I recently heard a statement on a podcast that, while it was speaking more generally, definitely applies to coaches and coaching. The statement, by British physicist and musician Professor Brian Cox, was:

“People who think they know everything are the greatest barriers to progress.”

Think about it. For better or for worse, there are coaches who have had success, and that success leads them to believe they no longer need to learn anything new.

Maybe they’ve been teaching hitting or pitching or throwing a certain way for XX number of years and, because it’s worked well enough to win, they see no need to change. Maybe they’ve been using the same strategies forever, such as automatically bunting when they get a runner on first base, and have convinced themselves it’s a winning strategy without looking to see how often they’re actually scoring that runner from second with one out.

Maybe they don’t see a need to try new tools or technologies because the way they’ve always done things has always worked (at least in their perception of it). Whatever the new idea or concept is, they’re automatically against it because they’ve gotten along fine without it all these years.

Here’s the thing, though: fastpitch softball is always evolving. And these days it’s evolving faster than ever.

While you don’t need to jump in with both feet on every new trend that comes along, it certainly doesn’t hurt to check them out to see if they might help your team or your students perform a little better or even stay a little healthier.

Let’s take a look at an obvious one: face masks. When face masks were introduced, particularly for pitchers, there were a lot of old-school coaches who were adamantly against them.

“We didn’t need masks back in my day,” they would say., or “You don’t need a mask – that’s what you have a glove for,” or “No college coach will recruit you if you wear a mask.”

What they didn’t account for when they were making those statements (outside of the fact that they weren’t the ones who would be paying for the reconstruction surgery and psychological counseling if a pitcher got smashed in the face with a line drive) is that the game of fastpitch softball had evolved greatly in favor of the hitters by the time face masks were becoming popular.

There were several contributing factor to that shift:

1. Players in general had gotten bigger, stronger, and faster thanks to offseason and in-season training.
2. In the good ol’ days, the majority of hitters weren’t taking lessons through the offseason while pitchers did, so pitchers had a huge advantage, especially in the beginning of the season.
3. Bat technology advanced tremendously beginning in the 2000s, making it easier for even average hitters to achieve much higher exit velocities than hitters just a few years before them.
4. High-speed video, and later sensor technologies, made it easier to understand exactly what high-level hitters actually do when they hit, helping bust several myths that had built up over the years.
5. The pitching distance for 13 year olds and up moved from 40 to 43 feet, giving hitters a little extra time to read and react to the pitch. While three feet doesn’t sound like much, look at the historical stats and you’ll see what a difference it made.
6. The ball when from a white ball with white seams to an optic yellow ball with red seams, making it easier for hitters to identify spins so they’d have a better idea of what the ball was going to do.

With all of these changes in place, hitters became much more productive, putting more balls in play overall and hitting them harder when they did. Face masks simply became a necessity for anyone who didn’t want to risk serious injury.

And oh, by the way, many if not most top college and pro pitchers today (including two-time Women’s College World Series champion Tegan Kavan and two-time runner-up NiJaree Canady) wear masks when they pitch. So much for not getting recruited if you wear one in high school.

The same goes for teaching techniques. What you taught back in the day may have worked, and may even continue to work today.

But is it the BEST way to do whatever it is you’re trying to do? Maybe some of the new approaches can help you take what you’re doing to another level if you’ll give them a chance.

You’ll never know, though, until you open your mind and give it a try. You may find it works better, or you may find it doesn’t add anything.

But at least you will know.

This is true of technology and data gathering too. You may be great at spotting some flaws that need correcting, but there could be things going on “under the hood,”: so to speak, that you can’t see. Differences of a few degrees one way or the other that might turn good into great or great into elite.

Again, though, you’ll never know if your mindset is, “I’ve never needed that stuff before, so why would I need it now?” Maybe because it will lead you to insights you wouldn’t have achieved without those innovations.

Obviously, you’re free to do whatever you want. If you want to continue teaching the game the same way you’ve always done it that’s your prerogative.

Don’t be surprised, however, if one day you find it has left you behind.

Believing you know everything is the quickest path to obsoleting yourself. Instead, assume there are people out there who know things you don’t and try to find them so you can learn from them and continue to progress yourself and your players/students.

You may even find you like learning new things, if for no other reason that it keeps coaching more interesting. And fun.