Category Archives: Instruction
If You Want Them to Learn, Let Them Struggle
Most people have heard the old saying, “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” But what happens when the man is having trouble learning how to fish?
He’s working at it, but not having much success. In the meantime he’s getting hungry.
What do you do? Take over and catch a fish for him so he doesn’t feel hungry anymore? Or let him continue to struggle until he gets the hang of it?
In my opinion, unless the hunger situation is growing dire, you should probably let him continue to figure it out for himself. Nothing like a little hunger pang to push the learning process along.
It’s the same with fastpitch softball skills – without the hunger part of course. It can be difficult to watch a player – especially one who is your child – struggle to learn a new skill.
We all want to see our kids be successful. We don’t want to see them in distress, or feeling confused, and we certainly don’t want to have them feel like they’re falling behind their peers.
So it’s tempting for a parent to jump in the minute their daughter doesn’t seem to be getting some new concept. It’s tempting for a coach to start firing off instructions after every repetition to try to force the learning process to go faster.
Believe me, I’ve done both of them.
But here’s my sincere advice to you: don’t. Instead, push down those protective instincts and let them struggle to learn whatever it is they’re supposed to learn.
Not because it’s acceptable to be mean to them, but because they will learn whatever it is better.
That’s not just me saying it. Learning experts across the spectrum will tell you that the struggle is a part of the process.
When we struggle to learn something, we have to dive deeper into it, giving us a better understanding of what we’re trying to do. Yes, it may take a little longer, but we will internalize it better, getting us to the unconscious competence state that enables the highest level of performance.
Neuroscience research shows that when learners struggle with a concept or a task, it changes the brain. Neural pathways are strengthened and become faster – a pretty important benefit when you consider the speed of our sport and the complex decision trees that have to be run through in most plays.
When players have to struggle through learning a skill they also tend to learn it at a deeper level, making it more repeatable over the long term.
Think about it this way: If you jump in and try to shortcut the learning process by giving players the answer instead of learning to solve the problem on their own, it may solve the short-term issue of them not being able to perform.
But you’re not exactly going to be able to do that for them when the game is on the line. If they haven’t internalized the solution themselves through their own struggles, they’re unlikely to be able to perform under pressure in the heat of the game.
So does that mean no coaching at all? Of course not. That would be a silly conclusion to come to.
It’s more a matter of once someone explains what needs to be done, give the player time to understand how to accomplish the task within her own frame of reference, and on her own timetable.
Let’s say a player is trying to learn how to field ground balls. The team coach explains how to get down to the ground, how to position the glove, whether to stay back or charge in depending on the speed of the ball, when and how to set her feet, etc.
Then a ground ball is hit to her and she completely whiffs the play, not doing anything the coach said. As a parent should you jump in and try to explain it to your daughter because you know her best?
I would say no, at least if the coach seems to know what he/she is doing. All you’re going to do is become a distraction to the learning process.
As I keep pointing out, kids are not just short adults. Just because something was explained to them doesn’t mean they understand everything that was said.
For the very young, keep in mind they’re not that many years away from when their whole process of learning about the world around them involved sticking it in their mouth.
Instead, give them the opportunity to learn through trial and error. They try something, and it either works or it doesn’t.
If it doesn’t, they move on to try something else. And if they don’t try something else on the next round, hopefully the coach will give them another cue, or type of cue, that will help guide them down the path to discovery.
There’s a place for letting them struggle, and there’s a time to step in.
It’s important to keep in mind too that unless you are the player’s coach as well as parent, you have a different relationship with your daughter than the coach does. She will hear things differently from the coach than she will from you.
Basically, when the coach tells her to do something she will hear guidance. When you say the same thing, she will hear criticism and will be more likely to shut down automatically. That’s a different type of struggle for another day.
At the same time, regardless of the actual volume, your daughter will tend to hear your voice over the coach’s voice because her brain has been tuned to hear you whether she wants to or not. That will ultimately get in the way of her developing a strong player-coach relationship and will likely stunt her softball growth even further.
And if you are both parent and coach, take my advice on this one from personal experience: Have another coach give your daughter the corrections. She’ll take them a whole lot better.
Yes, it can be difficult to watch your daughter struggle to acquire a new skill or improve an old one. But don’t take that struggle as a negative sign – or as something you need to fix for her.
It’s simply a part of the process – an important part of the process. By letting her work through it in her own way, and on her own timeline, she will ultimately learn it better, at a deeper level, and be able to draw upon it when she needs it most.
And she’ll get greater satisfaction from it when it finally does come together.
6 Things to Know Before Starting Lessons
It sounds good in theory. You want to see your daughter succeed in this difficult game called fastpitch softball, so you decide to hire a private instructor to help her with her hitting, pitching, catching, fielding, strength and conditioning, speed and agility, or whatever other capability with which she needs help.
And in a way you’re right. Good, quality private instruction can definitely shortcut the learning process and help your daughter reach her goals faster, whatever they may be.
Notice, though, that I said “help.” Because there’s more to lessons than finding out who other good or great players go to, arranging a time to get together, and paying a fee.
Following are a few things you should know and/or understand before you take the plunge on lessons.
#1 – They Ain’t Magic
I am often struck by the number of people who think a private instructor is going to wave some sort of magic wand as if they are Headmaster Dumbledore from Harry Potter and magically, instantly turn your daughter into a great player. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.
Sometimes a good instructor can help a girl who has great ability overcome a temporary struggle and show immediate improvement. Usually, though, that’s more along the lines of “getting her back to where she was” rather than achieving some never-before-seen level.
So if your expectation is that doing a few lessons is going to take your daughter from benchwarmer to superstar, or pool play only to top of the lineup, you are going to be really, really disappointed. The reality is…
#2 – Improvement Takes Time
Not just a little time. Often lots and lots of time.
How much depends on the athlete, the skill she is trying to learn, how hard she works at it (more on that in a bit) how willing she is to change/get out of her comfort zone, how ingrained the techniques she’s currently using are, and any physical, mental, or emotional limitations that may be getting in the way.
For example, if your daughter has a badly sprained ankle or is recovering from ACL surgery, she’s probably not going to be able to put a lot of weight on that leg. So expecting her to add a few miles an hour to her pitch speed is probably not going to happen in a couple or even a handful of weeks.
She will first have to get back into shape, and she will have to build confidence that her ankle, knee, etc. can take the impact a strong leg drive creates. Not all of that is conscious, either.
In the book The Body Keeps the Score, the author talks about how the human body copes with various traumas and especially how the central nervous system’s priority is protection, not performance. There could be all kinds of things going on under the hood, so to speak, that are going to prevent your daughter from driving harder even if she intends to.
It takes time to work through all of that. It also takes time to replace old habits with new ones.
Some adapt easier than others, but it’s not like flipping a switch. And the longer she’s been doing things a certain way, the longer it’s going to take to rewrite that programing with new programming.
It could take a couple of weeks. It could take a few months. It could take a year or more. You never really know until you get started.
But if you trust the process, the improvement will come in its own time.
#3 – A Lot of It Is Boring
In my experience there are a lot of people who think that going to a lesson means executing the full skill while an instructor tweaks it.
Yes, that’s a part of the process. But the bulk of the time is going to be spent working on pieces of the process in a sequence that makes sense until your daughter gets each one in good working order. Not perfect, necessarily, but close enough to make it worthwhile to move on to the next piece of the puzzle.
Unfortunately, not every kid is good at handling that sort of work. Some, especially at the younger ages, think it’s boring and just want to throw pitches, or hit balls off pitchers, or do whatever.
As my friend Eric Egmer of CC Baseball says, you have to “embrace the boredom.” Whether or not you subscribe to the concept of 10,000 repetitions to master a skill, It definitely takes a lot. Over and over and over, each one of them done mindfully to ensure they are taking your toward your goal instead of away from it.
Kids who don’t have the patience or attention span for that kind of work are not going to do well with lessons. Some may shut down entirely, making the experience unpleasant for everyone.
So go into it with your eyes open. Otherwise you’re just wasting your time and money.
#4 – Improvement Is Mostly on the Player, Not the Coach
This is actually a two-way street. Most great coaches will tell you that when a player succeeds, 90% of the credit goes to her. The coach can really only claim 10% at best.
The late, great Bill Hillhouse definitely felt that way. When Jay Bolden and I spoke to him on the From the Coach’s Mouth podcast he flat-out stated what Jay and I always say: we teach all our students the same things, but we get varying results.
That’s a pretty big statement given that one of his students, a young lady you may have heard of named Teagan Kavan, has won back-to-back Women’s College World Series championships with her Texas team.
I always tell my students the most important part of the process isn’t the time they spend with me. It’s what they do in-between visits to me that will determine how good they get and how quickly they get there.
Put in a little effort you might get a little improvement. Put in a lot of effort and you’ll see much greater improvement.
Nobody in my experience gets better just doing lessons once a week and nothing else. And even improvements that are made in lessons go away quickly if your daughter is not putting in the work to solidify what she’s learned.
If your daughter isn’t willing to work at least 2-3 days a week outside of lessons again you’re probably wasting your time and money. But if she is eager to put in the work, that investment will pay off big time.
#5 – Quality of Instruction Can Vary Greatly
I’m not sure how many people realize this but there are absolutely no requirements preventing anyone who wants to hang out a shingle and call themselves an instructor from doing so. None.
So you can get experts, semi-qualified people, folks who are just in it to make a buck, former or current high school or college players who may or may not have any idea of what they do when they play, and so on. A real potpourri of possibilities.
If you want to make sure your daughter is taught well, it’s up to you to do some research. Ask around to see who others are using.
Check out the instructor’s website or other online presences. Try to learn at least a little bit about what your daughter should be learning to help you find a coach that teaches that.
It’s definitely a case of caveat emptor – let the buyer beware. You may get lucky without the research – but why take a chance?
#6 – Not Every Instructor Is a Fit for Every Student
Even if you do a great job and find a highly qualified instructor, that doesn’t mean he or she will be a good fit for your daughter.
Just like anything else there are different personalities and different teaching styles. I know I’m not everybody’s cup of tea (hard to believe, I know, but it’s true!).
You want to find someone your daughter is comfortable learning from. Personally, I would prioritize knowledge and expertise first, with compatibility a close second, because no matter how good a fit the instructor is, if he/she doesn’t know what they’re doing the point is kind of moot.
But if it’s not a good fit, find someone else who is also knowledgeable. Presumably your daughter will be spending a lot of time with that coach; it will help if she looks forward to the experience.
Final Thoughts
Lessons can be a big investment. They can also be a big gamble since there is no governing body or tests that are required in order to offer instruction like there are in many other countries (Canada and the UK for sure).
If you decide to pursue them, be sure to go into it with your eyes wide open to make sure both you and your daughter get what you expect our of them.
The Problem with Keeping a Foot on Two Different Paths
So, you’ve decided your daughter isn’t progressing anymore You’re thinking it’s a time to make a change so you try a new private instructor.
Your daughter goes through a lesson and you like what you hear. You think this may be the answer, or at least an answer, to help her break through a plateau and start advancing again.
Then at the end, you present your dilemma: your daughter has a tournament in three days. Then you ask the new instructor how your daughter should approach those games.
Should she incorporate the new mechanics or techniques she was just working on (and take a chance on her performance going down), or should she work on the new stuff during the week but stick with the old way on the weekend?
I guess my question back would be are you happy with the status quo or are you looking for actual improvement? Because, as they say, if you do what you always did you get what you always get.
Here’s the problem. Imagine there are two cars riding side-by-side down the street. You’re being a daredevil so you are standing up with a foot in each one of them.
As long as the road stays straight you’re ok. But once you reach a fork in the road you either have to jump fully into one car or you will find yourself torn in two.
Now the question is which car to jump into? Because the two sides of the fork lead to very different destinations.
And here’s the other problem. Let’s say you choose to continue with what you’ve been doing for the moment to minimize the risk of immediate failure. Even though you know full well it’s ultimately a road to nowhere.
Sure, at some point you can backtrack to the fork and then take the other road if you decide you want to make a change after all. But it’s going to take longer and be more painful than it would have because you’ve now spent more time ingraining the mechanics you ultimately want to replace.
And you’re still going to have to deal with the same struggles of the transition from the old way to the new way you’ve been trying to avoid. Only now your daughter is a little bit older, the opponents are a little bit better, and the coaches (your own and recruiters) are a whole lot less forgiving of walks and other accuracy problems.
The bottom line is, if you believe you’re making a change for the right reasons, don’t go into it halfway. Go all in and deal with the short-term consequences now rather than making them longer-term later.
Make the commitment knowing that the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll get through it. And the happier you will be in the end.
Improvement Often Comes In Small Increments
If ’80s training montages have taught us anything, it’s that going from bum or has-been to champion isn’t complicated. You work really hard for a few weeks and before you know it you go from barely functional in whatever sport you’re trying to do to ready to take on the world.
Unfortunately, reality looks a little different – a fact many coaches, parents, and players seem not to understand.
The truth is if you’re expecting miracle improvements after a handful of lessons or practices you’re setting yourself up for a huge disappointment. Because most of the time improvement doesn’t occur in chunks; it happens in small increments.
Take overhand throwing for example. You look at a player and she is standing face-forward the entire time, holding the ball about ear-high and pushing it toward her target. Or maybe she turns her body some and then kind of randomly slings the ball in a motion that vaguely resembles the Kraken attacking the Black Pearl.
You work with her on getting her body into the right position, taking the ball back properly, getting her elbow set at the right height, finding a good arm slot, and releasing with a whipping motion. Then she starts to get the hang of it and looks pretty good.
Problem solved, right?
Probably not. Even if she works at it on her own, the odds of her retaining all those movement changes from this practice or lesson to the next one are pretty small.
The reason is the old pattern is already pretty ingrained, because that’s the movement pattern her body figured out for itself to solve the issue or throwing the ball from here to there. It’s going to take time for the new pattern to settle in – even if she practices.
And if she doesn’t, or doesn’t practice enough, or doesn’t practice with her brain actively engaged? It’s going to take even longer, because every rep she does do will likely be reinforcing the old movement pattern rather than replacing it.
The same is true for any skill – pitching, hitting, fielding, sliding, etc. As humans we tend to be most comfortable with what we know.
This is true even if we are willing to change – which most people aren’t, at least at the subconscious level.
The problem comes when expectations don’t match realities. If you’re expecting a coach or instructor to help your hitter go from striking out to hitting bombs in a couple of weeks, or your pitcher to gain 8-10 mph or go from walking 8 hitters a game to not giving up any walks after a handful of lessons you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.
Instead, the changes will most likely come slowly. You may not even notice them at first, but they will be there.
As you continue they will become more obvious. That doesn’t necessarily mean a great outcome, but it will be trending that way.
So for a hitter, it might be she goes from no or weak contact to hitting the ball hard – right at someone. She still doesn’t get on base, but the contact is better.
In time, the law of averages will kick in and those hard hit balls will start finding gaps between fielders, the strikeouts will go down, and she will be a lot more confident every time she strides to the plate.
Pitchers will start throwing a little harder and a little more accurately. Fewer opposing hitters will get on base, the strikeouts will go up, and she will carry herself with a self-assuredness you haven’t seen before.
So as you start getting more serious and putting in the work keep that in mind. You may not see the improvement at first, but if the player is working at it, and receiving good, quality coaching, the improvement will come.
Hang in there and trust the process. Because from small improvements, larger ones will come.
True Confession: I Can’t Make You Better
This is a tough admission but I think after all these years of coaching it’s time for me to drop a major truth bomb. And that truth bomb is: I can’t make you/your daughter better.
Shocking, I know, but hear me out I’ve spent a lot of time instructing fastpitch softball players, and even more time studying the latest research and thinking on the subject as well as what the best players in the world actually do (versus what they say they do sometimes).
Yet for all that work and effort, I am admitting that I can’t make the students who come to me better.
I can show them how to perform various skills. I can explain and demonstrate the movements required to perform at a higher level. I can offer corrections to help shortcut the learning process.
I can help them understand the “why” behind the “what” to make it easier to internalize and execute the necessary techniques. I can even help them overcome a crisis of confidence when adversity strikes.
But for all that knowledge and experience, I still can’t make them better. Because in order for students to get better, they have to take an action.
The first action is to listen to and try to understand what I’m telling them. That might seem obvious, but it’s actually not.
Any honest instructor will tell you they’ve had students who showed up to lessons but didn’t want to listen to what that instructor said. They wanted to do it their way.
In my case, I’ve had “students” who, when I said “here, try this” would give me a side eye as if to say, “You can’t make me do that.”
And they were correct. I can’t.
Of course, if you want to keep doing it your way that’s fine, but you’re going to stay where you are instead of getting better. And pretty soon you won’t see progress and decide to move on to the next coach whose instruction you don’t want to follow either.
The second action is to get off your butt and actually work on what the instructor told you during the lesson and whatever homework you’ve been given.
Taking lessons is a good thing, and it’s even better when you’re interested in learning. But the time in-between lessons is where the real magic happens.
Not working between lessons is like buying a really nice car but never actually getting in and driving it. It may look beautiful in the driveway or the garage, but you’re not going anywhere.
The specific actions you take once you decide to take action are also important. For example, a pitcher who is having trouble with accuracy probably doesn’t need to be throwing from the full distance.
She needs to move in closer and work on her release – including the way the arm and hand approach release, the exact point where she releases the ball, and what her hand and forearm do at that precise moment. All of those factors can and will affect where the ball goes.
If the pitcher moves in close she can rid herself of all the distractions of the rest of the pitching movement and just focus on the part that’s doing her in – the release. And the great thing about that is she doesn’t even need a field or facility, a catcher, or much of anything else.
A bucket of balls and a net to throw to, or even a rolled up pair of socks and a handy wall, will give her everything she needs to work on those movements and lock them in.
The same goes for a hitter. Let’s say that hitter is having trouble keeping her hands from leading the swing (instead of letting her body turn first).
She can work slowly on that part of the swing while shooting a video of what she’s doing so she can check. If she doesn’t have access to a phone or other camera, she can look in a mirror.
She doesn’t need a bat or the space to swing it either. She can take a sawed off dowel rod or the core from a roll of paper towels with some rags stuffed in it to work on getting her sequence so ingrained that when she gets back on the tee or even faces a live pitcher again it happens automatically.
That’s the type of work it takes to get better. But I can’t make you do any of that, which is why I say I can’t make you better.
Going back to our car analogy, the instructor or coach is like the GPS system for getting better. He or she can tell a student turn-by-turn how to get started and how to get to her destination.
But it’s up to that student to get in the car, start driving, and then follow those directions. Otherwise she’s either not going anywhere or putting herself at risk of following a path that will take her even further away from her destination.
So again, I fully admit can’t make you better. You have to do that. I can only show you the way.
More Drills Does Not Automatically Equate to Better Performance
I recently saw a question in a Facebook group from a parent trying to decide if he/she should change private instructors. While the question was about pitching in particular, I think it can also be applied to hitting, fielding, throwing, and other individual aspects as well as activities team coaches do.
The parent in question said that their daughter’s instructor always uses the same drills. Yet the parent sees all these other drills being promote on the Internet and seemed to be under the impression that performing a wider variety of drills would be better for their daughter.
(TECHNICAL WRITING NOTE: I know right now there are English language purists saying I am using a plural pronoun to reference an individual parent. That usage has actually been acceptable in many areas of grammar for centuries, and was changed in the AP Stylebook {which I generally follow} in March of 2017. So there – defensive rant over.)
There is certainly a case to be made that using a wider variety of drills helps break up the boredom or the so-called “grind” of instruction or practicing. There is also a case to be made that if one particular drill, no matter how well it is designed, isn’t working that you should try something else.
Let’s address those two points. The first is that coaches and instructors are not in the entertainment business – they are in the performance business.
Coaches’ main responsibility is to make sure that players’ skills are at a level where, when gametime comes, the players are able to perform those skills as effortlessly and flawlessly as possible. And that takes repetition.
There’s a reason certain close-in fielding drills are called “dailies” or “every days.” They are meant to be performed not just until players get them right but until they can’t do them wrong.
So yes, they may be mindless and routine, but that’s the goal. The objective is to make the most common plays mindless and routine so when they come up in a game players can perform them with the highest level of confidence.
The second point – that if one drill isn’t working try another (in case you already forgot what the second point was) – has more validity in my mind. You know the old saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
A good coach will have a toolbox full of approaches to solving particular problems. Not everything works with everyone so even though the coach may have particular favorites, it’s good to have alternatives for when those favorites just aren’t working.
But no matter which drill you’re doing, it should be designed in a way to either solve a problem or enhance what a player is already doing to make it better. And that’s where getting caught up in the idea that the coach needs to keep coming in with new drills all the time is flawed thinking.
I mean, which would you rather have – a set of drills that the coach knows works, or a bunch of random drills that may or may not have any value?
And here’s a little secret for you: a lot of the drills you see posted on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook groups or other online sources are just garbage. There I said it, and I don’t regret it.
The Internet is a hungry beast, and someone who wants to become Internet famous as a coach needs to keep posting new material all the time in order to get those precious likes, clicks, shares, follows, and comments. Once they run out of good, proven drills they still have to come up with new ones or the algorithm will forget about them.
So then it’s a race to the bottom, posting ideas and drills that may seem ok in the moment but really make no sense when you look at them a little deeper.
Finally, I believe there are certain core principles to every skill that cannot be ignored. Players need to have those in place before they can get to the fancier stuff.
And certain core principles need to be pretty well in order before moving on to others. Work on them out of sequence, or decide to just let players slide by without really internalizing them before moving on, and you’re setting them up for a spectacular failure.
Here’s the challenge I will throw out to those who think quantity is more important than, or even equal to, quality when looking at drills. Is it possible that your favorite player is doing the same drills all the time because they haven’t’ put in the time and effort to get those drills right?
Perhaps the coach sees a particular drill is working but the player hasn’t done it enough to move from something they can do when they think about it to something they can do without having to think about it.
It could also be that there are some drills that are just so important that you want to continue using them regardless of how accomplished the player becomes. I know I have a few of those go-tos that help set players up for success faster.
I may try other things from time to time. But when crunch time comes, I’m going to use what I know is most likely to work, even if we’ve done it a thousand times before. Or even because we’ve done it a thousand times before.
The bottom line is you don’t want to do drills just for the sake of doing drills. They should be purposeful and specific, with an ultimate goal in mind.
Take that approach and you’re far more likely to be satisfied with the gametime performance that comes out of them.
Pitching Coach Bill Hillhouse Extraordinaire Could Use Your Help
Yesterday Jay Bolden and I had the privilege of talking with pitching coach Bill Hillhouse for an upcoming From the Coach’s Mouth podcast. If you’re not familiar with him, Bill was the youngest pitcher ever to play for the Team USA Men’s National Team when he joined it in 1993, and was an outstanding player who competed all over the world, winning wherever he went.
(If you’re interested in learning more about his softball resume, I’ve included more facts below.)
Bill then started giving lessons, mostly to female players, as his playing career was winding down. He saw the terrible hello elbow mechanics that were being taught widely at the time and became a very vocal advocate for learning to pitch the way the body moves naturally and the way all the top-level pitchers actually threw – what we today call internal rotation, although he’s not a fan of that description either for various reasons.
He named his business the House of Pitching, and he put out a series of DVDs to help spread his teachings more broadly than he could one-on-one. My guess is thousands of pitchers benefitted from the work he did in explaining everything from basic to advanced pitching mechanics in his lessons, clinics, and DVDs.
It was a business that again took him all over the world and afforded him a comfortable although not lavish living. He was also a columnist for Softball Magazine at the same time I was, which is where we met and became friends.
Then in July of 2025 Bill got the news no one wants to hear: he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. In typical Bill fashion he didn’t make a big deal about it, not wanting to burden others with his issues, but as we all know getting sick here in the good ol’ USA isn’t cheap.
Suddenly, not only did he have all these medicals bills but he was also cut off from his only source of income – giving lessons.
Which brings me to the point of today’s post. After all the years of helping others (including many who were indirectly assisted by his influence on other pitching coaches like me), Bill could use a little help himself.
His girlfriend set up a GoFundMe page to help him with his expenses while he does his best to battle this disease. He knows it’s not a winnable fight – there is no “cure” for pancreatic cancer – but as a competitor he’s not just sitting around waiting for the inevitable.
In fact, he told us he’s been giving lessons again on a limited basis, and while it’s bringing in some revenue it’s less than he needs to live a normal life. So here’s my ask today.
I know times are tough right now, but if you can please go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-bill-hillhouse-through-his-cancer-battle and leave a donation. Even $5 or $10 will help, especially if a lot of people choose to do it.
So maybe instead of your morning Starbuck’s or those McDonald’s Diet Cokes you enjoy, take one day and dedicate that money to Bill. The big corporations won’t miss it, but it will sure make a difference to a guy who has made a difference to so many of us in the fastpitch softball world – including many who don’t even know it.
Thanks for considering it. And keep an eye out for our conversation with Bill coming up in a couple of weeks over at the From the Coach’s Mouth podcast. It was a lot of fun and I’m sure you will enjoy it.
Bill Hillhouse Mini-Bio
Bill Hillhouse was a star pitcher in international men’s softball, playing all over the world including eight seasons competing in New Zealand. He was not only a two-time member of the USA Men’s National Team but was the youngest pitcher ever to play for that team when he joined it in 1993. Among his accomplishments are being named the Pan American Games M-V-P, winning the Men’s Major National Championship three times, earning a gold medal at the U-S Olympic Festival, and being inducted into the USA Softball of Pennsylvania Hall of Fame in 2022.
Bill’s coaching career is equally stellar. After stints as a pitching coach consultant for division 1 Drexel University and the University of Georgia, in 2018 he joined the staff at Providence College in Rhode Island. A strong advocate of men’s fastpitch, he also served the sport as a commissioner for the International Softball Congress from 1997 to 2013.
He is probably best known, however, as a private coach. Operating under the House of Pitching moniker, Bill gave individual lessons and conducted group clinics all over the US and the world. While he coached many high-level softball pitchers to successful college careers, including 2025 WCWS winner Tegan Kavan, he never really publicized his association with any of them. As he told Jay and me, “Their accomplishments were theirs, not mine, the result of a lot of hard work and dedication. I teach everyone the same things but get varying results, so the difference is really in them.”
Be Brave Enough to Try New Things…And Abandon Them
One of my favorite coaching-related sayings, which I first saw in the signature of a member of the Discuss Fastpitch Forum and which is often attributed to Henry Ford, is, “If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.” In other words, you’ll never get beyond where you are now if you’re not willing to make changes.
Really, making changes is the essence of what we do in coaching. We see something that doesn’t quite look right, or we want to help a player perform beyond the level they’re currently at (such as a pitcher gaining speed) and we have them do something different.
Some coaches, though, might be afraid to suggest those kind of changes – and some players might be afraid to try them – because they’re worried they might have a negative effect. And they’re right – they might.
Here’s the thing, though. Look at the words I just used: “suggest;” “try.”
You’re not committing to permanent changes, just doing something temporary to see what effect it has. As you would in any good science experiment.
If you’re a coach and you see an idea from a credible source and think it might help your player or student, you can make the suggestion that she tries it. Just be sure you know why you’re doing it.
There is a lot of garbage out on Instagram and other social media masquerading as good ideas. Usually it’s from people who are less coaches and more content creators.
They depend on crazy stuff that looks good in a video but doesn’t necessarily have any value in developing fastpitch softball players to help them gain more clicks and likes and shares. I get it, that’s how they make money, but the drills themselves are often just giant wastes of time that could be better-spent developing real fundamentals.
But let’s say you’ve seen or heard a new idea that makes sense to you, and you think you know who in your orbit might benefit from it. Still, you’re also afraid it might not work, or even screw them up.
Go ahead and suggest it anyway. Have your student(s) or player(s) try it and see what happens. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t.
Maybe it’s a godsend, or maybe it’s a disaster. Or maybe it’s both, depending on the student or player.
The thing is, if it helps you can keep it. If it doesn’t, it’s ok to say, “Never mind, go back to what you were doing before.”
Again, remember in this case you’re not trying to solve a known problem, such as a hitter swinging all arms. Whether she likes it or not that’s something that needs to be corrected in order to perform well.
Instead, you’re trying to help a player build on a strong foundation to enhance her level of success – such as helping a hitter who has decent fundamentals but is making weak contact hit the ball harder.
Again, like any good science experiment you want to introduce a single change and see what happens. If it works, great; if it doesn’t, you can get rid of it.
Either way, you have now learned something valuable that will help that player in the future.
I think coaches, especially newer coaches, are often afraid to admit they were wrong about something because they think it makes them look weak or stupid. Actually, the reverse is true.
The best coaches I know are constantly trying things to see if they help. They understand that what works for one person may not work for another, so they test different ideas to find which ones do work.
They’re also not afraid to change their long-held beliefs if they find an idea or a technique that works better. They know that closed minds are like closed bowels – not good for anyone.
As David Genest at Motor Preference Experts often says, there are 8 billion people in the world, which means there are 8 billion movement profiles. The key to success if figuring out which major changes or even minor tweaks fit the profile in front of you rather than a pre-conceived notion of what a pitcher or hitter or catcher or fielder should look like.
When I make a suggestion like this, I will usually say, “Let’s try this and see what happens.” After a few repetitions if performance goes up I’ll say, “Good, let’s keep working on that.”
If it goes down, I will say, “Well, that didn’t help” or words to that effect and we’ll usually go back to what we were doing before. No sense beating a dead horse.
When you’re doing these little science experiments, always be sure to include the student or player in the process. Ask her how that felt and encourage her to be honest.
You’re not looking for ego reinforcement; you’re looking for feedback to help determine if that change is worth keeping. Do keep in mind that sometimes a change will cause a performance loss just because it’s different and the student or player isn’t able to do it with full effort.
But if you’re observing carefully, you should be able to tell the difference between something that’s a little odd and something that just flat-out doesn’t work for that student or player.
Trying something new can be a little uncomfortable or even a little intimidating. As a coach you want to subscribe to the concept of “First do no harm.”
A little trial and error, however, is healthy as long as you remember you can always walk it back if the experiment shows that’s NOT the way to do it. And you’ll be that much smarter for the effort.
Welcome to the 2025-2026 Season – Wait, What?
A couple of weeks ago as I was busy wasting time scrolling through Facebook I came across something that made me think I must have fallen asleep in front of the TV and not woken up for three months. It was an announcement from a couple of teams about “open workouts” (translation: tryouts) for the 205-2026 season.
“Wait, what?” I thought. I mean, the high school season is still in high gear everywhere high school softball is played in the spring, and travel teams are still working their way through their “shake off the rust” tournaments in preparation for the travel season to begin in earnest.
So why in the name of Carol Hutchins are travel teams already looking for players for the next freaking season??? (You know I’m not happy because I used three question marks instead of one.)
This is just insane. Coaches should be focused right now on the players in front of them and helping each and every one of them reach their potential this season, not out looking for new players so they can unceremoniously dump anyone on their roster they don’t think measures up.
But of course, that’s one of the problems in today’s game. There aren’t as many coaches as there used to be, at least by what I would define as a coach.
Instead, they have been replaced by “managers” who, instead of developing the players they have, are always on the lookout to acquire players someone else has taken the time and effort to coach up. Like Pokemon cards, if you collect enough of those already-baked players you can just throw them on the field and watch them bring home the trophies/rings/banners/whatever is being given away to tournament winners these days.
So now it’s a race to see who can get to those high-level players first.
Now, admittedly, that’s nothing new. I remember when teams used to hold tryouts after the current season was over.
There were always a couple of programs that would try to jump the gun, either by playing in sanctions that ended earlier so they technically were into next season or by holding “special tryouts” maybe a week before their season ended. These organizations would pressure the kids who tried out to make a decision right then and there so they could lock up the talent before anyone else had a chance, although if someone better came along the original offer might be rescinded anyway and then those kids would have to scramble to find a new team.
But even those shenanigans occurred right around the end of the season for everyone.
Now they’re looking for next year’s team while this year’s team is just getting going with their season. And people wonder why players don’t seem to be as loyal to their teams or coaches as they used to be.
In my opinion, and the opinion of a lot of coaches I know whom I respect immensely, the focus during this season should be on helping the players you have now get better rather than finding their replacements. That’s the way to build a winning culture and create a positive experience.
Holding public workouts for next year’s team, before you even know what players or positions you may need, is a sure way to create divisiveness and negativity within the current team. It could even drive some of your current “good” players out because they’re not feeling valued or loved by the organization or the coaching staff.
It’s also a bad idea because you never know who is going to step up during this season and surprise you. If you listen to current high-level college players talk about their early days in the sport, you’ll find many of them were not studs right out of the gate.
Many, in fact, sat the bench a lot (although that’s a travesty in and of itself). Some of the best pitchers today were the #4 or #5 pitcher on their travel teams before they grew, or the mechanics from their lessons kicked in, or someone just gave them a chance to pitch some quality innings and it all came together for them.
It just seems wrong to me for teams and organizations to be ignoring who they have in front of them right now in search of some mythical team for the future. At least if they really believe in the stuff on their website that says they’re “in it for the girls.”
There will be plenty of time for tryouts or other events to convince top talent that they would be better served with a new team that’s “more at their level” than the one they’re on now. I wouldn’t even object so much if you did it right before the end of the season, although don’t be surprised if a few of your “lesser” players on the current team decide not to spend the time and money going to whatever nationals you’re heading to if they’re feeling like you’re planning to cut them once the last out is recorded.
But seeking out new players at the beginning of your primary season? That’s just ludicrous.
Run with the players you have now and help them finish the season better than they started. You just might find you don’t need as many new players as you thought.
How Practice Helps Shorten the Trip to Softball Success
At the end of the first lesson with a new student I will often ask her if she knows where New York City and Los Angeles are on a map. I know that’s a gamble given how famously bad we Americans are at geography, but even if she doesn’t know she will usually have an idea of what the U.S. looks like and I can show her Los Angeles is way on the left and New York City is way on the right .
I will then ask her how many different ways there are to get from New York to Los Angeles. Most understand I mean modes of travel, although the ones who are just learning to drive may panic thinking I’m looking for turn-by-turn directions. I’m not that cruel.
Once she understands the question we’ll start listing them out: flying, driving, train, boat, bus, etc. I will also remind her you can walk, run, or bicycle as well.
The final question is, “Which way is the fastest?” Pretty much everyone says “flying,” although there’s an occasional outlier who has to be corrected. That’s when I swoop in with the point.
“If you practice at least two or three times a week between lessons, it’s like flying from New York to Los Angeles,” I tell her. “You’ll get to your destination quickly and refreshed, and be ready to go on and do better things than travel.
“But,” I will continue, “if you only pick up a bat or a ball or a glove when you have a lesson it’s like walking from New York to Los Angeles. You’ll still get to where you’re going, but it will take a lot more time and it will be a lot more painful and frustrating.”
In my mind, that may be the most important thing I teach these young ladies when they come to me. I think players and even parents often have an expectation that if they take lessons, especially from a coach who’s a “name,” it will automatically make them great.
Nothing is further from the truth, however. They may get a little bit better over time but it’s going to be a long time before they notice any substantial improvements.
But if they put in the work on their own that’s where they’re going to see real progress. Because that’s where the real magic happens.
Continuing the transportation theme, I tend to think of coaches as the GPS for the journey. They will give you information, even turn-by-turn directions, so to speak, that will guide players to their desired destination.
Nothing happens, however, until the player puts the “vehicle” (her body) in gear and starts driving toward the destination. Just like with the car, if she just sits there without doing something the directions will be the same day after day, week after week, month after month, etc. instead of moving onward.
A coach shouldn’t be watching his/her players work on last week’s assignment for the first time. The player should have already put in the work on it.
That doesn’t mean the player will necessarily have it mastered after a week or two. But there should be progress toward the goal so the coach is performing a process of continuous refinement – chipping away at the goal layer by layer the way a sculptor chips away at a piece of marble until it turns into a breathtaking work of art.
If the coach has to keep chipping away at the same level of skill, however, progress will be slow and the player is likely to get frustrated and stop long before she turns into the masterpiece she should be.
It can be difficult for players, especially the young ones, to understand the abstract concept of how quality practice leads to excellence. But everyone understand travel, because we all go somewhere every day.
If you have a player (or child) who doesn’t seem to see the need for practice, try the map analogy. It might just help get her moving in the right direction.
My good friend Jay Bolden and I have started a new podcast called “From the Coach’s Mouth” where we interview coaches from all areas and levels of fastpitch softball as well as others who may not be fastpitch people but have lots of interesting ideas to contribute.
You can find it here on Spotify, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re searching, be sure to put the name in quotes, i.e., “From the Coach’s Mouth” so it goes directly to it.
Give it a listen and let us know what you think. And be sure to hit the Like button and subscribe to Life in the Fastpitch Lane for more content like this.
US map graphic by User:Wapcaplet, edited by User:Ed g2s, User:Dbenbenn – File:Map_of_USA_with_state_names_2.svg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81990933
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 