Category Archives: General Thoughts
Another great story of softball sportsmanship
A friend of mine turned me on to this story today. I think it’s one that everyone involved in our sport of fastpitch softball should read, because it’s both a positive message and the epitome of what sports can be when we take egos out of it.
The basic story is about a top-level high school softball team that had a game scheduled against an underprivileged school that was just starting a softball program. It had all the makings of a horrible blowout. But instead, the coach of the top-level school made a decision to take it in another direction. I don’t want to say more because I don’t want to give away such a heartwarming story. But it’s definitely worth a read.
Here in the Northern suburbs of Chicago there’s a team that’s very similar to the have-nots. They have very little budget, the families can’t afford good equipment or private lessons, and most of the girls have never played fastpitch softball before they step onto the varsity field. Most games end with them being run ruled by a huge score in the minimum amount of innings. Several area coaches use those games to help their kids pad their stats, and they proudly report the scores and how they got there as if it was a great accomplishment.
I hope some of our local high school coaches read this story and get an idea of something else they can do the next time their team meets the have-nots. The whole sport would be better for it.
I love it when the training takes hold
Had one of those experiences that makes a coach feel good — and guilty at the same time. We had a game today, with me coaching third.
We had runners on first and third, and there was a wild pitch. I sent the runner, who is not exactly fast, home as I could see the ball was slowly rolling back to the screen. I could see it was going to be a close play, so I stood there watching it like everyone else. The runner was safe at home on the toss. I then looked toward third, where I saw the runner who had been on first halfway between second and third, looking like she was not exactly sure if she should keep coming. I motioned for her to come and she was safe with no play.
It was a real heads-up play on the runner on first’s part. We’ve been talking about runners using their heads and making judgments on their own. We’ve also been talking about not settling for one base when you can get two. It was cool to see it actually happen.
The only negative was on me. While the play at home was going on, I stood their like a spectator. All I was missing was a box of popcorn and a Diet Coke. What I SHOULD have been doing was ignoring the play at home and looking to the trailing runner. Luckily, the runner was doing her job, even if I wasn’t.
With the A-Team movie coming up, I only have one thing to say about today’s play: I love it when a plan comes together!
Is Softball a Team Sport?
Guest post by Mike Hanscom
Softball is often a series of 1:1 battles. The pitcher against the batter or the runner against the fielder. I always used to say it was a team sport, because everyone else did too. Then I started coaching and realized it is all about individual match-ups and got away from believing it was a team sport. All you need to do is get a bunch of good individuals on the field at the same time so you can win more of those individual battles and then you will dominate, right? I mean, if you win more of those 1:1 battles, how could you not dominate?
I would watch the opponents warm up and know when their individuals were better than ours, or vice versa. I always knew the outcome of that game long before we played it, until we actually played it and it ended differently than I expected. For those games I would sit there afterwards trying to figure out what happened and why. I could pick out that certain player that made the critical error and privately put the blame on them, or on the #4 batter who struck out 3 times, or our pitcher who didn’t strike anyone out or the runner who got thrown out at the plate. There was always another reason nagging at me but I usually ignored it.
That feeling that I would ignore was the underlying feeling that we outplayed them as a team or vice versa. I wasn’t sure what that meant though – this sport is a bunch of individual battles – not a team effort. Seriously, how many players really get involved on a typical play? The pitcher pitches, the batter hits it, the fielder gloves it and throws to first. Four players on the average play, but it was all sequential. Nothing like football where you have running backs and lineman going one way and blocking just so you peel back and throw the opposite direction to a WR down the field. That’s at least 8-9 of the 11 players all doing things at one time to protect the QB, misdirect the defense, free up the WR – now that is teamwork!
Luckily I was an assistant then and simply helped out where I could, and luckily I had other coaches to help show me what it meant to be a team before I became a head coach. I realized that the feeling I was ignoring was the ability to have each player moving at the same time to accomplish a specific task.
I previously only saw the 4 players in the typical play. Now I was understanding that what I was missing was the right fielder moving to back-up the throw, the left and center fielders running to back-up the SS, the 2nd baseman covering 2nd in case the ball gets away and the runner continues to 2nd, the catcher yelling where to go with the ball, the third baseman staying close to the SS in case the ball caroms off the SS.
That is 8-9 out of 9 players involved on the play. Huh, now that is teamwork! That is what I’ve been feeling! Those good teams, they are the ones who have it all synchronized, their players are on the same page and move on every play – nobody is just standing there. Softball isn’t just about teaching the typical play, it is about teaching the kids how to plan for mistakes and what to do when mistakes happen – because they WILL happen. Sounds like a life-lesson if you can teach them to do that for life too.
It is teamwork that prevents the big innings, the big errors. If your left fielder isn’t backing up SS, how far does that grounder that went through the SS’s legs roll and where does that runner stop? Does she score because of it? With teamwork that runner stops at first.
Teamwork is that sac bunt that moves a runner over to get her closer to home to try to get that winning run in. It is that solid hit off the pitcher that gets the bats going because hitting is contagious. It is the batter who struck out on 3 pitches, who comes back to the dugout with her head held high (as opposed to sulking or crying) and tells the next batter what pitches to expect or how they move so she now has a better chance to get those bats going. It is that 2nd baseman yelling the runner is going so the catcher knows to throw her out. It is that catcher acting as a field general yelling where plays are to go that enable good plays to happen. It is the 1st baseman going out for a cut-off to prevent the tying run from coming in. If your kids are doing these types of things on a regular basis, then you are coaching a team and not a group of individuals.
You can see it in the teams that have good teamwork – there is a flow to them with how they warm up, how they encourage each other, how they huddle, how they communicate with each other on the field, how they know where to be in each situation.
Some say it is good coaching, I say it is teamwork, I say it is attitude. Some kids don’t get it – they are there for themselves and don’t care about the team and you can usually see those attitudes from far away. They are the ones standing there without a role after the play has broken down.
You know the kids who have the team attitude and give the extra effort. Not in stretching a single into a double, but the ones who help the other players become better players, team players. Those are the ones who help define that group as a team. They are the kids who others listen to and want to learn from, not necessarily in technique, but in how to make the group of kids work together as a synchronized unit, as a team. You need those kids to help the team be the best it can be. They are the ones who in the end can make the difference between winning and losing.
So if you feel you have a good group of individuals on your squad, then you are probably winning games because you win more of those individual battles (or a bunch of those games if you have that untouchable pitcher and you only need to score one run per game). Are you dominating though, or at least winning the ones you should? If not, then take a look at your kids and decide if you have a group of individuals or a team. If you have a group of individuals, then find those kids who can help you make it a team and get them working on it. If you are one of the better clubs in your area, then I bet you already have those team players on your team and are one of the better teams out there.
Game for building communications skills
A few weeks ago the team I’m helping coach now played a practice game. I wasn’t able to attend the game due to a prior commitment, but I did get a report from one of the other coaches. He said one thing the girls had trouble with was communication on the field. Hard to believe, but our girls just weren’t talking.
I told him I have an idea how to take care of it, and asked him to tell the girls to bring a long scarf with them to the next practice. It was a game I improvised that would force them to communicate — a lot. We were going to be in a gym that day so it would be perfect.
When the time came I told them all to get their scarves out. Well, all but two players. I had them wrap the scarves around their eyes so they couldn’t see, and we proceeded to have a little soccer game with a beach ball. To score a goal, a player had to kick the ball over the baseline and betwen the lines of the lane.
In reality, it was really more like foosball. The two girls who didn’t have blindfolds — one on each side — had to direct all the other girls what to do. I told them to be sure they called the player’s name, and be specific.
It was something to see. There was a lot of talking and running around. Yes, there were some bumps and falls along the way but nothing serious.We had a couple of different “captains” on each team at different times, so a good 1/3 of our team had the chance to work on their communication skills. The girls had a lot of fun, and they learned a good lesson on the importance of communication — as well as some specifics on how to communicate.
Today I found out that a couple of the girls had told their middle school coaches about the game, and they’re apparently going to do it in their practices. Gotta love when something off the top of your head becomes a big hit!
Once again, the dreaded tunnel
It’s been a while since I’ve written about this, and quite frankly I thought it was gone for good. But a couple of weekends ago I was out at a game, watching, not participating in any way, and at the end something horrible reared its ugly head for the first time in a long time (at least that I know of). It was the dreaded “tunnel.”
For those not familiar with it, it’s something the winning team does after the game. The players divide themselves into two lines facing each other, and raise their arms above their heads. They then start banging hands with the person across from them, all the while chanting “We are proud of you, we are proud of you.”
That in and of itself doesn’t sound so bad. But it’s where they do it. They stand at the entrance of their opponent’s dugout, and force the losing team to walk through this tunnel of arms and bodies to get back to their stuff.
Coaches who do it like to claim it’s a tribute to their opponents. But everyone (including them) knows it’s really not. In fact, it’s a way of celebrating your own victory while rubbing it in the noses of the team that just lost. They may be chanting “We are proud of you” but what they’re really saying is “We just kicked your butts, we just kicked your butts.”
I have no problem with a team celebrating its victory. But you don’t do it on your opponent’s side of the field. You do it on your own side, and leave your opponents completely out of it. To hold your celebration on the other side is a direct insult. If you don’t believe that, imagine if the University of Washington had run to Arizona’s dugout a couple of weeks ago, made a tunnel, and started chanting how proud they were of their defeated opponents. Likely you would’ve seen a full-on fistfight break out.
If I am the losing coach (and again I had nothing to do with this particular game), I don’t really care if you are proud of me. Your opinion means nothing to me. My team and I want to clean up the dugout, leave the area, and go do whatever it is we do after a game. To have to walk through your outstreteched arms is not on my list of things to do.
When my son Eric was in soccer, there was a tunnel there too. But in that case it was created by his team’s parents, and our own players would run under it. It was created in front of his team’s bench. I have no problem with that, and had no problem with it when other teams did the same thing. That was a self-contained celebration instead of an “in-your-face” show of superiority. Again, the boys probably knew better than to try doing that on someone else’s side.
Getting back to softball, I’ve always hated the tunnel. We didn’t do it, and quite frankly when it was more popular I told my girls to walk around it rather than go through it. Some of the parents on our team thought it was poor sportsmanship on my part at first until I explained about celebrating on your own side of the field. They got it, and supported the decision going forward.
One year at a meeting of the weekday travel league we played in I made it clear to the other coaches I didn’t want to see it and wouldn’t let my players go through it, so don’t bother. They all agreed it really wasn’t a good thing, and I thought it had finally disappeared. Until last weekend.
You can try to justify it all you want. But it’s just not sportsmanlike to rub your opponent’s face in a loss — which is what you’re really doing. If you’re doing it, stop. If you’re faced with it, you can make your own decision. But I recommend walking around/ignoring it. It’s the only way to make it stop for good.
What a way to wake up
Yesterday I was standing outside in a light jacket, watching a scrimmage between the JV and varsity at my local high school. This morning I woke up to the below. Tell me again why I live in Illinois?
Girls throw like their fathers
This is more of an observation than anything else. But teaching as many pitching lessons as I do, I’ve had occasion to watch a lot of girls play catch with their fathers. And it’s amazing how closely the throwing mechanics of the daughter reflect those of her father.
If Dad stands face-forward and pushes the ball, so does his daughter. If Dad wraps his arm around his head when he throws, so does his daughter.
I don’t seem to recall that so much with boys. Not sure why — maybe boys receive more training at an early age, or perhaps they just spend more time throwing on their own. It’s my firm belief that to a boy, duck+rock=throwing practice. A girl would never draw the same conclusion.
In any case, whatever the reason, step back and watch sometime. You’ll see I’m right.
For those of you who are fathers, definitely keep that in mind. However you throw is how your daughter is likely to throw. So if you want your daughter to succeed, work on your own throw first. It could help shortcut her path to being the player she wants and needs to be.
What’s the deal with conditioning and HS tryouts?
This is the week for high school tryouts. And with it come the interesting stories.
I’ve heard from several of my students who told me that much of their tryouts were spent not showing their skills, but running, running running.
Not to go all Seinfeld on you, but what’s the deal with that? I know tryouts for the most part are perfunctory. Most teams, especially varsity teams, are chosen well in advance. Still, wouldn’t you think that coaches would want to take as long a look at the skills of their players as they can, to make sure no stone is left unturned?
All I can figure is they’re trying to weed out the girls who are just dabbling, or trying softball for the first time. That’s a shame. A school sport should be more inclusive, at least at the lower levels. Why make it miserable right off the bat?
Some schools have trouble even fielding teams at all levels. Running the girls to death is no way to get them out. It’s not that I’m anti-conditioning. It’s an important part of sports performance. But why not ease them into it? Or build up to it? After all, it’s not soccer or basketball. It doesn’t take all the much endurance to play our sport. Conditioning is not the game-changer it is in continuous motion sports.
Start with a reasonable amount and work your way up. Better yet, work conditioning into skills training to maximize your efficiency. With a little effort and imagination it can be done. And that way, you’re not turning off kids who might otherwise be able to make a real contribution to the team.
The Olympics just don’t dig team sports
This morning in the newspaper I saw a story about the woes of women’s hockey in the Olympics. They were talking about how the Canadians and Americans dominated the competition, and how as a result the International Olympic Committee is considering taking women’s hockey out of the Winter Games.
Sounds familiar? It should. It was essentially the reason our sport was removed from the Summer Games. The perception was that the USA dominated the sport and so it should be removed for one that would give more countries a chance.
After reading this morning’s story it hit me. The problem isn’t softball or hockey. It’s bigger than that. The Olympics really don’t like team sports. Or put another way, they prefer individual sports.
Think about it. With an individual sport, you just need one good individual to compete for a medal. A country that hasn’t had much success in a particular sport can turn its fortunes around with a single outstanding athlete.
But it takes a lot more with a team sport. Take fastptich softball. You have nine players on the field who have to have outstanding individual skills plus the ability to play together as a single unit. It also helps to have a couple of dominant pitchers in the bullpen in addition to the one in the circle.
In the US, that’s not tough to find. We have a huge pool of top-level players to choose from. Same with Japan, China and Taiwan. All have viable softball programs. But in many other countries it can be tough to round up 15 elite-level softball players. Most have a few holes in the linup and as a result they just can’t compete.
In hockey it’s even worse, in my opinion, because you don’t have starters and bench players (other than in the goal). On a 20-person roster, 19 of them are likely to see a lot of ice time. Other countries may be able to find a few top quality hockey players. But with one-minute rotations on the ice they’re likely to have large chunks of time when they don’t match up with the world’s best.
The IOC sees that, and that’s why they seem to look for reasons to drop team sports. They replace softball (team) with golf (individual). True, they did add a form of rugby, but it wasn’t a full-team version. It was a short-sided version — easier to gather up a few good players than a bunch.
I don’t have a solution. Wish I did but I don’t. The IOC wants to spread the wealth when it comes to medals, and that’s easier to do with individual sports. Guess we’ll just have to settle for the non-Olympic championships — at least until there’s a change in thinking at the IOC. Perhaps someday they’ll realize that the people want to see excellence and entertainment no matter who is delivering it. Then we’ll stand a chance of getting our sport back in the Olympics.
Almost time for HS softball
Wow! It’s hard to believe Monday is March already. It seems like just a couple of weeks ago I was goofing off on Christmas vacation, staying up way too late and sleeping in until morning. But now Shamrock Shakes are available at McDonalds (although I’m not a big fan of the whipped cream and cherry) and at least here in Illinois girls are preparing for HS tryouts.
It’s been an interesting week. The time was spent getting pitchers ready to go in and show what they can do. (None of my current hitting students are in high school just yet.)
I’m actually looking forward to this HS season. My kids are all out of HS now so I don’t have a family interest in it. But I am looking forward to getting out and seeing my students play. Yes, HS ball can be maddeningly bad (and maddenly political). Still, there’s something fun about seeing kids compete for the glory of their schools.
The only thing that worries me is the weather. Right now there’s close to a foot of snow on the fields, and more on the way. It might melt by March 24, which is the first scheduled game for our local HS. But even if it does I’m not sure the fields will be too playable. Too bad, too, because one of my students is opening against that local HS, which would be awfully convenient for me.
Oh well, it has to melt sometime. Doesn’t it?
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 