Remember to Celebrate Progress and Successes
The other day I went to visit a healthcare professional (HP). Nothing serious, just basically checking a box for the insurance company.
Anyway, we were talking about some lifestyle changes I’ve made to try to stay healthier longer. Yet it seemed like every time I told the HP about some improvement I’d made she countered with I should be doing this or that too.
It was kind of frustrating, because rather than feeling encouraged to continue doing better I was made to feel like no matter what I did it would never be good enough. The focus would always be on what more I could do or should be doing.
That experience got me to thinking about how we coach our fastpitch softball players. (Take that Google algorithms.)
Often times we coaches are so focused on trying to get our players ready for “the next level” (whatever that is) or trying to make them look just like the players we see on TV that we fail to acknowledge all the great work they’ve done to get themselves to this point. And that can be just as discouraging as my experience with the HP.
That’s why it’s important every now and then along the journey to stop and take a look backward even as you’re trying to look ahead to the next goal. Showing a player how far she has come can give her a real boost to continue putting in the work to keep moving forward.
Let’s take a hitter who has been working on her swing. Honestly, I get a fair amount of students whose only goal (or their parents’ only goal for them) is to not strike out every time they come to bat.
Mom and/or Dad aren’t looking for little Amelia to hit home runs or have the highest batting average on the team. They’re simply hoping she doesn’t get totally discouraged from playing because she wouldn’t hit water if she fell out of a boat.
They don’t want to have to cringe every time she comes to the plate, but that’s another story.
So Amelia gets help from a coach or instructor, fixes whatever was causing her to just randomly swing the bat and hope she hit something, and now she’s making contact with greater regularity and getting on base now and then. At which point the goal becomes to start hitting the ball to or over the fence.
That’s great that everyone wants Amelia to keep growing and improving. But maybe in the midst of all that take a step back to appreciate the fact that the original goal has been met and let Amelia feel good about what she has accomplished so far – at least for a few minutes.
Video is great for that, by the way. Even if Amelia isn’t quite getting on base often enough, showing her a video of how she used to swing the bat versus how she is swinging it now will probably help her build confidence and continue to focus on the process instead of the outcomes.
Then let the law of averages take care of the rest.
It’s the same for pitching. Maybe you have a goal of having a pitcher throw faster, or throw more strikes. Or both.
Regardless of the goal, the path to achieving it starts with improving her mechanics.
So perhaps when she started out she looked less like she was trying to pitch and more like she was trying to fold a fitted sheet.
Showing her a video of how she used to look versus how she looks now might give her some encouragement that she’s on the right track, even if the radar isn’t reflecting it or she’s still throwing a few too many in the dirt. That doesn’t mean you still don’t want to hold her to a higher standard.
But you can acknowledge the fact that she is improving so she has something to feel good about while she works toward the bigger payoff.
All of this doesn’t mean you should provide false praise just to spare the player’s feelings. If she’s not putting in the work and showing improvement that needs to be called out. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Often, however, we are in such a hurry to get to the ultimate goal (being names an MVP, making a particular team, winning a scholarship, etc.) that we don’t take the time to appreciate the progress that’s already been made.
So think about that today. If you’re a coach, what can you do to recognize how much better your players are today than they were a month ago, or three months ago, or a year ago, etc.?
If you’re a parent, what can you point to that lets your daughter know you are proud of how far she has come so far? Even if she still has a ways to go.
That little bit of encouragement may be just the thing your player needs to keep grinding – and build a level of confidence that will carry through not just her softball career but her whole life.
The Way You’re Training Your Players Could Be Hurting Their Performance – And Health
We’ve all been there. We have a player who turns out to be great, or we watch what great players do, and we study them intensely to figure out what they’re doing so we can replicate it with all our other players.
But then when we try to apply what we’ve learned we find it works really well for some, pretty well for others, and little or not at all for the rest. Some even see their performance level go down or even get hurt trying to implement what we’re telling them.
How can that be? we wonder. We did our due diligence and we know what we’re saying works. We’ve seen it work. So why isn’t it working here?
The answer is very likely to be related to something called “motor preferences®,” which can be simply defined as working with the way each body is designed to move from birth.
This is a concept I have been dabbling with for the last few months since learning about it from my friend and colleague Linda Lensch over at Greased Lightning Fastpitch. (If you’re in the Jersey Shore area she’s definitely the person to see about fastpitch pitching.)
I had previously taken an online course offered by Volodalen, a French organization that has performed 20 years of research into motor preferences and how they help athletes in all sports perform at a higher level while reducing injuries. But last weekend I had the opportunity to join a couple dozen of the best pitching coaches in the country for a two-day, in-depth, in-person training clinic hosted by James Clarke at United Pitching Academy in Centerville, Indiana. (Again, James is the guy to see in that area.)
The clinic was led by David Genest of Motor Preferences Experts, the only organization in North America authorized by Volodalen to teach how to identify and take advantage of motor preferences in this part of the world. To say it was mind-blowing and potentially game-changing is still greatly understating the impact that understanding your players’ motor preferences can have.
I’m not going to go into a lot of detail here, but I’m going to share some of these concepts to help you get a better feel for how learning about your players’ motor preferences can help you train them better.
One of the core concepts is that athletes can be classified into one of two groups: aerials and terrestrials. These are not black and white classifications but, as David told us, more 50 shades of gray.
So while some players may be totally aerial or terrestrial, most will fall somewhere along a spectrum in-between those two extremes.
Aerials tend to move rather light and bouncy, especially when they run. They like being up in the air, with their center of balance leaned more forward. Think of a kangaroo.
Terrestrials, as the name implies, tend to be more earthbound. Their center of balance tends to sit further back, and they pull themselves forward rather than bound forward. Think more like an elephant.
Those are two very different movement patterns. So you can see why, if you tell an aerial to spring forward when they move you’ll get great results, while telling a terrestrial to spring forward will probably not get the success you’re looking for. One is designed to do it, the other is not.
Another key factor is which side of the body favors being in extension and which side favors being in flexion. All of us have one of each, and it’s built into our DNA.
So if you have, say, a catcher who can block well to her right but struggles to get to her left, it could be her left leg is her extension leg, which is good at pushing/extending, while the right flexion leg is not so much.
There are many other motor preferences, such as a preference for red or blue, that need to be taken into consideration to develop a complete, individualized profile of a player, but you get the idea. The more you understand how their body is designed from birth to move, the better you can train them to take advantage of what they can do easily while avoiding what will be more difficult for them to do..
Now, I don’t claim to be an expert in motor preferences. While I am now certified in motor preferences use by MPE as well as Volodalen, I am still very early in this journey.
But I have already seen results within a single lesson after testing a few students and making suggestions based on the outcomes. For example, a hitter who hitting pop flies on front toss suddenly started hitting bombs after we adjusted her swing to use her motor shoulder more effectively.
I’ve also seen a pitcher improve her stability and pick up a couple of mph in a lesson after changing how she launches. Several pitching coach friends who were at the clinic are reporting similar improvements just through understanding their students’ motor preferences better.
If you are serious about helping your players become the best they can be – whatever that ceiling is – I highly recommend signing up for a Motor Preferences Experts clinic. You can find a list the upcoming dates and locations here.
I will tell you it’s not cheap. Attending a clinic is a $900 investment, although you can then attend additional clinics for a refresher at no charge, at least as of this writing. But in my opinion it is well worth the expense, especially if you plan to keep coaching or teaching for a while.
If you want to get started but can’t make it to a live clinic right now you can also do the Volodalen online course as I did. That will be a $990 cost (which cannot be applied to the cost of live clinics in case you were wondering because they are offered by separate organizations). It is not as complete as the live training, nor as valuable in practical application in my opinion, but you do get videos you can refer back to again and again.
Either way you go, however, spread that cost out over a few years, and compare it to the benefits you and your players will receive, both in terms of improving their performance and helping them prevent unnecessary injuries, and I think you’ll find as I did that it is an incredible bargain.
And you’ll better understand not only why things that work with some players don’t work with others but also how to change what you’re teaching to what WILL for those players. You can’t put a price on that.
Helping Pitchers Transition from 10U to 12U
Ask just about anyone who has gone through the full softball journey and they will probably tell you that the toughest transition is going from playing 10U to 12U (or 11U for those who like to talk in one-year increments). While it is challenging for all players, with new rules to keep in mind, greater disparities in size and strength due to the puberty fairy touching some earlier than others, and a generally higher level of play and expectations, nowhere is it harder than on pitchers.
The reason, of course, is two key rule changes that can have a huge effect on pitcher success: 1) the size of the ball increasing from an 11 inch circumference and roughly 5.5 oz weight to a 12 inch circumference and roughly 6.5 oz weight, and 2) moving the pitching rubber back from 35 to 40 feet.
Either of those changes would a challenge on their own for reasons we are about to go over. Having them occur together can be downright daunting, especially for the size-challenged.
Let’s take the size of the ball first, since that was the order I listed them above. Have to be organized when you’re a coach, after all.
Increasing the size of the ball by an inch or an ounce doesn’t sound like much to an adult. But it can be tough on girls who already felt like the 11 inch ball was filling up their hands.
If you’d like to get a feel for what it’s like, find one of those 14 inch softballs they sell as a training aid and try pitching or even throwing it overhand. Feel how insecure it is in your hand for a while, how it kind of slips out instead of getting propelled out.
Now imagine trying to throw that to an actual hitter in a game, where a couple of weeks ago you were throwing a smaller ball. Scary, isn’t it?
Then there’s the pitching rubber moving back five feet. Again, it may not seem like much to an adult, but to someone who is still 10 or recently turned 11 it looks like a long distance.
Suddenly all the old mechanics break down as pitchers try to push the ball more to make sure it gets there (even though they really don’t need to). That extra distance also gives hitters more time to see the ball and react, so even if the pitcher is able to maintain her previous speed during this transition time (which often doesn’t happen) the hitter perceives the ball as being slower, making it easier to hit.
And suddenly, that pitcher who was dominating in 10U is getting beat up in 12U. Discouraging, to say the least.
It can take a while before those newly minted 12U pitchers get used to all these changes and start feeling confident again. But there are a couple of proven strategies to shortcut the process.
Strategy #1: Just hold a ball
This is going to seem so simple you’re going to wonder why you didn’t think of it, or wonder if it will work. But trust me it does.
The bigger ball will feel strange in your pitcher’s hand, especially if she already has small hands. As a result, the fear of having it slip out could cause her to cup her wrist as she makes her arm circle, pretty much killing general arm speed and whip at release. So…
Have her hold a 12 inch ball whenever she can – while she’s standing around at practice, while she’s reading or watching TV at home, while she’s riding in the car, etc. Familiarity will breed comfort.
Within a couple of weeks the larger ball will feel normal to her and she won’t think about it much. And if she goes back and picks up an 11 inch ball she’ll marvel at how small and weird it feels.
Strategy #2: Pitch from short distance
Actually this applies to overhand throwing too, but we’re focused on pitchers today so we’ll describe it as such.
Basically, have your pitcher get in close to a net, screen, tarp, etc., and throw from the K position, full circle while facing in 45 degrees, and even a full windup/pitch. Basically, take distance out of the equation as she gets used to the feel of the ball in her hand while pitching.
Let her feel that she can go full-out into the pitch without the need to cup her wrist or do anything else to keep the ball in her hand. The more comfortable she gets, the more she’ll relax and quit over-thinking it.
Strategy #3: Do long toss
This may seem like a contradiction with the last strategy but it’s really not. Instead, the two work hand-in-hand so to speak.
The previous strategy was part of getting comfortable with the size of the ball. This one is about getting comfortable with the new, longer distance.
As mentioned earlier, when pitchers see the new distance they can get intimidated and feel like they have to force the ball out more. But as soon as you start pulling them back you start to take the arm by itself out of the equation and let them feel more of how the whole body contributes.
The ultimate goal, of course, is when they’re finished and you bring them back up to the rubber, suddenly 40 feet doesn’t look so far away. I highly recommend doing this outdoors so you’re not limited on how far back your pitcher can go.
To do this type of long toss, draw a line in the dirt a few feet behind the pitching rubber and have her throw from there with a full windup. If she makes it on a fly (as she almost certainly will) move back five or six feet and do it again.
Rinse and repeat until she just can’t get it there anymore. Then pull her back to the rubber and watch her amazement at how close 40 feet suddenly looks.
Pro tip: To help pitchers get back further than they otherwise might, as soon as they start to struggle tell them to get more air under the ball, or try to throw it over the backstop instead of to the catcher.
This exercise will not only help with the psychological side of moving to a new distance. Performed regularly it will help pitchers increase their speed by increasing strength and general effort into the pitch.
Easing the way
Although some pitchers can make the transition from 10U to 12U without trouble, most will have some issues at one point or another. Jumping on these strategies early can help speed the process along and prepare your pitcher(s) to continue to have success going forward.
Webinar: What to Do When a College Coach Calls
A few years ago, the college recruiting rules changed to restrict NCAA Division 1 coaches from speaking to potential student athletes until September 1 of their junior year. That was a huge improvement over the Wild, Wild West of recruiting that had seen verbal offers going to eighth grade (or even younger) players on a widespread basis.
Well, September 1 is rapidly approaching, which means there are a whole lot of rising juniors sitting on pins and needles waiting to see if they’re going to get a call or email from the coaches of their first-choice schools. If you are one of those, how prepared are you to take that call or respond to that email? After all, what happens next could determine whether that offer finally comes.
If you’d like to make sure you have your bases covered, Rick Pauly of PaulyGirl Fastpitch has put together a tremendous webinar that explains the process and talks about what you should say as well as how you should say it should you get the opportunity.
It’s about a half hour long, chock full of information that will help prospective student athletes and their parents prepare to make the most of any opportunities that come their way. It’s definitely worth taking a half hour out of your day to see what Rick, a former college coach himself and someone who has helped many players through the process, has to say.
Give it a listen sooner rather than later, and practice the recommendations he makes – just like you would any other skill. Good luck, and hopefully you’ll receive the call of your dreams come September 1.
12 Ways Fastpitch Softball Has Changed Over the Last 25 Years
It is always tempting to think that the way things are today is the way they have always been. After all, it can be difficult to imagine things being significantly different if you’ve never known anything else.
Well, I’m here to tell you that the game HAS changed significantly over the last (roughly) 25 years since I became involved with it. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, and sometimes somewhere in between, depending on your point of view.
So for those of you who enjoy a little history, or who wonder if things were better in the “good old days,” or would just like a little perspective on how we got to where we are today, here are X ways the game has changed over the last 25 or so years.
#1 – The Increase in Offense
If you look back at scorebooks, especially at the higher levels of play such as D1 college games, you would find a lot of games ended with a score of 1-0 or 2-1. You would probably also find that many of those games went into 8, 10, 12 or more innings to arrive at that finaly score.
There were a lot of reasons for that phenomenon, some of which we’re going to get into below. But regardless of the reasons, there typically wasn’t a whole lot of offense being produced back then.
Hits were a rarity – never mind the powerhouse slugfests we typically see today. Many of the “old school” types who played or coached in that era believe that’s when the game was at its best.
But the reality is unless you were a pitcher or a pitcher’s parents those games were kind of boring to watch, especially for the casual fan. So much so that on those rare occasions when ESPN would televise a game they would typically tape it, run it later, and edit out two or three innings where there were no hits or runs scored because they figured nothing happened so viewers weren’t missing anything.
That’s why many of the changes that follow were made – to make the game more accessible and interesting to the casual viewer so they could hike up ratings and capture those big TV dollars. Turns out that strategy was the right one because the 2024 Womens College World Series final games averaged 2 million viewers per game, and softball at all levels is more visible than ever on TV.
#2 – The Ball
This was one of the big changes made to try to increase offense.
The original ball for fastpitch softball was white with white seams. As a result, hitters would tend to see a screaming blur of white coming at them from a close distance, making it difficult to pick up on how the ball was spinning (which might give them a clue as to what it was going to do).
Today, of course, it is optic yellow with red seams. That makes it at least a little easier for hitters to pick up and follow to the plate overall, and gives them at least a shot at identifying the type of pitch being thrown so they can react accordingly.
That said, with all the bullet spin pitches being thrown these days picking up the seam direction is probably less important. Still, when facing pitchers who do have true spin on their balls it can help.
#3 – Pitching Distance
This was probably one of the biggest changes that helped the offense. Believe it or not, when I first became involved with the sport, the pitching distances were 35 feet up through 12U, and then 40 feet from 14U up.
That’s right – the college and international pitching distance was 40 feet!
Today, of course, only 11 and 12 year olds pitch from 40 feet. The extra three feet has helped older hitters gain a little more time to see the ball and execute their swings, resulting in more offense.
With so many more pitchers throwing at or near 70 mph, however, don’t be surprised if you start seeing a movement to push the pitching rubber back a little more in the near future.
#4 – More Offseason Training for Hitters
Today it’s almost a given that fastpitch softball players will go for hitting lessons pretty much year-round. That wasn’t always the case, though.
In fact, many players rarely picked up a bat when they weren’t in-season, or at least in the pre-season. Contrast that with pitchers training constantly in the offseason and you can see another reason why there was such an imbalance.
Today it’s pretty common to see players from 10 years old up either taking lessons or showing up to work on their swings in batting cages two or three times per week. They may not always have the greatest swings, but sheer repetition has helped them out-perform many of the players in the past.
#5 – The Proliferation of Facilities
The increase in the number of players who want to work out in the offseason has led to the growth of batting/pitching cage facilities throughout the U.S.
Back when my oldest daughter started playing you had to travel pretty far to find a space where you could pitch or hit in the offseason. And I live in a pretty high popular suburban area.
Today you can hardly swing a dead cat without hitting a high-quality facility that offers not only cage space but also a weight training area, speed and agility classes, and a host of other options to help youth players develop their games. Sure beats trying to sneak into the local high school so you can get a few reps in.
#6 – More Instruction
When my oldest daughter announced she wanted to start pitching I had no idea of what to do to help her. I felt lucky to come across a coach from another team who gave pitching lessons, and would drive an hour to take her to those lessons either at a field in the summer or in a middle school gym in the winter.
This was pre-Internet, by the way, so it’s not like I could have done a Google search to find someone. It was all pretty much word of mouth.
It’s not too hard to find an instructor today. They are in every local facility, and most can be found through social media or a quick search on “fastpitch pitching instruction near me.”
Now, that’s good and bad. Good because you can find them, but bad because it allows a lot of unqualified people to hang out a shingle and take your money while leading you down a rabbit hole.
Still, with a little due diligence you can find someone who can help your daughter develop faster than she would through the trial-and-error method on her own. Which is a good thing.
#7 – The Uniforms
Now we get to some of the fun stuff.
When my oldest daughter started playing, college teams and international teams wore shorts. So naturally all of the youth players wore or wanted to wear shorts too.
In fact, the travel program my daughter was in had pants and I had to fight on their behalf to get the standard changed to shorts.
Then college teams started going to pants, largely driven by Arizona who was a powerhouse at that time. And then everyone else went back to pants.
There is that saying that what goes around comes around, so I can’t help but wonder if one day shorts will make a comeback. I’m sure all the manufacturers who sold those calf-length sliding pads are hoping that’s the case.
The other significant change in uniforms is how many today’s players often have. Back in the day it was normal to have two, which meant if you had a three- or four-day tournament someone was going to be doing laundry at home or in the hotel.
Today, of course, teams can have four or five uniforms, plus maybe a specialty one for a cause, plus practice uniforms. The players of the past are likely pretty jealous of all the options today’s players have.
#8 – Time Limits
This may be hard for today’s players and parents to believe, but once upon a time EVERY game went a minimum of seven innings. Longer if there was a tie at the end of seven, because in fastpitch softball games could not end in a tie.
Nowadays it’s common in travel ball tournaments for there to be an 1:15 time limit. Sometimes that means no new inning, other times it’s that the game stops at 1:15 and if the inning isn’t over you revert back to the previous inning.
The addition of a time limit definitely makes it a different game. It’s critical for your team to start fast on offense and not make too many errors on defense early on, because you may not have the time to make up for any issues later.
It’s also a challenge for coaches who want to give all of their players ample playing time. One rough inning and those kids who started on the bench may not see the field. Or else the coach will have to put in subs in the middle of an inning, which usually doesn’t make anyone happy.
Time limits have also had a lot of other effects on the game. You can read more about my thoughts on this big topic here and here.
#9 – Offseason Training
For much of my early coaching career it was rare for teams in areas where there was a lot of cold and snow to do any practicing during the offseason. Dedicated facilities were rare, and local schools often didn’t like to rent out there gyms to outside programs so they’d charge an arm and a leg and then make it difficult to schedule times.
The program I was with was a rare exception. We worked out a deal with the local Park District to offer “open clinics” on Saturday mornings, which would give us an hour a week to work with our teams, plus any other players in the area who wanted to sign up. We’d actually draw a pretty good cross-section of dedicated players from various teams, essentially training our competitors.
Today it’s not uncommon for teams to practice two or three times a week in dedicated baseball/softball facilities, either their own or facilities they rent. It shows up in the way they play, which quite honestly is far better overall than many of the teams of yesteryear.
#10 – Winter Games
Readers in California, Florida, Arizona, and other southern states will have no idea what I’m talking about, but for those of us in cold weather states the addition of games and tournaments during the winter has been a huge change.
There are more domes and other large turf facilities than ever, which opens up the ability for teams to play two or three times a month if they choose. While I still believe there is more value to practice than games in terms of learning the sport, I will also admit that practicing all the time without any games to measure your progress can be boring.
Having the ability to mix games in with offseason practice has been a huge plus for today’s players.
#11 – The Technology
This has been a huge advance for today’s players over those in the past. Let’s start with bats.
Back in the day if you had a Louisville Burgundy bat (old timers, you know the one) you were highly privileged. Today most players wouldn’t use that for a practice bat.
Bat technology has advanced so much that now even a checked swing can result in a double if you hit a gap. One more reason scores now are more like 7-5 instead of 1-0.
But there is also technology like 4D Motion, Rapsodo, Blast, Pocket Radar and others than can deliver hard data instead of just having coaches eyeball a pitch or a swing and guess what’s going on. Not to mention high-speed video such as OnForm that lets you slow down the skill, mark it up, and really analyzed it to the Nth degree.
Finally, there is game scoring technology such as GameChanger that not only lets family and friends who can’t attend the game follow along (or see how their favorite players did afterwards) but also provide coaches with a lot of statistical data about how their teams are doing without all the hassle of transferring the information from a paper scorebook to a spreadsheet.
Of course, the data is only as good as the person who is keeping the book, but that was also true for a paper scorebook. The nice thing is it’s easier to pull it up when you want to get a feel for how your players are doing.
#12 – The Cost
Most of the changes we have talked about have been positive. This one might be more of a negative.
Back in the day, a typical team fee for a travel ball team was $400 – $800 dollars, either with or without uniform. Those fees would cover not only tournament and practice field fees but also team equipment such as bats, helmets, and catcher’s gear.
(Yes Virginia, in the old days teams would actually supply a few bats and helmets for shared team use. We’ve come along way since then.)
These days travel ball fees can run into the thousands of dollars. It’s not unusual for families whose daughters are playing on high-level teams to pay $10,000 a year or more, not counting travel fees which are additional.
Sure, we can talk about inflation and the numbers not quite being the same. But I guarantee even if you account for those differences the cost has gone up significantly.
The price of progress, I suppose. But it does mean young ladies who once might have been interested in playing fastpitch softball have now been priced out of the market, unfortunately.
Ok, those are some of the changes I have seen. What have I missed? What have you seen change within your time in the sport, whether that’s two years or 20 years? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
5 Positives to Not Being Invited Back
Right now the tryout season for next year is winding down in many part of the country – and beyond. That’s hard for an “old school” coach like me to conceive since I know of many teams that are still playing in various “National” tournaments with this year’s players,
But such is the reality of today’s fastpitch softball world.
For many next year will look pretty much like this year, i.e., same players (more or less) and same coaches. But for some, this is a time of heartache and tears because they’ve been informed that, despite having a tournament or two left to play right now, they are not being invited back to the team next year.
It’s difficult in any situation in life to hear you’re not wanted anymore by the people you’ve given your heart and soul to. If you’re a young, competitive athlete it can be particularly difficult.
So for those in that situation right now let me share a little secret: this may not be as bad of a thing as it seems right now.
Yes, it hurts not to be wanted. But this involuntary change of scenery might actually offer you one huge advantage – a clean slate with which to start over with no history or expectations.
Allow me to share a few of the positives this opportunity presents.
Positive #1: You’re not stuck in someone’s impression of you
It’s an unfortunate fact of life that once a coach decides who you are and what you can do that view never changes. Never mind that you worked hard over the offseason to improve your skills or increase your speed or build your strength.
For too many, the impression they got when you first joined the team is the impression you’re stuck with going forward.
On a new team you get a do-over. Even if that coach has the exact same issue – his/her first impression is the one you’re stuck with – you have that rare opportunity in life to create an all-new first impression.
In other words, wherever you are now is how that coach will see you rather than where you were a year ago. If you really put in the work you may find you’re rewarded better on the new team than you would have been on the old one.
Positive #2: Extra motivation
There is something to be said for revenge or an “I’ll show you” attitude to keep a player motivated on improvement throughout the long, boring offseason. There’s a pretty good chance you’re going to see your old team on the field, this time as an opponent.
What better way to get the better of the situation than to perform well, contribute to your new team’s victory, and show the old coaching staff what they missed in letting you go?
Now, I’m not saying you need to be mean or nasty about it. You don’t want to go into negative territory.
But there’s a pretty good chance that more has been accomplished in all fields in life by people who were once told they weren’t good enough to stay where they were than those who were safe and comfortable. If you’re a competitor at all, not being asked back should be all the fuel you need to kick your dedication and training level up or a notch or two.
And even if you never get a chance for that revenge game, the improvements you make in preparing for it will carry over to every other game in which you compete. Which is pretty cool by itself.
Positive #3: New opportunities
Sometimes moving to a new team can create opportunities you might never have gotten with the old team.
Perhaps the coach of the old team has a batting order he/she likes and never changes. Moving to a new team and proving yourself could give you the opportunity to hit higher in the lineup and get more at-bats. Especially if the coach bases his/her decisions on the stats instead of gut feel.
Or maybe you’ve always fancied yourself a shortstop but that position was already taken by one of the best to ever play the game. You’re not going to displace her no matter how good you are or how hard you work, whereas a new team will welcome your skill level at that position.
Having opportunities is particularly important for pitchers. So if you weren’t pitching much on the old team because you didn’t hit your spots or couldn’t match the others for speed, a new team with greater need at that position just might give you the opportunity you need to develop under game conditions – simply because they don’t have much choice.
All you can ask for is the opportunity to do whatever it is you want to do. The rest is up to you. But at least with the new team there could be more of a chance of getting that opportunity.
Positive #4: An overall better fit
Maybe you joined your old team because they had a great reputation for being the best in the area. But then you found out one of the reasons they’re the best is they are better at convincing already-developed players at coming to them than they are at developing players themselves.
Or maybe you enjoy being a multi-sport athlete while the rest of the team (and the coaches) are more about all softball all the time. As a result, you missed some games for your other sport(s) which caused you to have to sit the bench as punishment for choosing that sport over softball, even if the other sport was in-season and softball was not.
Or maybe the culture of the team was win at all costs, even if it means cheating or hurting your opponents on purpose while you’re more oriented toward playing a clean game.
Whatever the issue might be, you know in your heart of hearts that the old team wasn’t a good fit for you as a person, even if it was a good fit as an athlete. In that case, they probably did you a favor.
You can now find a team whose culture and attitude is a better fit for who you are and who you want to be. With a little distance you may even find that they did you a huge favor by not asking you back; sometimes it’s tough to see the negative behaviors when you’re in the middle of them.
Positive #5: Meeting new people and making new connections
It’s easy to get caught in a sort of closed-loop system, especially in today’s fastpitch softball world where you play so many games and have so many practices that your experience of the world outside your current team is limited.
By moving to a new team you may discover things or people you never knew existed. For example, you may find a skills coach (pitching coach, hitting coach, etc.) or a trainer who can elevate your game tremendously because one or more of your teammates goes to him/her.
You would have never known about that person had you stayed where you were. But this type of serendipity could end up leading you to skills and abilities you never knew existed within yourself.
The same goes for the other players. You may discover a friend for life you would have never known about had you stayed where you were.
Or you may find the way the players on this team approach the game is more in keeping with how you think of it, leading you to have a better overall experience. With a net result that you keep playing long after the attitudes on the old team would have driven you out.
Darkest before the dawn
Not being asked back to the team who already knows you can be tough on the ego and the psyche. It can make you feel like something is wrong with you, or cause you to think that you are somehow “less than” those who were asked back.
Don’t let that kind of thinking creep into your head. Just accept that there are many paths forward, and that what seems like a trauma right now could end up being the best thing that ever happened to you.
Keep a positive attitude, find that new team, and remind yourself that a year from now whatever sadness or hurt you’re feeling today will be little more than a bump in a much longer, better road for you as a player.
Now get out there and kick butt!
Heading photo by Karolina Kaboompics on Pexels.com
Thank You and Farewell to Retiring Coaches
As the travel ball season winds down (that went fast!) some of you out there are coaching your final games. Whether your daughter is done with her fastpitch softball career, is going to a team with so-called “professional” coaches, your organization is making a change in how it selects coaches, you’ve just decided coaching is something you no longer want to do, or there is some other reason, the next couple of weeks (or so) will no doubt be bittersweet.
Well, I for one, want to thank you for taking on what is often a thankless job and doing your best to help the players you served as either a head or assistant coach.
As your last team plays its last few games, be sure you take a little time to reflect on the journey that brought you here. Because coaching youth sports is both one of the most difficult and most rewarding ways an adult can spend his/her time (if you are truly in it for the right reasons).
You’ve weathered countless storms of parents angry about their daughter’s playing time, the position she’s played, where she is in the batting order, decisions you made on the field, the caliber of teams you’ve played (either too hard or too soft), when and where you set up practice, some random comment you made that someone took personally, your selection of white pants, and how you enforced the team rules that were CLEARLY spelled out at the parent meeting you held right after tryouts were held and offers were accepted.
You’ve endured countless sleepless nights the night before the start of a tournament, going over batting orders, field lineups, contingency plans, and other things no one else had to worry about. You got to the hotel before everyone else so you could drive from the hotel to the tournament site to make sure the time Google maps says it will take your team to get to the field is the time it will actually take.
You’ve made sure someone is arranging meals and snacks. You’ve checked and re-checked the med kit to make sure you have everything you may need in case of injury.
You’ve carried around a 20 lb. bag of miscellaneous objects such as glove lace (and glove lacing tools), duct tape, spare sunglasses, a measuring tape, drying towels, cooling towels, and more to ensure you’re ready for every contingency. You’ve say through countless pre-tournament meetings while everyone else was off having a meal and/or an adult beverage or swimming in the pool.
And now that part is all over, and you may feel a little sense of relief. But you’re feeling something else too.
You know you’re going to miss working with your team, running drills and walking through situations to help your team learn this very complex and often heartbreaking game. You’re going to miss the challenge of facing an opponent that on paper looks to be better than you but that somehow your team manages to overcome.
You’re really going to miss the thrill of seeing a player who came to you barely able to put her glove on the correct hand suddenly blossom into regular contributor to your team’s success. And you’re going to miss the camaraderie that comes with spending so many hours with a group of people you really like as you work toward a common goal.
Come this fall if you don’t have a daughter playing anymore it’s going to feel strange to wake up at 8:00 am on a Saturday morning with nowhere to be and nothing to do.
If you do have one playing for someone else, it will still be odd to be sitting on the sidelines in your camp chair drinking coffee instead of tossing batting practice, fungoing ground and fly balls, or sitting in the dugout agonizing over a lineup.
So thanks for the hundreds of hours you’ve spent working with your players, attending live clinics and online classes to learn how to coach your players better, and missing out on events with family and friends because your team had a game to play. Thanks for always looking out for your players’ best interests, even when it felt like they may have conflicted with your own.
And most of all, thanks for caring about your players as people rather than just chess pieces to be pushed around a board. You may not realize it now, but the impact you made on at least some of their lives is probably immeasurable.
So as things wind down, take a moment to savor all that was great about being a coach. Linger a little longer after practice, and especially after your last game, and think about the good times you’ve had and the lives you have touched by saying “yes” when many others would have said and did say “no.”
Thank you Coach and farewell! You have made a difference in a lot of lives.
Main photo by Kindel Media on Pexels.com
What’s the Deal with the Colored Tape on Catchers’ Chest Protectors?
If you were watching the Women’s College World Series in 2023 and/or 2024 you no doubt noticed that Oklahoma’s catchers had a piece of blue or red tape affixed to their chest protectors. I have heard some interesting explanations as to what it might be.
One is that it’s some sort of enlarged target for pitchers to throw to. If they’re having trouble seeing the glove, or if the catcher is trying to hide the pitch location, the pitcher can sight in on the tape and throw it there.
Another is that the tape is the pitcher’s favorite color, and it’s being used to help her feel more comfortable and confident. That’s more on the right track, but still not quite there.
Actually what it is has to do with something called motor preferences. You can learn more about it here, but I will provide a quick background of what it is and how it relates to the colored tape.
The concept of motor preferences began about 20 years ago with a French company called Volodalen. They were doing extensive research in how to help athletes in many different sports (but primarily in track and field and cycling, I believe) perform better.
Through this research they discovered that all of us have certain preferences baked into our DNA. For example, when some people run they tend to bounce or rebound lightly off the ground.
They classified these athletes as “aerial.” Others tend to be more earthbound, pulling and passing as they run, so they call them “terrestrials.”
There are other tendencies as well, which I’m not going to get into right now because while I have completed an online course I want to wait until I’ve attended the in-person training to go into it in more detail. So I don’t quite feel qualified yet to offer a deeper explanation.
Motor preferences have been used in Europe for about 20 years to determine an athlete’s natural preferences so he/she is being trained properly, both to enhance performance and prevent injury. It was brought to North America by Motor Preferences Experts, whose link I provided above.
Which brings us back to the tape on the chest protectors. The color and the orientation both have significance in how they affect the pitcher.
The color is determined by whether the athlete holds his/her breath in while performing an athletic movement or lets it out. In this case, an athlete who holds his/her breath in will have a preference for royal blue. (As I understand it not just any blue will do, it has to be royal blue.)
An athlete who empties his/her lungs during the act will have a preference for red. I’m told any general red will work. All of this has to do with the rods and cones in the eyes.
There is a test to determine whether an athlete is breath in/breath out You don’t want to just ask them. That test is proprietary so I can’t share how to perform it here but I will say it’s fairly subtle so you need to be trained in it anyway.
Once you know the color, you then test to see if the athlete’s brain organizes information horizontally or vertically. That will tell you whether to run the tape horizontally or vertically on the chest protector.
Getting back to our pitchers, if the pitcher tests breath in vertical, you would want to place a royal blue piece of tape on the chest protector in a vertical orientation. If she is breath out vertical you would place a red piece of tape vertically, and so on.
The purpose, at least as I understand it, is to help the pitcher feel more relaxed and confident before she goes into her pitch. Perhaps more focused as well, all of which will hopefully help her pitch better.
The colors and orientation isn’t just for pitchers, by the way. Hitters can put a piece of the correct tape on their bats before they get into position to help them prepare to hit. Teams can put stripes up in the dugout to help their fielders before they take the field, or fielders can put a piece of tape on their gloves.
The good news for those of us who are still learning how to test is that if you mess it up and get the color or orientation incorrect there is no negative consequence, at least as I understand it. You’re just not helping the athlete the way you were hoping to.
I hope that clears up some of the mystery around the tape. While the whole motor preferences concept has only been in the U.S. for a couple of years I think awareness is starting to grow and more organizations are starting to look into it.
Consider the colored tape the “gateway drug” into the deeper world of motor preferences and how they can help your athletes perform better and avoid significant injuries. More to come on this topic after I go through the training.
You Have Stats – Use Them!
The movie and especially the book Moneyball details how the Oakland Athletics (A’s) helped pioneer the use of statistical data in making player decisions, from which players to acquire to who to play in the field on a daily basis. Their reason for doing it was primarily financial, i.e., they didn’t have the same kind of money to spend on well-known high-performers in order to compete so they had to look for the “hidden gems” – under-valued players who would deliver results while costing less.
The A’s had some very smart people (including a Harvard business grad) who wrote computer programs to help them parse through the mountains of data on every player in the league to find the ones who best fit the system they planned to use while still being within their price range. So you might think, well, ok for them but I don’t have those types of resources so what good does knowing all that do me?
In reality, though, most coaches today do have a lot of that type of information at their fingertips, at least about their own players. It’s contained within the GameChanger (or similar) apps the coaching staff or parents use to score and share game results with those who can’t be there.
On the home page for the team, the very last tab is labeled Stats. If you as a coach click on it you’ll see the cumulative statistics for all the games in hitting, pitching, and fielding.
Now, I understand that the stats aren’t always accurate since some people will score every ball that’s hit and gets someone on base a hit, even if an error was involved. But if you really want to take advantage of the value of stats, coaches, you can quickly train whoever is using on how to keep score properly so you can rely on the data that’s there.
The National Fastpitch Coaches Association also has online courses available for $9.99 that can teach this skill.
So how can having and using accurate statistical data help you as coaches win more games? Here’s an example, drawn from an actual team that apparently isn’t using the data at their disposal.
We will look at the hitting statistics for seven batters. We’ll just call them Player A, Player B, Player C, etc. We’ll look at batting average (BA), on-base percentage (OBP, which is how often they get on base through hits, walks, or hit by pitch), slugging percentage (SLG, the average number of bases a hitter gets each at-bat), and on base plus slugging (OPS, the sum of the on-base percentage plus slugging, which is a great measure of total productivity of the hitter).
Here are those stats for our seven players. The players are currently presented in a random order:
| Player | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| A | .222 | .333 | .278 | .611 |
| B | .167 | .250 | .167 | .417 |
| C | .462 | .562 | .538 | 1.101 |
| D | .286 | .400 | .429 | .829 |
| E | .278 | .381 | .333 | .714 |
| F | .200 | .294 | .200 | .494 |
| G | .250 | .429 | .312 | .741 |
Ok, based on those numbers and a general understanding of how to put a lineup together (which I covered a couple of posts ago), how would you structure your batting order? Take a few moments to write it on a piece of paper without looking below; I’ll wait.
Let’s see how what you did compares to the actual lineup that was used when I pulled these stats. If you’re using a traditional lineup, it would probably look something like this:
- Player D
- Player E
- Player C
- Player G
- Player F
- Player A
- Player B
If you’re using a more modern approach that says put your best bats at the top so they come to bat more often, the lineup would probably look like this:
- Player C
- Player D
- Player E
- Player G
- Player A
- Player F
- Player B
Ok, now here’s what the actual lineup is:
- Player D
- Player A
- Player E
- Player G
- Player B
- Player F
- Player C
Do you see a problem here? The player with by far the highest batting average, on base percentage, slugging percentage, and on base + slugging (Player C) is hitting seventh, where she likely will get one at-bat per game, or two at most if the players ahead of her hit above their averages. In the meantime, Player B whose stats can only be called anemic at-best is hitting in the five slot, and Player A whose hitting line isn’t a whole lot better is in the two slot.
Is it any wonder that this team is struggling to score runs, much less win games?
Why would the lineup be structured this way? I can only guess, but that guess is the coach is relying on his “gut” or long-solidified impressions of who his top hitters are rather than taking the time to look at which players are actually producing statistically, game after game.
(It could also just be plain old playing favorites, but hopefully that’s not the case.)
If you want to win games you can’t and shouldn’t rely on your “gut” anymore. It’s like the the old scout thinking mentioned in Moneyball that so-and-so “looks like a ballplayer.”
That type of thinking is a dead end, whether you’re looking at the pro, collegiate, or youth level. You need instead to look at what is actually happening on the field, in the game, to determine which lineup is going to produce the most runs, which is a major key to winning ballgames.
The same is true for pitching and fielding too. You may think Pitcher A is your Ace, but if you look at the cold, hard stats you may find that Pitcher B does a better job of getting outs without giving up runs.
You may think Fielder A is your best bet at shortstop, but the stats could tell you Fielder B makes fewer errors while contributing to more “caught stealing” outs on throws from the same catcher.
All this information is there for you to use. All you have to do is click on it now and then to look at it.
Your eyes and your guts can lie. Statistics, if they’re properly kept, don’t.
Use the data you have to make better decisions and you’re likely to find you win more games. Or at least can justify your decisions should anyone ask, which in this day and age is a nice thing to have in your back pocket.
Statistics photo by Burak The Weekender on Pexels.com
Believe It or Not, It’s Not All About Winning
Can’t believe I have to cover this topic yet again, but recently I’ve heard some stories that show me it’s still important to talk about.
What topic, you ask? The importance of giving young players, particularly those who are 14 years old or less, a chance to develop, even if it means your team’s win-loss record isn’t as sparkly as you and your ego would like.
Take a 10U pitcher who just started taking pitching lessons. She’s starting to get the hang of it, but maybe she just went through a growth spurt and doesn’t quite have full command of her arms and legs yet.
As a result, although she is trying really hard she tends to walk more batters than she gets out. In fact, the last time you put her in she walked 20 batters .
Now you have a decision to make. One option is you decide she’s just not good enough to pitch for your team, you tell her she just doesn’t have what it takes to be a pitcher, and you never put her in again. Because if you do put her in it will be tough for your team to overcome the freebies and win the game.
The other is you encourage her and look for opportunities to put her in (as long as she is continuing to work at it). Maybe you schedule some “friendlies” or scrimmages during the week and commit to giving her at least an inning no matter what. You can even put a run limit on each inning so the damage isn’t too bad.
If she’s a little further along but not quite ready for prime time maybe you put her in during pool play. Or you let her pick up innings when your team is either really far ahead or really far behind.
There are lots of ways to be creative and develop the players who need a little more of it while not driving away the players who are currently further ahead.
The same goes for position players and hitters. When you play scrimmage games, try moving the players who usually see one at bat per game up higher in the lineup so they can gain a little more experience.
Sure, it might cost you a few runs today. But we all know the softball gods are going to bring one of those girls up at a critical time in a game that does mean something and where you have no options but to let them hit. Wouldn’t it be nice to know they have a little more experience and thus a better chance of coming through in the clutch?
Or perhaps it turns out that the girl you keep trying to hide in right field actually is becoming a decent fielder, and by putting her at second base for a couple of innings she starts developing the confidence to become a more important contributor in the future.
That’s the funny thing about working with young players. They all develop at different rates, and some who seem kind of awkward at 9 or 10 years of age turn out to be pretty decent athletes by the time they’re 14 or 15.
You just never know. Take that pitcher who walks 20 hitters that I mentioned earlier.
That’s actually a true story. I’m sure there were “better” pitchers on her team, and it would have been easy for her to get discouraged and quit if no one gave her a chance in a game.
Fortunately, some coach did, which is how Lisa Fernandez eventually came to become a three-time Gold Medal winning Olympian and arguably the greatest female fastpitch player ever.
Yes, winning is more fun than losing. But if you truly are “in it for the girls” (as every promotional piece for every team that has ever come along says) sometimes it’s worth sacrificing a few wins here and there to help ensure ALL of your players develop into the best versions of themselves they can be.
Set your ego aside and find ways to give your players the opportunities they need to learn and grow. They just may surprise you.
Lead photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 