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6 Benefits of Playing Under Sandlot Rules
Let me start by acknowledging that today’s ballplayers are far more technically skilled and athletically knowledgeable than they were when I was young lad, and even when I started coaching more than 25 years ago. If you go out to a ballpark this weekend, even to a local B-level or C-level 10U tournament, you’re likely to see a higher level of overall performance than you would have even 10 years ago.
Don’t even get me started on how crazy good high school and college softball players are today.
We can attribute a lot of that growth, in my opinion, to the tremendous amount of information that is available to coaches today as well as the tremendous amount of time teams and individuals invest in structured, organized training sessions and practices. With competition levels already high and improving each year, you’re either getting better or getting left behind.
Yet for all their technical prowess, I think today’s players may be missing out on a few things that are equally important to their level of play – and probably more important to their development as human beings: the benefits of playing under what’s called “sandlot rules,” i.e., unstructured playtime.
Following are some of the benefits that could be gained by downsizing the organized team activities (OTAs) and giving players more time to play under “sandlot rules.” And not just softball but whatever games those players want to play at the time.
1. Acquiring decision-making capabilities
In OTAs, coaches or other adults decide what players are going to do pretty much every minute of every practice or game. They determine who’s going to play where, what order they will bat in, what strategies they’re going to follow, even what uniforms to wear, right down to the color of socks.
Under sandlot rules all of those decisions have to be made by the players themselves. They pick the teams (if teams are needed), agree on the rules, determine what equipment is needed, set the boundaries for play, etc.
Whatever needs to happen to get game or activity going, players get to decide on them. If they can’t decide, that leads to the benefit of…
2. Learning conflict resolution
Let’s say the players want to play a game of softball, but there are no lines on the field. A batter hits a ball down the line and the defense says it’s foul while the offense maintains it was a fair ball.
With no umpire to look to, the players on both sides will have to come to a conclusion. If neither side can convince the other of its position, the likely outcome is the ol’ do-over.
No matter what they determine, however, they will have worked the problem and decided on an outcome. Or they won’t agree on one, in which case the game is probably over and no one gets to play anymore.
Either way, they will have learned a valuable lesson about the value of cooperation and compromise to achieve a higher goal (in this case continuing to play).
3. Developing problem-solving skills
Certainly the situation in point #2 also involves an element of problem-solving too, but I’m thinking of more general problems for this benefit.
For example, let’s say there are enough players to have 7 on each side. But a full team requires 9 on each.
When I was a kid and that was the case, we would close an outfield section (usually right field except for me, who hits left-handed) and have the team on offense supply a catcher. It was understood that the supplied catcher was obligated to perform as if he was a member of the defensive team and do all he could to get the out if there was a play at home, or backup any plays out on the field.
If you only had 4 or 5 kids available to play, you’d switch to a different game such as 500, which incidentally is where most of us learned to fungo, helping build hand/eye coordination and bat control. Whatever the issue is, under sandlot rules there are no adults to solve the problem even make suggestions so it forces the players to work together to overcome any obstacles themselves.
What a concept.
4. Improving athleticism
There is a lot of talk these days about the benefits of playing multiple sports instead of specializing early, especially in terms of cross-training muscle groups. Heck, I’ve written about it myself.
But you don’t need OTAs to get that benefit. It’s all available on the sandlot, or at least your local park.
Want to improve speed, quickness, and agility? Playing tag is a great way to do it, especially if you have two people serving in the “it” role. Nothing brings out competitiveness and causes people of all ages to run fast, cut hard, and move their bodies in impossible ways like trying to avoid being tagged. Remember, though, to let them set the rules.
Want to build some upper body strength? Go find some monkey bars or something else to climb and let them go wild.
They’ll do it with an enthusiasm you don’t usually see during formal pull-up sessions. Add a competitive element of some sort and they’ll drive themselves to exhaustion.
Just be sure to avoid the temptation to tell them what to do. Simply put them in the situation, or better yet encourage them to do it in their free time, and you’ll all reap the rewards on and off the field.
5. Elevating their mental health
Mental health among young people has reached a crisis level, and the decline of independent activity is often cited as one of the leading causes. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 4 in 10 high school students (40%) said they had a persistent feeling of sadness or hopelessness, and 2 in 10 (20%) said they seriously contemplated suicide while 1 in 10 (10%) actually attempted it.
This was a significant increase over the same questions asked just 10-15 years prior. And even more younger students are exhibiting these tendencies at the same time school days and years are getting longer, homework is increasing, and recess time is being cut to just 29.6 minutes a day on average – if they get recess at all.
Giving players of all ages more unstructured free time to “just go and play” may help turn this trend around, resulting in happier, healthier, more well-adjusted, and more productive young people – and adults.
6. Letting them have fun
Always remember that fastpitch softball is a game, and games are meant to be fun. Nobody signs up thinking “boy, I hope we do a lot of work today.”
In pretty much every survey of young athletes you’ll find, the #1 reason they quit sports (often around the age of 13 or 14) is that they’re not fun anymore. Inject more fun in their lives and we can keep more of our players playing longer.
Back to the sandlot
The game of fastpitch softball requires a lot of learning, both on the mental and physical sides, so it’s easy for coaches and parents to not want to “waste time on nonsense.” But that nonsense may be exactly what your players need to perform their best.
Give them the opportunity to get back to the sandlot now and then and you’ll help enhance their overall experience with sports – and help them become the adults they’re meant to be one day.
The Dark Side of College Softball
Like many of you I’m sure, my Facebook feed has recently been filled with photos from Signing Day ceremonies across the country. Congratulations to all those who have officially achieved their dream of becoming a member of a college softball team.
Yet as the classic W.W. Jacobs tale “The Monkey’s Paw” illustrates, getting your wish isn’t necessarily all sunshine and puppy dogs. It can come with a variety of unforeseen consequences that can turn a positive into a negative so it’s important that players and their families enter into this next phase of their careers with their eyes wide open.
Probably the biggest risk factor new college players must understand is that college softball at all levels is a business. Sure, you can probably still find some places where it’s still considered more of an extracurricular activity.
But for the most part being a head softball coach at a college isn’t a sideline or an avocation; it’s someone’s job,. And keeping that job depends on the team performing well, which means the head coach in particular probably isn’t going to have a lot of time for you if you’re not able to help him/her put Ws on the scoreboard.
I recently heard about a highly touted local player who went to play at a Power 5 (P5) conference team – one of those you’ll often see on TV at the Womens College World Series (WCWS). A couple of years ago there was tremendous excitement when she received her offer and signed the paperwork; the future looked rosy indeed.
Fast forward a couple of years and she’s been told she’s no longer on the team and her scholarship has been taken away. Not for doing anything bad or against the rules as I understand it. As far as I know (and I honestly don’t know her personally) she’s a fine, upstanding student athlete and a true team player.
Instead, she was basically shown the door because the coaching staff didn’t feel she was good enough to compete for a starting role and decided to give her spot to someone they thought might do better. If that girl doesn’t, in a couple of years she’ll probably suffer the same fate. That’s just business.
But that’s not the only bad thing that can happen. There have been plenty of stories about college softball coaches who are physically, emotionally, and/or verbally abusive to their players.
I’m not talking about coaches who lose their tempers after a tough loss or throw a clipboard now and then or make their teams run foul poles after sleepwalking through a game they should have won. That can happen even with caring coaches.
No, I’m talking about those who still subscribe to the idea that they need to intimidate and abuse and belittle their players on a constant basis to get them to perform. Then, if anyone complains the coach calls them weak (among other names) and tries to get the rest of the team to ostracize them and drive them out so they don’t have to be accountable for their abuses.
In a time when suicide rates among young females continue to rise according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that sort of approach can have far-reaching affects on young lives. And their families.
Not all of the negatives are so dire, though. One thing that is an eye-opener to many players entering college is how little the coaching staff may actually know about the technical aspects of the game.
It’s easy to assume that someone coaching at a high level has worked hard to gain expertise in skills such as hitting, pitching, throwing, fielding, general human movement, etc., and are constantly looking for new information that can give their players an edge. Yet as many have discovered to their chagrin, that is not always the case.
There appears to be plenty of coaches who figure they learned everything they needed to learn years ago and thus don’t need to keep up with new developments. Old dogs, new tricks, and all.
But that thinking isn’t limited to the old guard. Even young coaches fresh off their playing days can fall prey to it.
They assume that because they were successful they should teach the current crop of players what they were taught, without ever looking to see if that is what they actually did. They repeat the same old cues and use their position of power to force compliance onto the players under their control.
And what happens if that coaching makes the current players worse? Do they look into it and think maybe they should reconsider what they were saying?
Sometimes, perhaps. But more often than not, if a player’s performance or metrics go down, they simply move on to the next player who is performing at the required level. Sad to say, but many a career has been stunted or dashed completely all because of a lack of understanding about A) the core concepts of a particular skill, and B) how an individual’s DNA, body type, conditioning approach, mental approach and more can affect how their body moves in space.
Look, I’m not saying playing college softball has to be a bad experience. To the contrary, I know many, many former players who cherish those years – even some who experienced some level of the issues discussed above.
But it’s important to go into it with complete awareness of the risks that accompany the rewards so you’re more ready to face those challenges.
Like anything else, college softball has its upsides and downsides. If you go into it knowing what the pitfalls can be (rather than viewing it all through the proverbial rose-colored glasses) you’ll stand a much better chance of creating a positive experience – and choosing a program that best matches your personality and playing ability so you spend your four years of eligibility on the field instead of watching from the bench. Or the stands.
Remember: Those Players You’re Criticizing Are Real People
This year’s (2023 for future readers) Women’s College World Series (WCWS) was another huge score for the sport. The TV coverage overall drew an average of 1.1 million viewers per game, up 6% over last year according to Sports Business Journal, while the championship game peaked with 2.3 million viewers.
What tremendous visibility for our sport! Yet as it grows in popularity there is an unfortunate, unintended consequence that comes with it: an marked in increase in harsh and just downright mean comments about the 18 to 22 year old women who play the game.
You see, with the size of the spectacle comes an increased dissociation of the player we see from the human being she is. When you don’t think of the player as a real person, it’s easy to criticize her based on the observer’s impossibly high expectations of perfection.
In other words, the standards that are often applied to highly paid professional athletes with years of experience are now being used to measure the performance and value of young women who are just beginning to come of age. That doesn’t feel right to me.
Yet it’s not just these high-level college players who are feeling the sting of these harsh and sometimes even troll-level comments, often delivered by people who never picked up a ball and competed themselves. They’re also being directed at lower-level college, high school and even younger players in social media and softball-related forums and websites.
Now consider that according to the National Institute of Mental Health, the human brain doesn’t finish developing until a person is in their mid-to-late 20s. (And for the people I’m talking about in this post it may never fully develop.)
What that means is you have unthinking people lobbing terrible comments at adolescents and young adults whose brains may not be equipped to handle them. It may not feel personal to the stranger making the comment – after all, these are just images on a screen or random players on a field to them – but it can feel VERY personal to those on the receiving end.
Consider the college player who makes an error at a critical time that contributes to a loss that knocks her team out of the WCWS. (It doesn’t cause the loss because in the course of the game there were plenty of opportunities to make that error meaningless, but happening when it does puts it in the spotlight).
She feels bad enough about it already. But then someone she doesn’t know has to go and call her out in a way that is rude and classless to make him/herself look smart or superior.
What the commentor doesn’t know is this young woman may already be suffering from significant self-doubt or even full-on Imposter Syndrome. That comment might be enough to put her over the edge to where it affects more than her ability to play softball.
Because underneath the uniform is a real human being with a real story and real feelings of her own. She didn’t mean to make the error, she worked really hard on her game so she wouldn’t make that error, but sometimes it still occurs.
Some of these rude commentators like to get even more personal about it because it makes them feel big. They’ll go into a public forum and paraphrase a line from the Mighty Ducks 2, saying a player with a larger body size would have caught that pop-up if it was a cheeseburger.
They may think they’re being funny, but to an athlete already dealing with body or other self-image issues, these types of hurtful comments can be devastating.
It’s not that they’re snowflakes, because in the course of their day they are likely dealing with a lot of pressure from all sides and handling it well. But we all have chinks in our armor, and that’s one that can end up ripping a pretty big hole if the player already has a negative self-image.
Look, everyone has a story, and even if you see a profile on ESPN you’re not getting the whole story. Just the part of it everyone wants to highlight. Like a duck on the water it may look calm on top, but underneath there’s a lot of churning going on.
Before you choose to criticize or comment on a player in a harsh way, stop and think. Is this the way I’d want someone talking about me, or my wife, daughter, sister, etc.?
Remember that all those players you’re watching aren’t just images in a video game. They’re real, live human beings with real, live feelings and all their own personal stuff they’re going through.
If you feel the need, criticize the play but not the player. It’s simply the right thing to do.
Internet troll graphic: Simplicius (talk · contribs); derivative work by odder, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Helping Players Feel Good about Themselves More Critical Than Ever
In February of this year the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed the most recent results of its survey on the mental health of youths, along with a 10-year analysis of trends in that area. The news, in many cases, isn’t good – especially for teenage girls
The Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report: 2011-2021 showed that 57% of teenage girls reported feeling a persistent sense of sadness or hopelessness in the last year. That’s an all-time high, and a full 21 percentage points increase over 10 years ago. Additionally, 41% of teenage girls reported experiencing poor mental health in the last 30 days, and nearly one-third (30%) considered suicide over the last year versus 19% in 2011.
These are disturbing figures to say the least, and they are definitely trending in the wrong direction. So what can fastpitch softball coaches do to help the situation? Here are a few suggestions.
Create a Positive, Welcoming Atmosphere
Most of your players probably won’t show that they are experiencing feelings of sadness or hopelessness at practice or at games, but that doesn’t mean those feelings aren’t there.
Many may see playing softball as the best part of their day. It can be a refuge from all the rest of the turmoil of social media, peer pressure, grade pressure, etc. they’re facing.
But if practices and games consist of a lot of yelling, screaming, brutal criticism, and punishment, softball can quickly become one more burden contributing to the downhill spiral.
Instead of taking a command and control approach try being more positive with your players. Try to catch them doing good instead of always commenting on what they’re doing wrong.
I’m not saying you have to turn practice into a birthday party without the cake. There is certainly a time for correction and a need to hold players accountable.
But don’t make it all negative. Look for the positives and help players feel good about themselves when they perform well – or even make an effort to do things they couldn’t before.
You never know when a kind word or a metaphorical pat on the back might be the thing that keeps one of your players from becoming another sad statistic.
Pay Attention to Warning Signs
It’s unlikely any of your players will come out and say they’re feeling unhappy or having difficulty. People with depression in particular get really good at covering it up – at least until the dam breaks.
One thing to look for is a change in the way they interact with their teammates. If they are suddenly quiet and withdrawn where they were once boisterous and interactive it could be a sign something is going on with them.
It may just be a problem with a teammate or two, but it could also be a sign of something deeper. Either way, you’ll want to know about it and address is sooner rather than later.
This also applies to how they interact with you. If a player used to speak with you on a regular basis but has now become withdrawn it could be a sign of something deeper going on in their lives.
You can also look for a change of eating habits. If you’re doing team meals, or even just handing out snacks to keep your players fueled through a long practice, take not if someone suddenly stops eating or just picks at their food.
Pay attention to how they manage their equipment. Now, some players are just slobs who throw everything in their bags haphazardly. That doesn’t mean they’re experiencing sadness. In fact, some of the happiest players I’ve ever known have earned the name “Pigpen.”
If, however, a player used to take better care of her equipment but is now letting it stay dirty or putting it away in a random manner, you may want to initiate a conversation to check in on her mental health.
You may also notice a sudden loss of focus, such as a player making mentals errors she didn’t used to make. If she is having difficulty coping with her life she may not be able concentrate her efforts on the task at hand. Instead of just yelling “focus!” you might want to check if there is something deeper going on.
Finally, pay attention to whether a player is suddenly reporting more injuries or illnesses than she did before. That could be the case, or it could be a sign of her not being able to muster the enthusiasm to participate and using injury/illness as an excuse.
If it seems to be becoming a habit you may want to sit her down and find out if there is something more going on.
Offer a Sympathetic Ear
Many teens who experience these feelings of sadness or hopelessness tend to feel like there is nowhere they can go to discuss them. They’re afraid of their peers finding out, and some may be uncomfortable talking to their parents about it.
Make sure your players know they can always come to you to talk about what’s going on in their lives. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should try to solve them, however.
In simple cases you can offer some friendly advice and encouragement. Often times teens simply have a desperate need to be heard or to get what they’re feeling out in the open.
But if you suspect something deeper is happening in their lives you’ll want to refer them to a qualified, Board-certified mental health professional. That person will be trained to help teens work through their feelings and recognize deeper issues that could have a profound effect on their physical and mental health in the future.
Just showing you care in a meaningful way, however, can be just the boost that player needs to take the next step to getting past her issues.
Not “Soft”
There is a temptation for some among us to blame these mental health issues on kids today being “soft” or “snowflakes.” “Back in my day,” they like to say, “we didn’t have these problems.”
Actually you did, but no one talked about it. They just suffered in misery, and some took their lives, because no one was recognizing the problem.
It’s also true that life today is very different than it was 10, 15, 25 or more years ago. The pace is faster, and the exposure to impossible standards is relentless.
In softball terms that can mean seeing pitchers your age (or younger) throwing harder than you in social media posts and feeling like you’re not good enough. Never mind that you’ve added a few mph over the last several months and are doing well in your games. You’re still be compared to everyone in the country.
Or it can mean seeing all these hitters blasting home runs while you’re hitting singles, or seeing a list of “Top 10 12 year olds” and not seeing your name on the list.
None of that existed in the so-called “good old days.” But it does now.
That’s why it’s important to be aware of what’s happening with your players and do whatever you can to give them a great experience. You may not just change a game outcome or two. You could change a life.
Photo by Randylle Deligero on Pexels.com
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 