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7 Lessons from the 2025 WCWS
Like many coaches I’m sure, over the last couple of weeks I’ve been telling my students that they should watch the Women’s College World Series games. See what they do and how they do it, because in most cases
it’s a master class in how to play the game.
Students aren’t the only ones who can learn from it, however. There were a lot of lessons in there for coaches at all levels as well.
In some cases it was the strategies those coaches followed, whether it was using the element of surprise (such as a flat-out steal of home) or how they used their lineups. In others it was how they dealt with their players through all the ups and downs of a high-stakes series, or even their body language (or practiced lack of it) when things went wrong.
So with the WCWS now concluded and a champion crowned, I thought it would be a good opportunity to recap and share some of those lessons (in no particular order). Feel free to add any you think I may have missed in the comments.
WARNING: There be spoilers here. If you have games stacked up to watch and are trying to avoid learning the outcomes of those games stop reading now, go fire up your DVR, then come back afterwards.
Individual Greatness Doesn’t Guarantee Success
Ok, quick, think about who were the biggest names going into this year’s WCWS. Odds are most of you thought of three pitchers in particular: Jordy Bahl, Karlyn Pickens, and NiJaree Canady.
They have been the big stories all season, and for good reason. All are spectacular players who make a huge difference for their teams.
Yet only one of those names – NiJaree Canady – was in the final series, and her team did not win the big prize. This is not a knock any of these women, because they are all outstanding.
It is merely an observation that for all their greatness, it wasn’t enough in this particular series. To me, the lesson here is not to get intimidated by facing a superstar and fall into the trap of thinking your team simply can’t match up.
Teagan Kavan, the Ace for Texas had almost double the ERA and WHIP versus NiJaree Canady, almost double the ERA of Karlyn Pickens (although their WHIPs were close), and a somewhat higher ERA and WHIP than Jordy Bahl. Yet in the end Kavan was the one holding the champion’s trophy.
Get out there and play your game as a team and you can overcome multiple hurdles as well.
Riding One Pitcher Doesn’t Work As Well As It Used To
Back in the days of Jennie Finch, Cat Osterman, Monica Abbott, Lisa Fernandez, etc., teams used to be able to ride the arm of one pitcher all the way to the championship. That is no longer the case.
One reason for that is the change in format, especially for the championship. It used to be you only had to win one final head-to-head matchup to take home the prize. Now, it’s best two out of three, which extends how much a pitcher in particular has to work, especially if you’re the team coming back through the loser’s bracket.
It’s not that today’s athletes are any less than those of the past either. I’d argue they’re probably better trained and better conditioned that even 10 years ago.
But the caliber of play has continued to increase, and every one of the players is now better trained and better conditioned than they used to be, with science and data leading the way. That elevation in performance makes it that much tougher to play at an athlete’s highest level throughout the long, grueling road to the final matchup.
The stress and fatigue of playing on the edge takes it toll, especially on the pitchers who are throwing 100+ pitches per game. And while the effort of pitching in fastpitch softball may not create the same stresses on the body as overhand pitching, repetitive, violent movements executed over and over in a compressed time period are going to take their toll.
Smart teams will be sure to develop a pitching staff and use that staff strategically to preserve their stars for as long as they can. Yes, when you get to the end you’re going to tend to lean on your Ace more.
But the more you can save her for when you need her at the end, the better off you will be.
(NOTE: This is not a critique of either coach in the championship series. This is more advice for youth and high school coaches who over-use their Aces to build their won-loss record instead of thinking ahead to what they will need for the end of the season.)
In a 3-Game Series, Winning Game 1 Is Critical
Winning that first game gives you some luxuries that can help you take the final game.
When you win game one, you have the ability to start someone other than your Ace because worst-case if you lose you still have one more game to try to win it all. You can bring your Ace back fresher, and you won’t have given opposing hitters as many looks at your Ace as they would have had otherwise.
If you lose game one, it’s do-or-die. You need to do what you need to do to keep the series going so you will pretty much be forced to use your Ace. She gets more tired, and opposing hitters get more looks at her in a short period of timing, helping them time her up or learn to see her pitches better.
That makes it rougher to win game three for sure.
Even the Best Players Make Errors Under Pressure
So there’s Texas, sitting on a 10-run lead in the top of the 5th inning with three outs, then two outs, then one out, then one strike to go. One more out and the run rule takes effect, making them the 2025 WCWS champions. I’m sure their pitcher, Teagan Kavan, was looking forward to it all being done since she’d throw her fair share of pitches in the WCWS too.
But then disaster struck. Texas Tech put the ball in play and a throwing error by Texas put what should have been the third out on base. Another throwing error and a couple of hits later the score is now 10-3 and Texas Tech feels revived.
I’m sure the original error was a play they’ve practiced a million times. But in that situation the throw pulled the first baseman off the bag and kept Texas Tech in the ballgame.
That’s something to remember with your own teams. Even the best players make mistakes and/or succumb to pressure. The key is to not hit the panic button (or the scream at players button) and instead keep your cool so the players calm down and get back to business.
Also notice Texas coach Mike White didn’t pull his shortstop in the middle of the inning because she made an error. Instead, he put his faith in her and she made plays later that preserved the win.
It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over
Same situation but from the Texas Tech side. It would have been easy for them to say 10-0 was an insurmountable lead and begin to let up a little.
Instead, they battled to the final out, and played like they always believed they could still win it. While it would have been tough, if a few more things went their way who knows?
Every player on that side did their jobs to the best of their ability, always believing they could still take the lead. And for a while there it looked like they might.
Now, one thing they had was the luxury of time. With no time limits and no run limits, they had the potential to score enough runs to get back in the game.
It didn’t happen, but it could have. As long as you’re not restricted by time there’s always that chance you can come back. Keep doing your best and you never know what might happen.
Pay Attention to the Little Opportunities
You have to admit the steal of home by Texas Tech was both fun and a gutsy call. I don’t have any inside information on it, but I’m guessing Coach Gerry Glasco knew it was an opportunity long before he called for it. He just had to wait for the right situation.
In watching the replays, it looked to me like the catcher wasn’t paying attention when she threw the ball back, because who would be crazy enough to try to steal home like that? The Texas Tech runner, though, was on a flat-out sprint from the moment the pitch was released and she ended up scoring pretty much unchallenged.
The lesson her isn’t just to keep awareness of what’s happening when you’re on defense, although that’s important. It’s also to think ahead and see what’s happening on the field when you’re up to bat, to see if there are opportunities to advance baserunners or score without putting the ball in play.
It was a gutsy call for sure. But I doubt it was done without a lot of forethought.
Practice the Little Things Too
On the other side of the coin was the hit off the intentional walk in the first game of the championship series. After throwing the first three balls, NiJaree Canady apparently lost a bit of control on the last pitch and Texas took advantage of it, swinging on a pitch that was too close to the plate while the defense was relaxed knowing it was an intentional walk.
Again, I don’t have any inside information but I’ll bet Texas Tech didn’t spend much time practicing intentional walks. Why would they when they had the two-time NFCA Pitcher of the Year throwing for them? Why would she need to walk anyone intentionally?
So when the situation came up, perhaps she wasn’t quite as ready as she should have been. I know you may be thinking “how hard is it to throw a pitch to a spot off the plate for someone who has pinpoint control everywhere else?”
It’s actually harder than you think, and a skill that has to be practiced like any other. Your pitchers are used to throwing strikes. Throwing a ball on purpose may seem as foreign to them as throwing with the opposite hand.
If you think you might throw an intentional walk, or do anything else out of the ordinary for that matter, be sure you practice it first. The less you leave to chance the better chance you have of it working.
Murphy’s Law In Action
Cindy Bristow once told a clinic full of coaches “My girls make the same mistakes your girls do. They just make them faster.” Over the years I have found that to be true.
If things can go wrong they will go wrong. Nothing you can do will change that.
But you can be as prepared as possible, and remember that no one ever sets out to perform poorly. Those things just happen.
Even the best players and coaches make mistakes or have good intentions blow up in their faces. Hopefully we can all learn from them and use that knowledge to help us get better for the next time.
What the WCWS Can Teach Us about the Changeup
Whenever I see one of my students after a tournament weekend, the first question I usually ask them is “How did it go?” Knowing how they performed in game situation is very helpful in determining what we’re going to work on in that lesson.
Hopefully I get more than “good” or “fine” or “terrible” as a response.
The next question I ask pitching students is “What pitches did you throw?” (assuming they have more than just a basic fastball). That’s where it can get a little dicey.
The answer I least like to hear is “Mostly just my fastball,” especially if that pitcher has also developed (or is developing) a decent (or better) changeup. Sorry, I know that was a lot of parentheses in one sentence but hopefully you followed it.
Now, I know that pitchers these days, especially the younger ones, often don’t have a lot of input into the pitch calling process. But I will still ask them why they didn’t throw their changeups more.
The typical answer are:
- The other team couldn’t hit my fastball so my coach didn’t want to give them a slower pitch to hit
- I threw one but it rolled in/went high/went wide so my coach didn’t want to throw it anymore
- I had a little trouble with it during warmups so my coach didn’t want to chance it in the game
- My coach says he/she doesn’t like the changeup or prefers to go with speed
- I threw a few but when one got hit my coach quit calling it
- I dunno
I get the thinking behind most of these reasons (except the last one). Coaches want to win games so will tend to go with what they think will accomplish that goal.
They also tend to be risk-averse, and often view a pitch that looks so different from everything else in the pitcher’s arsenal as too risky to throw, particularly in close games.
I hope those coaches were watching the #2024WCWS (Women’s College World Series). Because it was a veritable clinic on how effective a changeup can be – and how often it can be used.
I’ve commented to a number of people that I think I’ve seen more changeups thrown in one inning by some of these pitchers than I’ve seen in total over the last five years. It was like someone suddenly remembered how great the changeup is and passed a memo along to all the top D1 college teams in the country.
Stanford’s NiJaree Canady, to me, was the poster child for this display of pitching chicanery. Because she wasn’t just throwing a couple per inning.
No, she was often throwing at least a couple per HITTER!
She also did a great job of wiping out excuse #1 above. Canady was consistently throwing all her other pitches at 70 mph+.
I don’t care how good a hitter you are, that’s going to be tough to catch up to, especially if you can locate the ball to match the hitter’s weaknesses. At one point I saw a quote from Monica Abbott saying she thought Canady could be the first female pitcher to throw 80 mph in a game in a couple of years.
Yet Canady and the Stanford staff didn’t go there and try to blow everyone away with speed. They actually used that speed to set up her changeup, which is where she was getting a lot of her strikeouts. If it’s good enough for one of the last teams standing in the WCWS…
Another thing I saw was various pitchers (including Canady) throw some sub-par changeups. They would throw them for close balls in tough counts.
I remember at least one pitcher (I think it was Nicole May in the final game of the championship series, a pretty important time) roll the ball in on a change at least once, maybe twice. Yet the Oklahoma coaches didn’t quit calling it.
I also remember a few along the way going high, going wide, and (gasp!) even getting hit – occasionally for a home run. But those pitchers’ coaches didn’t quit calling it, because they understood that’s going to happen, even to very high-level pitchers, and that the next one in the zone will still be effective.
There were also times when a pitcher might not be throwing her best changeup. But again, on softball’s biggest yearly stage, the coaches understood that changing speeds that way could be effective even if the pitch didn’t go for a called strike.
After all, nobody wants to look bad on national TV swinging through a changeup, so it gets in the hitters’ heads. If a highly accomplished, high-level hitter can feel that way imagine the psychological pressure a changeup can put on a 12U, 14U, or even older hitter.
Probably the only argument against the changeup that the WCWS didn’t answer directly was the coach wants to call the pitches he/she thinks will win the most games. And throwing a changeup on a regular basis doesn’t give us as much assurance of winning this game right now as throwing a speed pitch does.
So here’s my question: where do you think all these high-level pitchers learned to throw their changeups in pressure situations? I can pretty much guarantee that it wasn’t at the WCWS, or even during the college regular season.
Those pitchers most likely had youth coaches who believed in them, and believed in developing them to become the best they could be. I don’t have direct knowledge of the circumstances but I’d bet pretty good money that NiJaree Canady, Kelly Maxwell, Nicole May, Teagan Kavan, and all the other pitchers we watched this past weekend who throw in the high 60s and low 70s didn’t have youth team coaches who told them to just go out and blow the ball by everyone.
My guess is their coaches threw the changeup even when they didn’t need to, because they knew it would help those players (and countless others) become the best they could be. They also knew one single pitch rarely determines a tournament outcome so they could always come back with something else or change strategies if the changeup didn’t work.
All those young women throwing changeups in the WCWS were given ample opportunities to develop that pitch so it would be ready for when it mattered most.
Hopefully today’s youth coaches were paying attention, and saw how effective the changeup can be when it is called early and often, sometimes a couple of times in a row, even against some of the best hitters in the game.
If you have a pitcher who can throw a changeup, even if it isn’t the greatest in the world right now, take advantage of it and use it. If you let her develop it now I guarantee it will help your team win more games in the long run.
And you might just get the pleasure of watching one of your pitchers throw it on TV someday.
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
6 Reasons to Watch the NCAA D1 Softball Tournament
We are coming up to the best time of the year for fastpitch softball fanatics: the NCAA D1 Women’s Softball tournament. Over the next couple of weeks 64 of (presumably) the best college softball teams in the country will be going head-to-head to see which will ultimately make it into the Elite 8 and the Women’s College World Series WCWS).
Fortunately for those of us who love it, these games will be all over ESPN. Not because ESPN has any particular love or feels any particular sense of responsibility to the sport, but because over the last few years it has been a rating juggernaut.
In fact, last year alone it drew more than 1.2 million viewers, which is 60% more than the Men’s Baseball College World Series. It draws the eyeballs, which draws the sponsors, which ensures you’ll see it.
Yet as popular as it is, if you ask the average youth or even high school player if she plans to watch any of the games, she will probably turn her head and stare at you the way a dog does when you ask it if it knows what it just did. That’s her way of saying no.
In fact, I have found over the years that most players don’t have a favorite team, or a favorite player, or can even name a college or pro player. That’s because it never occurs to them to watch the games. And if they do watch because a parent makes them, they don’t really pay attention or get invested in it.
That’s a shame, because there is much that younger players can learn by watching these elite athletes perform in the biggest showcase fastpitch softball has. (Yes, you can argue that the Olympics and other international tournaments offer a higher level of play but there’s no guarantee softball will be in the Olympics again – and just try finding international tournaments if you don’t have more than a basic cable or satellite subscription.)
So with that in mind, here are some of the reasons why you either want to watch the games with your favorite player or team live, or DVR them and watch them later. Even if you feel you have to turn off the sound on some of them.
1. See the Speed of the Game
This is probably one of the biggest eye-openers, especially for players in the 10-14 year age range. The game happens fast.
Players who are used to taking their time gathering a ground ball and making a throw to first, or jogging after a pop fly, will see how quickly plays develop – and are over. With slappers in particular, one little bobble by an infielder (no matter how minor it seems) gives the hitter just enough time to reach base safely.
Seeing the sense of urgency in every play can help individuals and teams learn to play at a higher level.
2. Watch How Top Players Execute Their Skills
It’s often said that when you’re looking at what techniques or mechanics to use for pitching, fielding, throwing, hitting, etc. that we should look at how the best players in the world do it. While the players on TV may not all be the “best” players they’re still pretty darned good at what they do so they make fine examples to study.
Here’s where DVRing the games comes in particularly handy. If a player hits a home run, you can go back and look at her swing from the multiple angles they show. Sooner or later you’ll get to see how a top pitcher throws her riseball – assuming it’s an actual rise and not a gyro spinning high fastball.
You can also use it for quantitative analysis, such as looking at how many pitchers use the “hello elbow” technique versus how many are using internal rotation. You can compare how many hitters “squish the bug” on their back leg versus shift their weight forward and get completely off the leg.
You can watch how infielders throw on a bang-bang play, how they make tags on steals, how they position themselves in bunt situations. You can watch how outfielders go back on a ball and how they scoop and throw home in a do-or-die situation. You can watch how many catchers throw from their knees versus their feet, and the specific techniques they use.
It’s a virtual cornucopia of skills on display, all delivered free to your living room.
3. See How Player Recover from Mistakes
One of the biggest challenges youth players face is learning how to recover from their mistakes, e.g., committing errors, striking out (particularly with runners on base), giving up leadoff walks, etc. As a general rule girls take “failure” rather hard, to the point where fear of failure can prevent them from performing at their highest level.
Well ya know what? Those players on TV do all those things too.
I remember the great Cindy Bristow telling a room full of coaches at a clinic that “My girls make the same mistakes your girls do. They just do it faster.”
So having your player(s) see one of the best in the game bobble a ball, strikeout, throw a wild pitch with a runner on third, or make some other mistake at the least will show her she’s in good company. (It will also show coaches and parents why they need to have realistic expectations for their 10 year olds.)
But the most important lesson for the player will be what happens next. Instead of brooding about it, the player in the WCWS will move on and keep playing. Sure, she may beat herself up over it later, especially if her team loses, but in the moment she pushes it down because she knows she needs to be ready for the next opportunity.
That is not necessarily a natural skill for most humans. But it’s one that can be learned of you make the effort.
4. Hear Some Inspirational Stories
Softball is absolutely a game of failure and adversity. And for some the journey is more challenging than others.
It’s easy to assume that everyone you see was a star from the beginning who was recognized for their talent and treated like royalty their whole career. But that isn’t always the case.
Fortunately, ESPN does a great job of profiling players and where they came from to tell fascinating human interest stories. Such as last year when Odicci Alexander captured the nation’s hearts with her story of being self-taught before leading her James Madison University team to the WCWS.
There are always stories players can relate to. Some talk about overcoming challenging injuries, including some that were supposed to be career-ending.
Some relate to issues such as being cut from a travel team or not making varsity and having to work even harder to elevate their games. Some involve personal tragedies.
Whatever the story, it shows that obstacles are only temporary – if you have the will to overcome them.
5. Bond With Your Player(s)
Remember the great James Earl Jones speech in “Field of Dreams” about how America marched along like an army of steamrollers, but through it all there was baseball? The shared experience of watching a sport played at its highest level can really help parents bond with their children and coaches bond with their players.
To make that happen, of course, you can’t make watching the games like school. Or at least totally like school.
Sure, you can go over plays and evaluate the coverages and executions. But you can also simply appreciate an amazing diving catch or the inner struggle on both sides of a 12-pitch at-bat.
You can laugh about that riseball that gets launched into the stands or the runner who evades the catcher with a well-timed dive or jump on a play at the plate.
But of course the best part will be spending time with those players sharing something you mutually love.
6. Follow the Benjamins
In the beginning of this post I mentioned that ESPN broadcasts every game of the tournament not because they love softball or softball players so much but because it makes them money. Lots of money.
Well, the downside of that is if the audience dries up so does the coverage. So if you want to keep seeing games on TV, even occasionally, one of the best things you can do is watch them now.
Keep those ratings growing and it will encourage even more coverage. Otherwise you’ll be singing this sad song.
College Playoffs and WCWS Create Unique Learning Opportunity
The next few weeks promise to be a softball fanatic’s dream.
First you have all the major D1 college conference championships that will be televised on the various flavors of ESPN. Plus all the others that are available through various streaming services, including D2 and D3.
Then there are the regionals, super regionals and Women’s College World Series games that will take us through early June. Here’s an overview of what that schedule will look like.
While I’m sure it will be enjoyable to watch, there’s more to it than just entertainment. All this great softball on TV provides an invaluable learning opportunity for young teams – and one which most of today’s players don’t seem to take much advantage of.
When I start with a new student, I will often ask her if she can name any famous players at whatever skill we’ll be working on. For example, if it’s a new pitching student I’ll ask who she admires as a pitcher or what famous names she knows.
More often than not I get a blank stare. If I name a few for them, such as Cat Osterman, Amanda Scarborough, Monica Abbott, or Sarah Pauly, most of the time they may have heard of the name but have never seen them pitch.
As a result, most of the time they have no idea what a high-level pitcher looks like in action. The same is true for hitters and fielders.
That’s why the next few weeks present such a tremendous opportunity. Some of the best players in the world will be showcased doing what they do best. These are young women who do what you would like your players to do.
So why not take advantage of that and replace a normal practice with a watch party? You can find out when a local or semi-local team is playing and watch that game.
Or see if there is a player from your area on one of the teams and have your team watch her specifically. Show them that these aren’t just figures on TV but real players who once stood where your players do now.
Make a party of it. Supply some snacks, order some pizza, maybe even organize a sleepover if that’s appropriate. Then at game time, actually watch what happens and discuss the action on the field.
You might even pause the game and run back a good play to show the effort that went into it, or re-watch a bad play to talk about what should have happened instead. You can also talk about the strategy of why a team or player did what they did (good or bad) to help raise your team’s collective softball IQ.
It has been estimated that the majority of people in the world (65%) are visual learners. Showing your players both good and bad examples in real time helps them understand more thoroughly the techniques and strategies you’re trying to teach them.
As you watch the game, perhaps the coaches and players can make a list of things they want to work on at the next practice. Maybe it’s diving to catch a ball. Maybe it’s a type of slide they saw, or a spectacular over-the-shoulder catch. Maybe it’s a suicide squeeze.
Whatever it is, seeing it performed and then trying it themselves may be just the spark they need to inspire them to play at a higher level than they are now.
Watching a game on TV also gives your players a chance to gain some perspective about their own performance. They may see a pitcher give up a critical home run, then come back to strike out the next hitter.
They may see a player make an error to give up the go-ahead run, then come through later in the game with a key hit. Ultimately, especially in an elimination game, they will see the “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” played out in real time.
The other nice thing about watching the games on TV (versus going in person, which is also a great experience) is that it doesn’t cost much. A little food and drink, the price of the cable or streaming channel (if it isn’t free) and the time to clean up afterwards is about all you need.
But you can create a learning and bonding experience that will benefit your players for a long time to come.
Sure, we all like to grind away on the field. But if all your players ever see is each other, and players on other teams of comparable ability, they may never realize there is a much larger world out there.
Show them some of the best in the world playing the game at a high level and you just might inspire a level of play and enthusiasm in them that they wouldn’t have achieved before.
The Importance of the Poker Face When Catching for Your Daughter
While I am definitely not a big-time gambler, I have always thought that if I wanted to put together a high-stakes poker game where I would have a high chance of winning I would invite the bucket parents of young, preferably beginner, fastpitch softball pitchers.
Not that they have a lot of money available to drop in a game. Lord knows you could buy your own college on what some parents spend trying to get their daughters a scholarship, and even lower-level play can empty a bank account faster than my friends and I could destroy the buffet options at a Pizza Hut.
But whatever money they do have would quickly be mine for one simple reason: their inability to hide their emotions on any sort of regular basis.
I’m sure it doesn’t happen intentionally, but I see it time and again. Their daughter throws a strike and they’re all smiles and excitement, ready to call Patty Gasso to tell her they have her next ticket to the Women’s College World Series punched.
Then the next pitch the ball is in the dirt behind the imaginary batter and they look like they’ve just been told they have to tell John Wick his new dog is dead. Kind of reminds me of this guy:
Well, maybe not quite to that extent. But all the signs are there.
The crestfallen face. The biting of the lower lip. The shoulder slump. The slow walk to retrieve the ball. The pleading in the eyes to “just throw strikes.” Or conversely the unbridled glee when the pitch does what it’s supposed to, like Ralphie and his brother Randy opening presents on Christmas morning.
The thing is I don’t think they’re showing these emotions on purpose. In fact, they probably don’t even know they’re doing it.
But I can see them.
And if I can see them guess who else can?
That’s right, Their daughters, who (in almost all cases) are doing their best to learn this very complicated skill.
Here’s the problem. As a general rule, girls tend to be more focused on pleasing others than boys. And they really want to please their parents.
So if mom or dad inadvertently looks angry, frustrated, disgusted, like their world has ended, etc., it will launch a whole range of emotions accelerated by raging hormones. And at that point, it becomes even more difficult for them to pitch with any semblance of speed and accuracy.
This is an important lesson for every parent (and coach) to learn. I know I had to.
Both of my daughters pitched, and they certainly reacted to however I reacted. I didn’t realize it, however, until I took the ASEP coaching course and they talked about body language and what it tells your team.
It was a real eye-opener for me because I pretty much ticked all the boxes. Hanging Head Syndrome. Heavy Sighs. Banging my hand on the fence when something would go wrong.
I had to work at developing that steely-eyed poker face so that no matter what happened it became a non-event. It wasn’t easy, and I would backslide now and then. But it was worth it.
That’s what I recommend for you bucket parents. Pitching in fastpitch softball is hard. If you don’t believe me, pay close attention in your daughter’s next lesson and then go home and try to do the things she is being asked to do. Then keep in mind she has the body control and fine motor skills of child or adolescent, not an adult.
The best thing you can do for your daughter’s development is to work on your poker face. Learn to control your emotions like a Jedi so that no matter what happens your face, and your body language remains completely neutral.
If you can do that, it will free her to develop her skills guilt-free, which will hasten her improvement considerably. Before you know it you won’t need those abilities because she’ll be performing at a level that makes it a little easier to relax and enjoy the ride.
Don’t worry, though. All that effort you put into hiding your true feelings won’t go to waste. You can instead apply those skills the next time you’re at a tournament and the parents decide a little “adult time” at the local casino is in order. With a little luck you might even be able to cover the weekend’s expense.
Poker photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com
Lessons Learned from the Women’s College World Series
Well, that was quite a Women’s College World Series (WCWS) wasn’t it? Lots of fastpitch softball drama (the good kind) from the Regional games all the way up to Championship Series.
Show of hands: how many stayed up until the bottom of the 17th on Monday? I know I did, and I paid for it the rest of the week with interrupted sleep patterns.
As I did the lessons the last few weeks I also asked my students if they were watching the games. Some were, some weren’t. That’s too bad for the ones who weren’t because there’s lots to be learned from watching the game played at such a high level.
With that in mind, here are a few of my own observations and takeaways coming out of a very fun series.
Catchers need to block
Not just sometimes but every time. I saw several balls get by catchers in crucial situations because they tried to glove a ball and couldn’t quite do it. When pitches are coming in at 65+ mph and hit shinguards, they tend to bounce far away. And usually in odd directions.
Get that ball centered on your body – judging where it’s going, not where it is – get on your knees and get over the ball.
Good framing helps
There were definitely strikes called that could have gone either way. (And some, of course, that should have gone the other way, but that’s a different topic.) Catchers framing pitches well can sometimes – sometimes – make the difference.
More bullet spin than you’d expect
When the TV would show the slow motion replays of certain pitches, I was surprised to see just how many pitches had bullet spin rather than directional spin. 
(For those who aren’t familiar with the term, bullet spin is when the ball is spinning like a clock face as it’s coming toward you, and you can see the “button” on the front. Bullets spin this way so they don’t move off their direct targets when fired. Good for bullets, bad for pitchers because nothing is easier to hit than a ball that doesn’t change direction.)
I know announcing from the press box is tougher than it looks – I’ve done it – but it was rather funny when a commentator would talk about so-and-so’s tight spin on her rise ball, or how the pitcher just threw a late breaking curve ball, and as he/she is saying it you can clearly see the ball with bullet spin.
Rise balls don’t really rise, but if they were going to they’d have to be spinning backwards. Curve balls would have to have side spin on them. And so forth. A ball with bullet spin isn’t going to break – early, late, or otherwise.
It pays to work on baserunning
I saw some really amazing plays where heads-up baserunning definitely gave the team on offense an advantage.
I saw a runner on first take second on a changeup. I saw runners alerting watching as a throw from the outfield was directed toward a base they weren’t going for, giving them a chance to advance unexpectedly. I saw runners sliding away from possible tags to avoid being out.
Then there was the other stuff. I saw runners going from first to second on a ground ball allow themselves to be tagged so the defense could make a double play. I saw runners over-estimating their speed when they were the only play in town and making an out instead of giving their team a base runner. I saw runners run in front of a fielder going for a ground ball instead of behind and getting called out for interference.
Getting runners on base is really the key to success. The more the merrier. But they don’t really matter until they reach one base: home. The more you can do to get them there, the more runs you’ll score and the more likely you are to win ballgames.
Putting the fast in fastpitch
By the time the Championship Series came around we had the opportunity to see some incredible pitching.
It’s hard to imagine thinking of a pitcher who throws in the mid-’60s as “slower,” but when the others are consistently in the 70s – even up to 75! – that kind of is the case.
What was interesting was that 70 mph pitch speeds didn’t make for 1-0 games. Even the 17 inning barn burner wound up with a double-digit run total. But the ability to throw flat-out harder than everyone else does make a difference, especially in crucial situations where a team really, really needs an out.
I think we saw that even at that level, it’s tough not to be enamored of the pitchers who can flat-out bring it.
It takes a pitching staff
It seems that gone are the days when you could just ride one big arm for the entire tournament. Even if she threw 200 pitches the day before.
Both Oklahoma and Florida got to the big dance using two pitchers, and on Tuesday night Florida pulled in a third and Oklahoma used four!
Has the pitching gotten worse, or the pitchers gotten softer? Not from where I sit. The hitters have simply gotten better. They say hitting is about timing and pitching is about disrupting timing. No better way to disrupt a group of hitters and keep them from getting comfortable in the batter’s box than by showing them different looks, speeds, and styles.
Great defense still makes a difference
Maybe more than ever. There were so many great defensive plays throughout the last few weeks that you could easily make a lengthy highlight reel just on that.
The key for the winners in different games wasn’t the spectacular stuff, though. A lot of it came down to making the plays they were supposed to make. You do that, and the rest is icing on the cake.
Great coaches care about their players
It’s unfortunate that at every level – even D1 college – there are coaches who care more about their records and looking good in front of whoever than they do about their players. Those coaches tend to view their players like the do the field or the equipment – pieces that are there to be used as-needed to fulfill the coach’s goals.
That’s not what you saw with the teams who made it to the final 8. Or especially the Championship Series. From the outside at least, both Patty Gasso and Tim Walton seem to genuinely care about their players, and build relationships with them. Not just the stars but also the role players.
I can’t remember who said it, but there is a quote from a coach who said something to the effect of “We all know the same X’s and O’s. It’s what you do with the players on your team that makes the difference.”
While knowing the game and recruiting great talent areimportant, many teams have smart coaches and great talent. There’s a reason Oklahoma and Florida have dominated the WCWS the last few years.
Umpires are human
Yup, saw some bad pitch calls and blown calls on plays at various bases. But while they may be the topic of conversation, those are the minority. That’s a tough job, and there are bound to be mistakes.
I occasionally make mistakes in my job too. I try not to but it happens. Get over it.
Seeing that umpires may blow a call should be that much more incentive to do more so that a blown call doesn’t cost you the game. In high school and college, games last seven innings. (In travel ball usually fewer due to time limits.) Within the allotted 21 outs there is ample time to hit, field, run bases, etc. in a way that will help your team win. Focus on that.
Look at it this way: if your team is leading 10-1 and an umpire blows a play at the plate, calling an opponent safe instead of out, no one is likely to get too worked up about it. Put yourself in that position and the rest takes care of itself.
Those were some of the things I saw. How about you? What stood out to you? What did you see that you haven’t before, or that made you cringe? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
The most wonderful time of the year
You can almost hear the music, can’t you? But I’m not talking about Christmas. I’m talking about the Women’s College World Series (WCWS)!
It’s amazing how far this tournament has come in the last few years. It used to be you were lucky if you could find the championship game on TV. Now pretty much the entire tournament is being broadcast across several networks, including ESPN (every flavor except The Ocho), The Big Ten, PAC 12 and SEC. There may be a couple of others but those are the ones I know – and have watched so far.
What a great opportunity for younger players to immerse themselves in high-level softball too. From a single vantage point on the couch (or on the floor) they have a chance to see dozens of teams from across the country – to see the speed the play at and the energy they bring.
In my mind it’s also a great opportunity to see the mistakes they make, from getting double off a base on a line drive to running into a tag to misjudging a fly ball to throwing too high or too low and so on. Pitchers can see college pitchers whose educations are being fully (or at least partially paid for) leave a ball fat on the plate and then watching helplessly as it leaves the park. There is some comfort in knowing that even the best players aren’t always perfect.
I know for many players in the 10U -13U ranks that the travel and rec ball seasons have started, and you may have games over the next three weekends. But if you can, set your DVRs or grab a few moments between games and check out the WCWS. I think you’ll like what you see – and you’ll help boost the ratings so all those networks will keep showing all those games.
Lesson learned from the WCWS
So another WCWS is behind us. Have to admit there was some terrific play and some incredible games to watch. Auburn came darned close to completing their Cinderella run, and all the teams competed well – even those that went out in two straight.
There were some bad plays as well – simple errors such as a ball going through a shortstop’s legs, misjudged fly balls, poor baserunning – all the things we yell at our 12U and 14U players for. Even the big girls get it wrong sometimes.
But the thing that struck me most were the smiles on the players’ faces – even when something went wrong. It’s not that they were taking the game lightly. But they had an appreciation for where they were and what they were doing.
Here they were, on one of the biggest stages in the country, playing on TV before millions of viewers. Despite the fact they made an error or hit a batter with a pitch, or popped up in a crucial situation, those players kept on smiling.
That’s some pretty amazing coaching, to create an atmosphere like that where they could not only play for the love of the game but show that love outright. To me that was the biggest lesson we all can learn.
While it may seem like life or death in the heat of the moment, it’s really not. Teams with players who can smile through adversity and move on to make the next play will always do well. Those who dwell on their mistakes instead of enjoying the moment are likely to implode.
Be the team that smiles.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 