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Character Matters for Coaches Too
We often hear about how fastpitch softball players need to be good teammates and people of good character. Coaches will talk about what they look for during tryouts and recruiting beyond skills, and how they need to be able to hold their players to high standards.
But what about the coaches themselves? Shouldn’t being a person of good character matter for them as well?
What brings up this topic is an article my friend Jay Bolden of BeBold Fastpitch, who is a tremendous pitching coach by the way, passed along the other day. It’s one of several great things Jay has shared lately, so if you’re not following him on Facebook you really should.
The article was about a head coach at a D1 college who was recently arrested for shoplifting and possession of a controlled substance without a prescription. What’s really sad is the shoplifting amounted to less than $70, and she only had a couple of the pills in her possession.
Not the amount matters that much for our purposes – right is right and wrong is wrong no matter the scope – but if you’re going to get caught committing an alleged crime that could cost you your job you would think it would be for an amount that would have people say, “I get it.”
Regardless, though, the real issue here is one of character and leadership.
There is more to coaching than than teaching skills, making up lineups, and running plays. Especially when we are talking about youth and amateur sports, which includes college.
The measure of a great coach isn’t just wins and losses, although that aspect is definitely important, particularly in the college ranks. It’s also whether the coach is making a positive impact on those players, helping them become better people who are prepared to live their best lives.
That’s hard to do when you yourself are not exhibiting good character. There’s an old proverb that says a fish rots from the head down.
I have definitely seen that to be true, not just in softball or sports but in the business world as well. Poor leadership and questionable ethics will lead others in the organization to follow their own worst instincts, or at least make decisions that may not be in anyone’s best interests.
Another example of poor leadership is shifting blame to players for poor performance to cover the fact that the coach really doesn’t know what he or she is doing.
I recently heard about a coach complaining that her team wasn’t hitting the ball well enough and wasn’t scoring enough runs. Rather than try to help them solve the root issue(s), however, the coach merely said, “You guys need to hit better. Figure it out.”
How is that helpful? It’s not. It’s just a coach worried that her players’ lack of performance will make HER look bad.
That’s a sign of poor character. Even if the coach doesn’t know what to do technically, she should either bring in someone who does or at least try to bolster her players’ confidence at the plate so they’re not making things worse by tightening up and making poor swing decisions in the hopes that something good will happen (it usually doesn’t).
I think most teams have a code of conduct of some sort that they expect their players to abide by. Coaches should be held to at least that standard, if not a higher one.
Some simple things coaches can do to demonstrate strong character:
- Not smoking, drinking alcohol, or using other substances in the dugout or parking lot, or really anywhere their players are in uniform
- Not playing favorites with certain players; everyone earns their playing time based on merit, even if the coach doesn’t especially like certain players
- Not talking about some players to other players on the team, or to their parents, whether in-person, through direct communication, or on social media
- Not establishing “overly personal” relationships with anyone on the team;
- Enforcing team rules fairly and equally, don’t treat the rules as rules for non-starters and merely suggestions for starters
I remember hearing a great example of this last point being demonstrated several years ago by Mike Candrea, the former head coach at Arizona.
One of his star players broke a team rule a few days before the team was scheduled to play I believe in Regionals. She was seen as critical to the team’s success, and obviously the game they were about to play wasn’t a throw-away game.
Coach Candrea told the player she would not be joining the team on the trip, which may have come as a shock to the player and probably a whole lot of other people. When asked about it he said the rules are the rules, and they apply to everyone.
That had to be hard, especially because if I recall correctly Arizona did end up losing. But Coach Candrea demonstrated to every player on that team that fairness and integrity are (or at least should be) higher priorities than winning, even if the game is “important.”
It takes a lot of character to make that decision. When asked later if he had any regrets about it Coach Candrea emphatically answered, “No.”
That decision set a standard to which we should all aspire. What a tremendous life lesson for his players, and really everyone who has heard that story.
We are all products of our decisions, good and bad. But when you’re a coach you’re not the only one affected by them.
Hopefully whatever drove the coach in the opening story to do what she allegedly did can be overcome with some help and she can make better decisions in the future. But it does create a learning opportunity.
Just as we demand excellence from our players, so must we coaches also set higher expectations for ourselves as well. While it might be tempting to take a shortcut, or cheat a little here or there, or fudge the facts, or pass the blame onto others it’s important to take responsibility and demonstrate the qualities we want our players to exhibit on and off the playing field.
Character matters.
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The “Whack-A-Mole” Approach to Coaching
The other night as I was setting up for lessons at an indoor facility where I teach, there was what I presume was a dad and his son in the next cage over. The dad was pitching to his son, who appeared to be about 10 years old, and chucking them fairly hard at him.
Dad was kind of loud in his instruction – not a crime in my book because the place was pretty noisy and you had to talk loud to be heard – but because of that I couldn’t help but overhear what he was telling the boy.
With each pitch, Dad offered some helpful critique. “You dropped your hands.” “Your front foot stepped out.” “You’re dropping your shoulder.” “You were late.” “Gotta get your hips through.” And so on. You get the picture.
I felt bad for the poor kid because while all the things Dad was saying may have been true (I didn’t stop to watch because I had other things to do) I doubt the boy could make much sense of them.
The problem was there was so much scattered information coming at him at once it’s unlikely any of it was getting through. The kid probably felt like this.
It was a prime example of what I call the “Whack-a-Mole” style of coaching. (It could also be called the “Magic Pill” style. My friend and pitching coach extraordinaire Anna Nickel from ElevatePitching calls it “Firefighter Coaching” because you’re constantly running from issue to issue trying to put out fires.)
You see an issue come up and you point it out, although you may or may not say how to correct it. On the next repetition, while the player is trying to fix whatever issue you pointed out, something else crops up so you immediately jump on that.
This pattern continues until the session comes to a merciful end. At which point the player is no further along, and perhaps even behind, where she was before.
There’s no doubt this is an easy pattern to fall into, especially if you’re personally invested in the player’s success. You see a problem and you want to fix it.
That’s human nature. I know I can be guilty of it myself (just ask my students), and constantly have to tell myself not to do it.
The problem with this approach is that even though everything being said is true, it’s not like you can fix an issue with one attempt. That’s where the magic pill concept comes in.
Just because a coach points out a flaw doesn’t mean a player can fix it right away. It takes many, many focused repetitions to replace an old habit with a new, better one.
Yet when you’re playing Whack-A-Mole, that whole focus thing goes right out the window. If you tell a player she’s dropping her hands, on the next swing she will (hopefully) work on keeping them up. Whack!
But then if you tell her she was late on her next swing (Whack!), her focus will switch to her timing. Since she hasn’t had time to fix the first issue, however, her hands will drop again as she concentrates on her timing (Whack!). Introduce a few more issues (Whack! Whack! Whack!) and her mind is probably somewhere else – quite possibly thinking she must be awful because there are so many things wrong with her, and maybe she should just give up the sport entirely. It happens.
A better approach is to choose one thing and work on that. Then, after the player gets the hang of it, you can try moving on to something else. But if the first issue crops up again immediately, you need to go back to working on that instead.
If you’re already aware of what needs to be fixed you can game plan ahead of time. Take the thing you believe to be the most glaring flaw, i.e., the one that is most likely to keep the player from having success, and work on that.
Only when it seems like the player can execute the new skill without having to hyper-focus on it should you try moving to the next one on the list.
If you don’t know the player that well, you’ll have to do the prioritizing on the fly. In that case, you should know what the most important issues are in general, in descending order, and just work through the checklist until you find what needs to be done.
For a pitcher, for example, you may see she has a very stiff arm from trying to make the circle too big. You might have her work on learning to loosen up the arm to allow it to work the way it should.
That approach will be much better than trying to have her learn to loosen up her arm, improve her drive mechanics and learn to hit her spots reliably.
The good news is, if you choose your priorities correctly, often fixing one issue will help with others as well. In the pitching example, loosening up the arm will enable the arm to whip, which will increase speed. It will also allow the momentum generated in the pitch to help guide the arm, impacting accuracy as well.
One other thing to keep in mind is that fixing skills such as hitting or pitching properly and permanently often requires you to focus on pieces rather than the full skill.
In the case of hitters, that might mean putting the player on a tee for a while rather than taking full swings. For a pitcher that may mean having her move up close and throwing into a wall or net rather than performing full pitches. The same with players who need to work on throwing.
For fielders, it could mean having balls sitting on the floor or ground, or rolling balls to them rather than hitting them. Some players may have a tough time with that approach at first, but they will benefit far more from it in the long run versus trying to fix problems within the full skill.
Whack-A-Mole may be a fun game to play at a carnival – especially if you have some pent-up aggression to work out, as we all seem to these days. But as a coaching approach it isn’t very effective.
Pick one thing to focus on and give your players time to learn it before moving on to something else. You’ll find you generate much better results – in far less time.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 