing and valued prospect.
- State your desired positions: While the coach ultimately is responsible for deciding where you play should you make the team, it’s important that you get a look at the positions you prefer or have played in the past. Many tryouts require registration, which often provides an opportunity to list preferred positions. It’s especially important that pitchers and catchers get a chance to be seen at those positions.
- Avoid comparisons. It’s human nature for players to gauge how they stack up to their so-called competition at tryouts. Comparing arm strength, speed, fielding adeptness and hitting ability is natural, but try to concentrate more on what YOU do well rather than how other players perform. Be confident in your ability, and focus on the tasks at hand. Concern yourself with what you can control; don’t worry about what is out of your control.
- Stay positive/confident. Don’t overreact to mistakes — physical or mental. Coaches evaluate demeanor as well as ability, and no coach expects a perfect tryout from any player. A capable and experienced evaluator can see through physical mistakes (i.e., fielding errors, bad throws, swings and misses) to determine a good ball player. Show evaluators resilience in that you can bounce back from a mistake to make a good play. Maintain positive body language as well.
- Have fun! No matter what level, athletic competition is supposed to be enjoyable. Especially at tryouts, show evaluators that you are having fun playing a game that you love. Enjoy the experience as much as possible, even while you’re competing hard within a sometimes pressure-packed situation.
Softball players put in many hours of practice and preparation, many calling on the services of private instructors. Due diligence away from the field optimizes a player’s chances of performing well on the field. Trust what you know, believe in what you’ve worked on and let it all hang out in tryouts — the rest will take care of itself.
Brandon Capaletti is the vice president of Cisco Athletic, an athletic apparel manufacturer that designs, produces and distributes custom uniforms.
The importance of rest and recovery for athletes
Just read an interesting and worthwhile article by Arizona coach Mike Candrea for his Liberty Mutual Play Positive monthly column. The topic was sports injuries and how to prevent or at least minimize them.
In the column Candrea talks about some of the causes, especially in softball. He says most injuries in our sport are not the result of something occurring on the field, but of overuse. He points to his own experience where a career-ending elbow injury requiring surgery was the result of over-use in Little League.
One of the big points he brings up, and the one I want to focus on today, is the need for rest and recovery. Today in youth sports there seems to be a focus on playing as many games as we can. When we’re not playing we’re practicing, and when we’re not practicing we’re expected to be conditioning, or doing speed an agility, or doing something else to get better.
All of those are good things, but you can get too much of a good thing too. The importance of rest and recovery time cannot be overstated. This article from the American College of Sports Medicine says, “Rest is a critical component to any good workout routine and time spent allowing the body to recover is a great way to prevent injuries. A rest day must occur at least one to two times per week. Even small breaks during a workout are sometimes required to get the most out of the workout and prevent injuries.”
This article from Stack gets more into the specifics of overtraining. Among the points it makes is that muscles that are worked hard tend to have their proteins break down. If the athlete isn’t allowed to rest the protein continues to break down and put the athlete at risk of injury.
While these things apply to any athlete, they particularly apply to youth athletes whose bodies are still growing and changing. They need recovery time – rest, not just a lighter workout – to avoid injury.
As parents and coaches, it is our responsibility to ensure our athletes have the rest and recovery time they need – even if that makes us unpopular, or goes against the grain of what everyone else is doing.
If you’re an athlete you need to listen to your body. Don’t just try to “tough it out.” You’re not training to be a Navy SEAL or Army Ranger. Speak up if you can’t go. Again, it might not make you popular, and it might cost you playing time today. But better that you’re still able to play a few years from now than to allow some fanatic to ruin your career.
It’s not being lazy. It’s being smart. Listen to the experts. A few less games or practices might be just what the doctor ordered.
Another option in the fight against breast cancer
As you’re no doubt aware (how could you miss it?) October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Here’s a fun way to make a contribution – especially if you like wearing pink.
The Custom Sock Shop is running a Sock It To Cancer campaign through the end of the month. They have five different options, and will donate 10% of every purchase to the fight against breast cancer.
Congratulations to Jan Pauly, new VHHS varsity softball coach
Today’s post will be fairly meaningless to many of you, but I wanted to share some good news with the rest. My friend and fellow IOMT Castaways coach told us this week that she has been named the new varsity head coach at Vernon Hills High School.
I’ve known Jan for several years, starting from when I coached her daughter Erin, and I can tell you Vernon Hills has found themselves a winner in several ways. First, Jan is very knowledgeable about the game. She played through high school and college, and coached travel ball for several years. the good thing about her is that she doesn’t just rely on the way things used to be, but also keeps up with the current thinking on the game.
More importantly, though, she genuinely cares about the players in her charge. Not just as softball players but as people. She’s a huge believer in team over individual glory, although if an individual has a problem or concern, softball or otherwise, they can bring it to her.
Of course, no discussion of Coach Jan would be complete without talking about how intense she is during games. She can look like she’s pretty angry at times, especially if things aren’t going right. But she’s not angry, actually. She’s just focused. Once players understand that I’m sure they’ll enjoy playing for her – and learning from her.
I’m personally looking forward to seeing what she does with team. So congratulations, Jan! I know you’ll be great.
Farewell to Ernie Parker
Last week the softball world lost one of its greats – pitching coach Ernie Parker. While he hasn’t been tremendously visible the last few years – which means younger readers may not recognize the name – he was extremely influential in the careers of a lot of pitchers and coaches. Including this one.
Back in the pre-Internet days it was difficult to find quality information on anything softball-related. Which is likely one of the reasons there was such a disparity between teams in Southern California and everywhere else in the country. Ernie’s video series was one of the first to explain the techniques for “California-style” pitching, i.e., explosive speed with dynamic ball movement.
Most of us non-Californians, especially those of us in the Midwest, hadn’t seen anything like it and had no idea how it was done. But through his videos (at that time on VHS) Ernie gave the rest of us some valuable clues on what the techniques should look like and ideas on how to teach them.
Not to say he necessarily got everything right. In those early videos he talked about the importance of “slamming the door,” or bringing the hips around, to finish the pitch. I spoke to him by phone a couple of years ago about that and he said he had long since changed his stance on that, like any good pitching coach would. He also focused a lot on developing the purposeful wrist snap. That aside, though, there was enough great information to help those of us who knew nothing begin to learn.
For me, Ernie was particularly influential in learning to teach the backhand changeup and the curve. His video was the first place I saw a well-disguised changeup, and I still use several of the tips he provided. For the curve, his video was where I learned to use a Frisbee to get a pitcher started. Again, that is something I still do today.
Despite his stature and accomplishments, Ernie always had time for anyone who contacted him, and he would always give you a straight answer. I remember emailing him years ago, lamenting about the lack of effort from a couple of students with good potential and commenting on how nice it must be to be Ernie Parker and have all your students work hard. He responded that he wished it were true, but he had the same issues as everyone else. Some students worked hard and did well, others put in little effort – I supposed counting on his name to make them great.
I have to admit it made me feel a little better about my own efforts, and helped me to understand there’s only so much a coach can do. The player has to want it.
Ernie had a passion for the game, and for helping players become the best versions of themselves they could be. He will be missed by those of us who knew him and/or learned from him. Thanks and farewell, Ernie.
New look – courtesy of a former player
As you may have noticed, Life in the Fastpitch Lane has a new look in the header. Three of them, actually.
The new headers come courtesy of one of my former players – Tina Kliver. I’d seen some of her softball “still lifes” before, so when it came time for a new header I asked her if she could make some up for me. What you see here is the result.
Hope you like it. Thanks to Tina for all her hard work.
Please resubscribe
One more little housekeeping detail. Because of the move to WordPress, I believe you will need to resubscribe to receive notifications of posts in your email. You can do that by going to the sidebar on the right and clicking on Follow Blog by Email. Those of you who were subscribers I will appreciate you doing it again. Those who were not, but would like to be, can do it easily. And now you’ll receive immediately notice when there’s something new posted. I promise I will never sell your email address or use it for any nefarious purpose.
Thanks for hanging in there! Next post will be softball-related. I promise!
Welcome to my new blog site
Surprised? So was I when I found out my former blog supplier (GoDaddy) was shutting down their blog product. I’m sure they supplied plenty of notice but they send so much spam I usually ignore the emails. Luckily I saw it today, the last day to do something about it.
So here we are, now on WordPress. Which is probably for the better because it’s the king of this sort of thing.
While the location has changed, I can promise you’ll still get the same quality fastpitch softball thoughts, musings and ideas. For better or for worse. 🙂
So welcome! I look forward to continuing to serve you.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 