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"Winning Is A Habit" and "Leadership"
by Dave
Monday, April 05, 2010
We love our slogans. Much wisdom can sometimes be imparted through their use. But other times such catch phrases and proverbs can be misinterpreted and at these times, their use and overuse can be rather confusing or downright dangerous.
I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to using slogans to make points in reference to just about anything and everything. It is what it is. I am trying to stop but, you know, routine will set you free unless your routine includes bad habits. Bad habits die hard. I'm an old dog and it is difficult for me to learn new tricks. I get upset when I find myself overusing catch phrases, but there's no point crying over spilled milk. Well, enough of that. It's time for me to explain where I want to take this. I've got to fish or cut bait, put up or shut up. So here's what I want to discuss today, warts and all.
I am not a fan of certain very popular phrases. I love Vince Lombardi and everything about his approach to coaching athletics but I'm afraid "perfect practice makes perfect" is somewhat misunderstood, misinterpreted, or misapplied. Another of my least favorite phrases, one often overused in softball, is "winning is a habit." One reason I don't like it is because it is used wrong but another is because the phrase is an oversimplification. The phrase itself is weak and potentially dangerous.
I understand what "perfect practice makes perfect" means. It can used in reference to something as small as a mechanical skill. If you want to perform a mechanical movement in sport, you've got to do in right and then repeat it many times (thousands) until you always do it right and never do it wrong. If you make a mistake, you have to correct it and then repeat, repeat, repeat. if you make a mistake and then make it again, there is a good chance it will become habit and you will prevent yourself from ever doing it right. That is one microscopic meaning of the phrase.
On a larger macro view of the phrase, it is probably easiest to first examine it within the context of Lombardi's sport. He coached football, in case yesterday was your first one on the planet. Football is a complicated sport, far more complicated than many fans and non-fans imagine.
I remember getting into arguments with my mother about sports. She participated in synchronized swimming and preferred ballroom dancing and figure skating to the "barbaric" sport of football. I told her these other things were not really sports at all which, of course, angered her. I explained further that football is every bit as complicated as ballroom dancing or figure skating but it involved 11 players trying to dance while 11 others tried to prevent them from dancing their routines. She scoffed at that but my father always understood.
My father saw how football involved complicated combinations of steps. He understood that on a simple "trap" play, if everyone was not in the right place at the right time, the thing would not only fail but also be a complete travesty. For example, as a right offensive guard, I had to practice my pulling steps on my own and make sure they were in performed perfect timing. If I was too slow, the running back would beat me to the line, run into me, or trip over my feet as I made my block. If the center did not get off the line quickly, I would trip over his feet. If the left offensive guard and tackle performed their blocks poorly, I would run into them. If the right tackle did not seal off the back side, his man would follow me and tackle the running back behind the line of scrimmage. If the other running backs and receivers did not do what they were supposed to do, the deception of the play would fail. And if the QB did not get the ball to the runner at precisely the right moment, well, the whole choreographed play would collapse. Everyone had a job to do and they had to do it absolutely right if the thing was to have a chance to succeed.
When a football team practices the simple trap play without a defense involved, it must be done right many times or it will never be run right with a defense. Next up, it runs this play with a defense, though not a highly motivated one in practice. If it is not run properly like that, it won't be run well when their is a defense looking to stop it in a game. It must be practiced perfectly. Perfect practice makes perfect. I get it.
The trouble with the phrase is many times, things are not practiced perfectly yet they work out in games. That is because athletes do more learning when they make mistakes than when they succeed. Take a look at any competitive situation including fastpitch softball.
If a player gets a hit every time she bats, she never really learns to deal with adversity. She never learns to deal with the pitcher who gets everyone out. When these two come together for the first time, somebody is gonna fail. When the team that always hits faces the pitcher who always wins, they may struggle or the pitcher may. Then somebody is going to have to make adjustments and perhaps the other is going to fail the second time around. Then the somebody who failed in round two is going to have to make adjustments and so on.
This is the primary motivation for trying to play top competition when crafting a season's schedule. We see this in almost every sport. The top teams, at the end of the day, are often those which scheduled heavy competition in order to season the team. The teams which falter down the stretch are almost as often those which may have won every game but were never really tested, never had to overcome adversity and make adjustments to meet the competition. But I'm getting ahead of myself because this feeds into the "winning is a habit" issue I want to adress next and I'm not finished with perfect practice yet.
If a player always seems to make the right play, more often than not it is because she has never really had to make a close call, she's never been pushed to the point of being forced into a bad decision. We learn from mistakes. We learn from losing. If you always make the right decision, if you always win, chances are pretty good that this has less to do with the wonder of you and more to do with having it too easy.
So it is with practice in any sport. If our theoretical football offense always runs the trap perfectly, then it is time for the coach to try to throw a wrench into things. They need to fail in order to get better. If a softball defense always makes the play during practice, practice is not hard enough. Maybe the balls have not been hit hard enough. Perhaps, if baserunners are involved in the practice work, they are not aggressive enough. If everything goes perfectly, not a whole lot has been gained.
I watched a televised college game between two very good teams recently. The game I saw was the third of three, the teams having split the first two. &nb sp; I am pretty sure that both teams have had some "perfect practices" and were well prepared to play the game of softball. But one team dealt with adversity better than the other. Team one went up by a few runs early. But team 2 came back gradually and eventually tied it. Team one seemed to come apart at times, making fielding errors and some poor choices. Team two played solidly all the way through, even when they were down by several runs. They made good and smart plays on defense. When they made something less than a stellar play, they shook it off immediately and tightened up the D on the next play. They won the game despite most likely not being the "better" team in terms of talent or having less perfect practices. It isn't always a matter of doing everything right which turns a team into a winner. Most often it is the bounce back capability, the dealing with adversity, the practice at being less than perfect, which turns teams into winners.
This brings us to the phrase "winning is a habit." I'm really not sure what that is supposed to mean. A habit is something we do without thinking too much about it. I get up, let the dogs out, make the coffee and drink a cup. I know I will do this tomorrow, the next day, and the next. I will get up at about the same time every day regardless of whether it is a weekend or weekday. I know exactly what my steps will be. I know exactly what order of steps I will take preparing the coffee. It is such an ingrained habit that if I do something unusual in this first routine of the day, I might just as well go back to bed because the rest of the day is not going to be any better.
We establish habits and then forget about them because we want to be freed by routine. We want to free our brains to think about the important things about the day. I do a great deal of thinking when I take a shower. I often come up with resolutions to problems, new drills to run in practice, or even the subject matter for a new piece to write. I can do this because I can take my shower with my brain switched to off. If I leave my brain in the bed and jump into the shower, I know I am going to get wet in a particular order, grad the bar of soap, rinse off, go for the shampoo, etc. There have been times when I have been so involved with some thought that I have had to stop and wonder whether I washed my hair or not. Then I realize that, of course, I have even though I wasn't aware of it. It is pretty strange but that is what habits are about. You do them without needing to think at all.
With mechanical skills like fielding a grounder, making a pitch, or even covering a base, we do not need to think very much. We see a pitcher go into her windup and we automatically feel the need to get into a ready position and look to the point of contact with the bat. One of the things I struggle with when watching a game is the overwhelming urge to drop to my knees when I see a pitch going in very low (that's from my catching days). When I stand at the outfield fence, I sometimes find myself taking steps when the batter makes contact with the ball. I can't help myself. These things became habit long ago.
Habit is a strange thing in this game. of you do not get habits built into your brain, you will have trouble. When kids field a grounder badly, it is hard for them to learn to do it right. I had a SS once who always fielded the ball to the outside of her left leg. She never got herself to the position of having it come between her legs to any degree. She also typically one handed it. This made her slower to deliver the ball to first. It was fine when she was young and playing rec ball but when she moved to travel and gradually aged up, she became ineffective. She frequently missed relatively easy plays either because she misjudged the hop due to fielding it to her left leg or she was unable to throw the fast runner out because her delivery to first was slow due to the added steps of recovering her body position, getting the ball into her throwing hand, and then making the throw from a proper position. This caused her to be a less than adequate SS despite having superior general athleticism.
There is another girl I know (really probably several of them) who likes to play 3B. When she (they) field bunts, they attempt to field the ball like the SS above, always off the left leg and one handed. Once the ball is picked clean from the ground, there is the pull up of the glove to the upper body so the ball can be removed by the throwing hand. Then there are two or more steps as she lines herself up to throw. And finally there is the throw. This is very slow, particularly once you get gifted athletes running the bases against you. But the method of the 3B(s) and the SS are habit and it is very hard to break.
Last night I watched a game I had TVoed between two top NCAA D1 teams. There were some illegal pitches called due to leaping. Jessica Mendoza noted that the pitcher probably had pitched with the mechanical flaw of leaping since she was 9 or 10. That is probably true an an apt comment made by a former outfielder - though Mendoza was also once a catcher. Mendoza commented that it is sad when these girls have to focus on basic mechanics when they pitch an important game. If I'm not mistaken she also commented that it is hard to watch girls trying to break themselves of a bad habit or illegal pitch mechanic. That it is!
Mechanical skills need to absolutely be habit. An infielder must not be worried that this time she may field a ball wrong because her mechanics need to be corrected when she is in a tight, important game. A batter does not need to think when she is up at the plate. She must do rather than think about doing.
I sometimes believe that not enough parents and even coaches fully understand this minor concept. The father or mother yelling "don't .." or "do ..." while their kid is at the plate is asking for trouble. If I hitch or drop my hands, the time to work on that is at home, at the tee, at lessons, or at practice, not at the plate. One great batting coach was overheard talking to a girl at an important showcase game. He told her he wanted her to think of only one thing at the plate. That thing was "applesauce." It is an interesting comment but its meaning is "you've done the work to get better already. Game time is not when you need to be thinking about mechanics which have become habit. Game time is the time to let it loose and just do, particularly when you are at the plate."
Proper mechanics must be habit. If a team has proper mechanics with respect to all its skills and those mechanics have become habit, it should win more than it loses. Perfect practice has made "perfect" and winning will probably often result from the habits formed in perfect practice. But that isn't really the meaning of "winning is a habit."
On another level, there is another misunderstanding of "winning is a habit." All the time I see parents working very hard to get their daughters onto the best possible team. You should try to get your daughter on the "best possible team" but I think perhaps I define the "best possible team" a little differently than some of the people I know.
Lots of parents get upset when their kid is on a team which "habitually" loses its first or second game on Sunday. Then maybe they win one or two and get to the championship but lose that game. The parents think, and often express, that they would like to get their daughter onto a team which wins. They want to instill the habit of winning in their kid because they feel this will make her a better ballplayer and/or person in the long run.
I remember a kid who was a pitcher for one of these teams that usually won. She was a pitcher. The team usually won two games on Sunday and at least played for the championship. This kid was the third pitcher for her team. She was a Saturday only pitcher! She never threw in elimination rounds. The team traveled to some championship tournament where they played several games over 5 days. She pitched two innings that week. The team did not finish high up, despite being in the habit of winning. But more importantly, despite the kid learning the "habit of winning," she never quite got the feeling of participating in those wins since she rode the pine most of the time.
Another kid was a gifted fielder and showed a fair amount of promise as a pitcher. Her father was extremely impatient with any team's losing. He wanted his kid to be on the best possible team and he found one the year after I knew him. His daughter was the 12th kid on the roster. She played but infrequently. He was such a braggart that he always threw how the team was doing at you. He wanted you to know that they played this tourney or that. He needed you to know that nobody really gave them much of a game at the tournaments. But it occurred to me that in these conversations, he never really mentioned his daughter. So I went to watch them. She played two innings, out of position, and struggled at the plate. She still plays for the team and they are still quite good. She starts for them now. There were some good lessons learned as she made her way into the line up. She has benefited from some very good coaching. But she has not learned "the habit of winning" because there is no such thing.
If you need to get your kid on a winning team, enjoy yourself. It may be really good for her. But it will not be good for her because the team wins and because she learns the experience (or habit) of winning. The team to get your kid on is the one with the best possible coaching regardless of team record. The team to get your kid on is the one that plays a very hard schedule, regardless of how well they do with that schedule. The team to get your kid on is the one where the girls work the hardest and support each other the most when they lose rather than being the best of friends when they win.
There was an interesting post on a softball blog I read earlier today. The gist of the article was rec ball is good for travel players due to several reasons including they learn how to be leaders on their presumably weaker rec teams. I disagree with the premises and conclusion of the article for a number of reasons, not the least of which is one does not necessarily learn leadership skills from being one of the best or the best player on a team. This can facilitate learning one sort of leadership but it does not teach the full spectrum.
I used to get confused when coaches in college softball proclaimed that one of the elements they seek in recruits is leadership. What confused me was not the proclamation but rather the term "leadership." I knew what it meant but I suppose I had forgotten the practical realities of leadership on a ball field. There are a lot of different kinds of leaders and I think I somehow forgot that and focused only on one kind.
Within thew universe of good, effective leaders, there are very quiet ones and there are loud ones. There are those who lead by barking orders and those who lead by example. There are those who have a vision or agenda and those who react well to adversity though they have no overall plan. There are those who lead best when their group or team is doing the right things and they give their co-workers or teammates the latitude of empowerment - they let people be to do what they know how to do. There are also those who deal best when the situation is a complete mess and everything is likely to fall apart unless someone takes charge and plots a course for each individual and then makes sure the steps of the project are followed through upon. There are leaders who need to be hands on. And there are leaders who delegate everything, trust their cohorts, and take more of a top-sided approach. Every successful team has a leader but each leader of a successful team is not cut from the same cloth.
In fastpitch softball and its kindred sports, leadership is not that which falls upon the best player(s). The guy or gal who leads the league in RBI, homeruns, ERA etc. is not always the most important leader on a team. At times, it can be the substitute player or the one riding the pine who does their job gracefully, who works her tail off despite never having a realistic shot of being a starter, who encourages others, by voice or example, to work hard at their craft and improve their game.
It is not just the best and worst who can be leaders. It is also everyone in between. A player could be the fifth best offensive player, the ninth or second best defensive one, or anything at all. The leader is the kid who comes into the mound when the pitcher is struggling and makes her better. The leader is the one who despite having all the skill in the world busts her tail in practice in an effort to get better. The leader is the kid who has no shot at making the starting rotation and who never complains but dives for balls when one need not dive. The leader is the one who remains calm in an ITB game after somebody makes an error which puts girls on first and third with no outs. The leader is the who runs all out after tapping the ball back to the pitcher on one hop with her team winning 8-0 in the top of the fifth because she never wants anyone to not run it out.
We really need nine leaders on any softball field if our teams are to be successful. That is why the college coaches look for leadership skills. But we also need a full spectrum of leaders on our teams. We need some who do it with their mouths, some who practice like demons, some who do not get upset after whiffing, some who stay strong after making an error, some who encourage others to stay strong after they make an error. As I say, there are all types of leaders.
I think we make a mistake by not recognizing the various kinds of leaders. I once had a girl on a team I coached whose parents undoubtedly encouraged her to be a leader, a specific kind of leader. She was not a particularly good player. She made some horrendous fundamental mistakes. She didn't practice hard. She was not coachable. Her temperament was not well suited either to the game itself nor to the make up of her team. What she ended up doing was becoming very bossy. She told the girls what they should do. She became quite a bully. And her play was never one of the bright spots on the team.
On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that this kid's parents felt strongly that she had become a leader. They did not see her flaws. They did not understand the idea that she had become a bully and was not working hard enough at her own skills to be in any position to tell others what to do. She was not well respected by her teammates. She came to be rather strongly disliked by them. What became habit for this kid was a lot of negative stuff. After the season was over, her parents sought to get her on the best possible team, a winning one. They continue to reap what they sow!
It is my opinion that winning in softball is the result of girls trying with all their might to practice as perfectly as they can and then doing the other important things involved in winning. It is up to the coaches to try to build into their games all the best mechanics possible and then to make those fundamentals as habitual as they can become. Then the coach needs to make sure that the team is learning to play together, that they are a true team - you know without the letter "I" in it. They need to play hard competition and do so gracefully even when losing games, while picking each other up, encouraging each other to shake off bad plays, living the example to each other of working hard regardless of what one's skill level is, and just generally doing all the things we think of associated with winning teams.
A team is a conglomeration of people who fit together well, work hard to accomplish a common goal, are led well by all involved, and continue to make progress until that goal is achieved. It is not a group that always wins and thereby becomes "in the habit" of winning. It is not a group which has one person who tells everyone what to do. It is not a group in which the best player is designated royalty and must be named captain, thereafter leading the group to victory.
In a game in which mistakes are common and the most important learning comes from making mistakes and then correcting them, "perfect practice" is just too vague of a term. Winning is far too complicated to be defined as a "habit." There are all kinds of leaders in softball and we need at least nine of them - probably better to have 12, assuming our roster is 12. If you doubt all this, consider that in a championship, frequently, both teams are 100% winners, at least in that tournament. Somebody in the "habit of winning" is going to lose. Perfect practice or no, everybody makes a less than perfect maneuver when faced with a very aggressive opponent or a tough situation. Better to practice the imperfect than face it for the first time in ITB of the last game. The loudest, most abrasive, bossiest is frequently not the favorite kind of leader.
Well, I've opened up a can of worms with this. I'm ready to take my medicine from those of you who think winning is a habit, etc. l; #We do need catch phrases and slogans. But before you use them, figure out what they really mean. Then please apply them properly. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.Labels: attitude, mental toughness, parenting, work ethic, youth tournament teams
Permanent Link: "Winning Is A Habit" and "Leadership"
 
One For The Bucket Brigade!
by Dave
Friday, January 29, 2010
Tom writes in to ask, "How about doing one for the bucket dads? Everyone talks about the kids!"
You know, Tom, I would do something for the bucket dads and moms but I don't want to wallow in self-pity. So I am going to try to stick to anecdotes you and others have sent me, as well as some interesting stories I have heard or seen. I will, of course, talk about some of my personal experiences because those are the ones I know best.
Tom complains of pain he got while returning the ball to his two daughters when they practice pitched to him. As he notes, "there are no points for throwing it back on the fly." I'll add that there are no points for looking like a pro when you throw the ball back either!
I have not only caught a lot of pitching sessions, I have watched others do almost as many. One of the more comical things I have noted is the father or mother who squats like a real catcher and then tries to whip the ball back to the pitcher, again, like a real catcher. I know the mentality. I did this a few times and gave it up for personal safety reasons and to avoid pain.
Even funnier than the would be major league catcher is a fellow I know who wanted to work his daughter's ability to protect herself from line drives by whipping the ball back at her as hard as he possibly could each and every time. His throws probably maxed out at 50-60 mph. Nobody hits a ball back to the pitcher that softly beyond 10U. It doesn't do any good to whip the ball back at her if that's the best you can do. It just gets your blood up and makes her dislike you. It also will eventually burn out your arm.
Let me provide some advice to all parent catchers and this same advice was mentioned to me by Tom. Flipping the ball back on one hop is not a shameful act. It will save your arm. If your daughter is really, really going to grow up to be a pitcher, you are probably going to have to catch 2 - 4 times per week for 100 pitches and returns at the very least. A good average might be 3 times per week for 150 pitches and even that is a bit understated. That is 450 return throws per week, 44 weeks per year, over the span of perhaps an 8 year career, yields 158,400 throw backs. If you, like Tom and I, have 2 daughters, figure it out. You are going to hurt your arm!
I have a pretty bad right, throwing arm. I broke my elbow playing football when I was 15 and still have shards of bone on the inside of the elbow. I know the shards are there because my doctor warned about this at the time of the injury and, quite a while ago, I hurt it and it locked into place. When I had X-rays done, the doctor noted that he could see the shards and it was the swelling around them that had caused the lock-up. Years later, when my kids first got involved in softball, I threw a little too hard with another father before practice one day. My arm was sore for weeks after that.
Once you get the knack of throwing it back on one hop, it may actually save you time because you won't suffer all those bad throws as you try to emulate Pudge-Rod. Tom suggests that bouncing the ball back will make them better fielders. I'm not sure if it is true or not. But it certainly does not hurt their fielding ... or your arm.
The knees are probably your most abused joints. If you ski, snow or water board, that's more so. If you value your ability to walk around, up the stairs, into an elevator, I suggest trying something besides the standard catcher crouch. I am fully aware that there is a little known Medicare benefit for which you might qualify. I am slightly jealous of all those people on the TV who got their Power Chair and didn't have to pay a penny out of pocket for it. But if you are in your 40s, you will look silly making your way to the restaurant/bar/supermarket in an electrical chair. The alternative is a knee replacement but those replacements need to be replaced after a decade or so. You can count on having to replace your bad knee(s) as many as 5 more times during your life if you need your first one at 40 or so. Save your knees, get something to sit on during pitching practice!
Tom suggests a high bucket. He recommends this because 1) he has sufficient room to toss the ball back underhand and 2) he is able to get out of the way of a wayward pitch very quickly without stressing his knees too much. I prefer a lower bucket. I use one of the shortest buckets around, one I used on my boat before I got rid of the boat in favor of softball lessons. I like the shorter bucket because I can set a lower target and I want my kids to throw a lot of low pitches in order to induce grounders. But I may rethink my approach very soon as I am missing out on the benefits Tom noted.
I do not suggest spending money to get the item I have seen in stores and online. That is a stool which stands on one leg and is sold specifically for bucket dads and moms. I got one for Father's Day. It is not very convenient and I have fallen off it several times. The thing about a bucket is you can use it as a bucket in which to carry gloves and balls. It is sturdy. One cheap little plastic bucket will probably survive your kids' pitching careers and you will be able to will it to them when they become parents.
At this point I have to tell you a story or two story about buckets. I learned about them my first year of travel. The warehouse superstore was selling seeds in a bucket for a very cheap price and we decided to buy one for the team. I had hoped to recoup the bucket after the seeds were gone because it looked like it might make a good seat. But when the seeds were depleted, the team's manager, a father of a pitcher, grabbed the bucket and made it his own faster than I could possibly have grabbed it back. A month or two went by and someone took the top of that bucket and attached a proper seat cushion to it for the coach. He still has my bucket today! I think he is rather proud of it.
Another bucket brigade dad I know often catches his daughter when she pitches. He does so in pitching lessons and practice sessions, at team practices and before games. I noticed that he sits sideways on the bucket in order to protect his potential to produce children in the future. After years of watching this, I commented to my wife about it and was surprised by her reaction. She told me that when she first saw him sit sideways like that, she lost all respect for the man! She said he should sit like a real man!! So if you are at all concerned about the way people perceive you as you sit on your bucket, sit straight and protect yourself through other means.
Yet another bucket dad I know has a daughter who is a good pitcher but not always that successful when pitching against the best kids. We were conducting a tryout for catchers one day and she was pitching to them. I asked her if she had a dropball because I wanted to see the catchers block. She said she did and proceeded to throw several very good ones. I was genuinely impressed, not with the catchers but with this girl's dropball. So I asked the father about why he never had her throw the drop in games. He looked at me with a puzzled expression and said,
"Well, she really doesn't have a drop. I mean we don't work on it at all. I can't stand catching the thing. So she never works on it. I didn't think it was very good because I haven't seen her throw one in many months."
I informed him that she does indeed have a good drop. I also told him that she practices it when she throws with her younger sister, a catcher. I strongly suggested that he begin calling the pitch as one of her main ones in games. Do you know, that pitch has become her mainstay and she is a much more effective pitcher now than she was before she started throwing the drop a lot.
Yet, I understand why a father would not want his daughter to spend a lot of practice time working on the drop, at least not while he was catching it. The drop is the bane of many bucket dads' existence. I remember talking to one father who had a daughter with a good drop. He was catching her in the yard one summer evening when one pitch pointed out a tree root he had not completely removed from their throwing area. He was struck in the knee by a drop that bounded off the tree root. For months afterwards, he walked around with a softball sized bump on one leg. This guy used to wear shorts in weather above 25 degrees. But during July and August of that summer, he wore long pants due to his embarrassment.
Speaking of embarrassment, another father of a talented drop ball pitcher I know took one off his shins. He had to go in for X-rays after a few weeks of hobbling. The pain was excruciating. But this guy had some trouble with the doctor because he refused to tell the man flat out that the injury was caused by catching his daughter's pitching! The doctor wanted to know how it happened. He said "never mind." The doctor persisted relentlessly. I think the doctor finally accepted some explanation about a foul ball at a high school baseball game.
The moral of that story is shin guards are advisable. I actually don't wear them because I can't stand them. I caught until I was 18 but I never really loved wearing guards. And as an adult, I really can't handle the feeling, especially when I wear shorts. That's not a very good excuse and I have chipped bones on my shins too, though nothing that hindered my ability to walk. I guess I am pig headed and one day my daughter's dropball will convince me to wear the shin guards I have.
Tom has some advice if you also refuse to wear baseball/softball shin guards. He uses soccer style leg guards. I may have to look into this because it makes a lot of sense. But I may have trouble finding anything that fits properly. If you don't have football shaped calves, you might want to look into soccer shin guards to protect you while catching.
I have one final dropball story for you. I was at the field one day and noticed a bunch of guys from our organization standing around a pick-up truck chatting. As I walked towards them, they were laughing and making all kinds of odd faces. As I got close, one yelled out to me, "hey Dave, have you ever taken one in the ... you know?" I replied, "yes, many times, it ain't pretty, it's always the darn dropball." As I uttered the beginning of the word "dro" they all broke out into hysterical laughter. They were all pitchers' dads. They knew exactly what I meant. They all had the same experience.
I understand what Tom is saying about the higher bucket. If you are catching a dropballer, it is best to get the heck out of the way once that ball hits the ground. It has a lot of spin on it. You really do not know where it is going to go. The faster you can get out of the way, the better.
Still, I cling to my low bucket. And one of my kids is a dropballer. I have worked a way to protect myself and that is: I stay closer to the plate and when the ball hits the ground, usually it is right around the plate. I go forward rather than trying to block it like a catcher. I attempt to short hop it right near where it hits the ground so it doesn't have the opportunity to jump. It doesn't matter to me if I catch it or merely knock it away. Just so long as it doesn't jump me. So far, that technique has worked.
The worst I have ever been struck is actually on a change-up. My kid's change is pretty good. It moves and dives. When it hits the ground, it is difficult to know which direction it will bounce in. She once threw one that hit the plate, bounced up, and caught me in the chin. I saw stars. I got a nice little knot on my face that stayed there for several months. I think perhaps the bone was chipped but I never sought medical treatment because I was a little too embarrassed. I didn't need to hear another human being suggest I wear a mask. So I won't go into proseltyzing you about wearing a mask. I'll just say that there is a good reason to put one on, and leave it at that.
So to recap, a bucket is better than squatting. I prefer a low one but Tom likes a high one and he can offer some sound logic for choosing that size. Protective equipment is probably a good idea though I admit to wearing none. You must be hyper vigilant to protect yourself. And those of us too proud to admit it hurts when we get hit should probably rethink our manhood.
Speaking of manhood, I don't want to shortchange the many women who catch their daughters' sessions. I know several who, for one reason or another, do the job. They may be better athletes than their husbands are. They may just be the only one available when their daughters take their lessons. I think I know of more fathers than mothers but there are penty of each and all have their own war stories.
As a matter of fact, I know that one of the guys who laughed at my comment above no longer catches his daughter's lessons. Instead, he has his wife do that. The reason is he has become very good friends with the pitching coach. When the coach sees him, he likes to talk endlessly. The guy not only feels as if his daughter is shortchanged due to the coach's excessive conversation, but also he is concerned because he too often gets distracted from the job at hand. His daughter has hit 60 on the gun. But she is a little wild, especially when throwing movement pitches. l; He often finds himself nearly getting hit because he is too engaged in conversation. So now his wife catches the daughter at lessons. And she's the one sporting the injuries most of the time.
I really urge you in the strongest terms possible to not allow yourself to be distracted when catching. Even a 50 mph pitch can do some damage when it hits you in the head. Talking with others is possibly the most insidious form of being distracted. I just heard on the radio that the result of laws prohibiting cell phone usage behind the wheel actually have accomplished one of their objectives - to lower the rate of usage while driving. Unfortunately, the laws did not accomplish the main objective. Accident rates did not go down. While hands-free devices are used to a much higher degree than before, it turns out that they do not prevent accidents. It is the talking that yields the distraction, not the use of hands. If you try to hold a deep conversation while catching your daughter, you're gonna pay a price.
I have on many occasions found that I am not quite as wide awake as I should be when catching. Sometimes my concentration drifts. Sometimes my relatively weak eyesight takes me out of focus. That is not good.
I strongly suggest that before you get behind the plate, you make certain you are wide awake. I now very often drink a full cup of coffee before catching. I sometimes take a shower beforehand. I will try almost anything to ensure that I am as awake as possible. It is no fun to recognize that you almost got hit by that pitch.
Speaking of those times when you feel like you almost just got hit, it is difficult for those whose daughters don't yet throw hard or those who have never been part of the bucket brigade to understand our plight. The best way I can describe this is via analogy.
Do you know that feeling which immediately follows a near miss auto accident? Your adrenaline pumps at full throttle. You feel sweat start to well up in all the usual places despite having been relatively cold before the incident. Your heart pounds. You feel throbbing at your temples. That's an almost car accident. Almost being hit by a pitch is not as bad. I would say that on every pitch my daughter throws, I feel about 5 percent of the car feeling. And when I almost get hit, I suspect I reach to about 10 or 15 percent of that extreme. During the winter, we catch down in my basement which is very large. The basement is also rather cool, perhaps 45 - 50 degrees. But after we are done, I am always sweating. And when I almost get hit, I sweat profusely.
Women have more sense than men. They are more willing to don the full gear. Men are often either too lazy or too stupid unless or until their daughters become demonic hard throwers. I know of a Division one pitcher whose father always puts on the equipment. He does this because his daughter has been clocked around 67 and for one other reason. When the kid throws to him, which she still does on occasion, he abuses her psychologically. When he does this, she usually throws harder. And she, I believe, aims to hurt him. He throws the ball back at her hard a lot - he doesn't follow my one bounce advice and when he does throw it hard at her, I believe he aims to hurt her. Their sessions are rather violent. He dons the gear as a matter of survival. She should consider pitching with catcher's gear on too. Then again, she throws harder than he does.
One other item about gear, as a person who has suffered several concussions, not as a result of catching, I urge you to use the old style of catchers mask which is generally more protective of your brains. I know the newer, hockey style masks are more in vogue and look better. But the helmet part is intended to deal with foul balls. I personally do not think you need to use a helmet. And the hockey style mask provides less cushion when the mask is struck. That is my opinion formed after doing some research. You can do your own thinking and research.
The plight of the bucket dad or mom is not a well respected one. Those of you who regularly catch your daughters know of what I speak. We in the bucket brigade suffer all manner of injuries and humiliation. A little common sense can go a long way towards reducing the number of our injuries. And learning from others is at the heart of the human condition. So take Tom's advice and mine. Don't let your pride get in the way of protecting yourself. Also, when your daughter can throw a projectile hard enough to kill you, it is best not to anger her too much.Labels: parenting, parents, pitching, safety
Permanent Link: One For The Bucket Brigade!
Individual Motivation
by Dave
Thursday, January 28, 2010
I want to venture into a very difficult labyrinth today. I should probably just step back and not get into this but something is pulling me and I don't feel like fighting it. The issue has to do with how athletes become motivated individuals and how parents and others interact with them in order to enhance this "coming of age," if you will allow me to call it that. This is not a particularly straightforward issue to discuss. But I feel the need to try.
Some time ago, I told you that I once was told by someone far more experienced than I that a father must find the right time to step back from his softball playing daughter in order to allow her to mature in the game. She needs to be coached by someone not related to her. She needs to find her way in the real world where not everyone thinks she's wonderful, where some folks might be less tolerant of some of her bad habits. She needs to prove herself anew to someone else in the sport who has interacted with many other girls prior to meeting her. You (I) need to stand back and become a mere fan again.
Since I heard those words, I have discussed the issue and related ones many times with friends, others in softball, and even a few visitors to this site who wrote me e-mails on the topic. I agree wholeheartedly that a parent of a softball player needs to give her the room to stretch her wings, as it were, or she may never learn to fly.
I say she "may never learn to fly" because many girls have indeed gone very far within this sport while being coached by fathers or mothers. Tincher was taught to pitch by her father. Other name players had heavy parent involvement before they became name players.
Most kids need their parents to step away in order to take the steps of personal development on their own but it is not necessarily a panacea for raising a softball player. Both ways work, depending on the individuals involved. Still I agree in principle with those who argue for giving my kids space because I am not trying to raise softball players. I am trying to raise people, two individual people. I believe I need to step away from them in order for them to grow up. It's just not that easy to do!
Within the issue of stepping away from a softball playing daughter is the related one of her self-motivation. Youth is wasted on the young. If I had my life to live over again ... I would know how much effort would be involved in developing any skill to a desired degree. And, of course, I would put in the effort needed for the things I wish I were doing today!
When I was very young, I decided I wanted to be a baseball player. I was too young to have my dreams dashed so, when I told my parents, they waited several years before explaining to me why this was a bad idea. When I told my father that I wanted to play football in the NFL, he quickly pointed out that I would need to be at least 6-3 and that was unlikely. He also pointed out the short duration of a lineman's career and other problems with my idea. When I told my parents I wanted to be a mathematician, they pointed out that the only career for that kind of direction was teaching and since teaching didn't pay, I might find another career choice. They were wrong on that and other scores but I am not going to try to beat my parents into the ground today. What I want to point out is it is not a great idea merely to explain logically to a person why they can't or shouldn't do something. Instead, it is probably a better idea to inform them slowly about what is needed to become this or that and then let them find their own way.
With respect to school, my parents always wanted me to get good grades. Perhaps they wanted me to get great grades but they accepted my somewhat above average ones without giving me too much trouble. My siblings struggled in school to some degree so when I had better grades than they did, I was able to get away with less than I was capable of. But my motivation was external, not internal. I got the grades I got in order to appease them, not because I enjoyed learning or wanted to achieve at some level in order to accomplish things or make my life better. It was not until I returned to college as a 23 year old that I found self-motivation and at that point, I became an "A" student, near the top of the class, who wanted to achieve the highest grades possible regardless of the level of effort required.
Self-motivation is tricky because each of us are individuals who have our own hopes and dreams, who mature at different ages, and who have our own unique capacities and abilities. One kid is apparently fully mature, within the context we are examining, at the age of 7 or 8. Another is incapable of self-motivation until perhaps 16 or in my case, in terms of academic motivation, as old as 23. It is next to impossible to know for sure when a kid is capable of self-motivation in any pursuit.
When we start out the softball careers of our very young daughters, they really do not know what it takes to improve their skill levels and play to their potential. I recall one of my daughters, 8 at the time, telling me that she would like to throw better. We went out into the yard and threw the ball for 15 minutes before she informed me that she was tired or saw some neighbor kids playing and ran off for that action. A day or so later, I reminded her of her desire to throw better and suggested another session of catch. She told me she had something else to do and, after all, "we did play catch for a very long time yesterday." She was sure she had done enough to improve to the level she desired!
Later, when pitching lessons arose, my wife and I decided to tell the girls that they could continue pitching lessons and we would pay for them provided that they practiced an acceptable amount. We decided that 2 times per week in addition to the one lesson would be the minimum and 4 the maximum. They could continue with their lessons if they practiced twice a week but it would be better if they did more. And, if they did more, we would never consider dropping lessons. If they stuck with just 2, we might one day put an end to lessons.
So my daughters continued to pitch several times a week in order to preserve their lessons. When they wanted to play travel ball, we put certain other restrictions on them. They were required to get their homework done in a timely fashion so as to avoid conflicts with practice. They were also required to step up their pitching to a minimum of 3 times weekly in addition to lessons. If they pitched for one half hour at practice, that would count. We didn't want to burn them out. We just wanted a commitment level in order to justify our spending this much time and money to keep them in travel ball and pitching lessons.
As time wore on, my kids did what they needed to do to maintain things as they were. But sometimes that edge you need to compete was missing. I won't quantify it in this article but there is a level or degree of pitching effort one must do in practice in order to maintain proficiency levels and advance them enough to make all this worth it. Sometimes, with one kid or the other, that level was missing.
Sometimes, one or both of my daughters would complain about me making them pitch. It might not be right at the start or at the mere mentioning of "we'll be pitching at 7 o'clock tonight." It wasn't always a direct complaint. Sometimes we had just finished the warm-up and my kid would say "I'm really tired today" or "I'm still sore from all that pitching we did yesterday." Sometimes it was even more insidious like, "how many pitches are we going to do today?" And still other times, it was a matter of one kid, or both of them, putting out the bare minimum of effort in making each pitch.
Initially, I told them that I never want to be asked how many pitches we are doing. At different points I told them that I am not going to waste my time by catching them while they put forth less than 50% effort. I have actually picked up and walked out on a few occasions because I felt their effort was completely insufficient. I refuse to waste my time if they don't have their body and mind into it.
Soreness is a tougher issue because I don't want them to alter their motions because a bicep or forearm is sore. When they complain about sore muscles, I try to diagnose the problem, come up with a solution or dump practice for that day. I used to think they were using soreness to get out of practice but I have learned that my kids don't do that. When they complain about soreness, I believe them and we can usually do some skills that will not beat them up further.
As time has worn on, I have become weary from listening to my kids try to make practice shorter or get out of them entirely. It doesn't happen very often but when it does, it gets under my skin. That has been made more irritating by my often very sore shoulder, elbow, wrist or hand. A couple years ago, I developed bad tendinitis in my catching wrist which required me to soak my hand in ice water several times each day. It eventually went away but pain in my catching shoulder is a constant companion. Sometimes my elbow hurts and sometimes my hand does. I try not to complain to them about it - I don;t want to teach them how to get out of things - but when they are trying to wiggle out of practice and I'm hurting, I have less patience with the head games.
That was a while ago because gradually they have become self-motivated and that's why I am telling you this. My older daughter became self-motivated quite a bit sooner than the younger one. She loves just about everything that has anything to do with softball. Softball dwells within her very being, perhaps her soul. If she were confined to a wheelchair today, I believe she would either find a softball league for wheelchair bound persons or start one on her own. .
I know I am prone to digressions but I want to explain the wheelchair comment lest I receive some angry e-mails. When I was in my late teens, I worked as a lifeguard at a pool. One day, one of my fellow lifeguards dove into the pool and fractured his neck. He was paralyzed from pretty much the neck down though he could use his arms fairly well. The name of this fellow is Doug Heir.
Doug was an athlete before his accident. After the accident he wanted to end his life. That's pretty normal for a person in that predicament. If you love sport and one day are told that you'll never do any of the things you love, well, that's about as tough as it gets. Gradually, through the efforts of his brother and friends, Doug found the motivation to move forward with his life. Move forward, he did!
Doug became the President Of The National Spinal Cord Injury Association. He also finished law school and has been a practicing attorney. He has run for public office. He is a motivational speaker. He also has been called the most accomplished athlete on Earth because he has won more gold medals than any other human being.
Doug found his self-motivation, with help from his brother, in sport. He competed in field events at Paralympic and other world championships. He has one too many events to name and, in the process, set several world records. His image has appeared on the Wheaties box and many sports media outlets have proclaimed him the world's greatest athlete, among other noteworthy achievements.
So, you see, I do not use the wheelchair example lightly. And when I speak of self-motivation, I have seen it at its all-time low.
So my older daughter is now just about fully self-motivated. This was accomplished primarily by gradually allowing her to control the direction of her practice sessions. At every turn, I have reminded her that the game belongs to her, not us. Our purpose is to facilitate her accomplishment of what she tells us her goals are. She is never practicing or pitching for us. We enjoy watching her pitch but if she were never again to pitch, that would not change anything about the way we love her or treat her. The decision to pitch or not is hers and hers alone. The decision to play softball is hers alone.
As I say, she is just about fully self-motivated. It is a long process which requires work for the full duration. One does not one day turn from being externally motivated to being completely self-sufficient. It is a process not a watershed moment. We must still remain vigilant and work towards instilling the internal motivation.
As I say, this was a gradual growth which took place probably over a 2 year period. It probably, I don't remember, started as a result of a planned practice session at which she was not motivated. She may have complained. She may have inquired about how many pitches we were going to do. She may have thrown at less than her best. I just don't remember. But at that point, I believe I ended the session early. I was tired of the continual lack of effort - in a relative sense. I told her that she could tell me when she wanted to practice again. And I waited for her to do that.
After a few days, she missed working on her pitches and came back to me. In the next session, I let her control almost everything. There is a pattern to her warm-ups which I like to be adhered to to avoid injury. After that, it was "so, what do you want to do next." I really enjoyed asking her "how many pitches are you going to do today?" I think she understood the irony. But she chose her direction and I have to say that it was fine.
Now, what I do in order to sway her in the direction I think she should go is make suggestions. If I think her screw, drop, or drop curve is not quite as sharp as it should be, I ask, "do you want to work on X pitch today?" or "you know, you have thrown better drops, maybe we could work on that pitch more during one of our sessions this week?" or "is there any pitch that you would like to work on?" I try to sway her but I don't want to take over and I don't want her to get mentally lazy and allow me to take over. It's her game. These are her pitching sessions. If she's going to put into them, she must decide what it is she is going to do.
At various times, I think she informed me of when we were going to pitch and then, when the time came, she complained or was less than thrilled when I reminded her. Now when that happens, I react by telling her that I would love to have the hour to myself and it doesn't matter to me if she doesn't practice. She does not do that often anymore. She is responsible for her success or failure. If she wants to skip, it is entirely her decision. And she has to live with the results.
When she does complain, I generally believe she needs the time off. She has become self-motivated enough and we have informed her enough that she now knows that there is a minimal level of effort required to maintain and only through exceeding that will she get better. She wants to get better. She works pretty darn hard at it. Her practice sessions are much better. She seldom, if ever, takes a pitch off during practices.
To tell you the truth, I'm the one lacking motivation these days. She wants to pitch more often and her sessions are longer. I intervene more because I think she is overdoing it than I ever did because I thought she was doing too little.
My younger daughter is more difficult, as a general matter. She has had way too much success at almost everything from too young an age. She is very successful in school without ever having to put out much effort. Her report card is almost always better than her sister's, even when her sister gets almost all A's. When the kids take those state proficiency examinations, if her older sister scores advanced proficient on the math part, as she has many times, the younger one will score higher. She once scored a perfect score on that test. That's the way it is for her.
She was also a successful pitcher with far less practice work than her sister. The only times she would really work were after losses, expecially those in which she got hit fairly hard. It has been very difficult to get her to work at anything, especially pitching, unless she experiences some degree of failure.
She was always the biggest complainer with respect to practice. Even when she did not complain, she was far more prone to those lackluster sessions in which the effort needed to improve was missing. It probably took 3 years to find her self-motivation and I'm not quite sure I know what brought it on. Something, somehow, somewhere must have happened which caused her to recognize that she needed to work in order to succeed. And very recently, she has begun to use this self-motivation in many different ways.
I should tell you that I understand parents who tell me about their daughters, "if I didn't push her, she would do nothing. If I don't make her pitch, she won't and her ability will drop off." I am not telling you to drop everything and do all that it takes to get your daughters self-motivated. What I am telling you is that you should have this as a goal, a long-term goal.
Every kid, every person, is different. Some require more push than others just to achieve up to their 50% level. There is no particular age, no particular experience level, at which a given kid must become self-motivated. But as much as I have encouraged you to do certain things in order to have your kid become a good pitcher, catcher or whatever, I am encouraging you to find those things that will point her in the direction of becoming self-motivated. And everything you do with respect to this must leave the door open for her to become self-motivated when she is ready to do so.
This process, like the game of softball itself, is often rather difficult. Worse, while I can tell you how to fix some hitch in the swing, some shortcoming on the drop ball, or some particular fielding or throwing problem, I cannot tell you how to instill self-motivation in your child. It is a hands-on chore. Problems must be diagnosed in person. Treatment varies with the individual. Prognoses will vary. The time during which you may be able to accomplish the task is going to be different for any two kids.
I had a friend from childhood who became an Olympic medalist (a couple gold and, I think, one or two silver). He was a champion from a young age. His motivation was entirely external. He became a champion to appease his father. He was a world class athlete before he found self-motivation. But he also developed substance abuse problems. It was only after he solved his substance problems and found self-motivation that he became an Olympic champion.
I have often observed parents encouraging their kids to play hard, hustle, get a hit, etc. in softball tournaments. I have sometimes been an overbearing father with respect to my kids' softball play. I understand when parents need to be involved with their kids' softball. I also understand sideline nerves. But there is one thing we must remember and a few corollaries which spin off this single principle. It is their game - we had our opportunity already.
It is their game and we cannot necessarily relate to what it is like to stand 4o or less feet away from some hitter to guard against the bunt. We don't know what it is like to stand in against some 60 mph rise ball throwing freak of nature. We do not know what it is to live amongst their peers while suffering a tough game when everyone else is hitting the ball hard. Sure we had similar experiences but we do not know what they are going through. We have to guess.
When we were their ages, we didn't necessarily trust when our parents, teachers and coaches told us how to live. We learned most of what we know today thanks to mistakes and a few very smart mentors who taught us how to be self-sufficient. We got bored at practices. We turned our heads away on hard grounders. We complained about the duration of practices, etc. We dogged it. Why on Earth would we expect them to be any different.
When a young kid starts hitting, catching or pitching lessons, their coaches tell them what they need to do in order to prepare for the next session. "Don't forget to take 50 swings in the yard, do your blocking homework, pitch 4 times between sessions, etc." We can and should encourage our kids to hear those messages over and over again. We can tell them that if they would like to continue doing these lessons, they must practice on their own. We can make them practice but they will learn how to do it with the least possible amount of intensity to appease us. We can be perfectionists who mentally beat on our kids to make them all that we think they should be. But what is gained and what is lost when we do this?
If you think you may have the next Jennie Finch, there is probably nothing to be learned from me. If, on the other hand, you are simply using softball as an enjoyable way to teach your kid certain things, if you just want her to enjoy athletics, if you are not trying to take her up to the very top levels of the sport, then one of your goals should be to teach her self-motivation which she can use in other aspects of her life. It isn't an easy thing to instill. You will have to find your own way. But, in the long run, it is a highly advantageous thing to have taught your child. It is well worth the significant effort.Labels: mental toughness, parenting, work ethic
Permanent Link: Individual Motivation
Parent Trap
by Dave
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Before I begin today, let me say that I do not know what it is like to be a mother. I am, of course, a father. I was the last of 5 siblings to have children. I have daughters, not sons. Before I became a parent, I was an uncle. My sisters all had boys. So while I do not have personal experience being a father of a son, I can say that I have observed, up close and personal, the different ways fathers and mothers relate to their sons and daughters. There is a difference. Also, parents are not particularly aware of the ways they relate outwardly to their children and how their behavior appears to others. The discussion I want to engage in today, one about parental conduct in travel softball, is very difficult and I expect many just won't get it. My perspective is as a father of daughters, but it also, I hope, can be applied to mothers and fathers of both sons and daughters since I have observed all the various permutations.
This discussion concerns the way parents outwardly relate to their children within the context of travel softball teams and tournaments. The reason why this is critical is because it really does matter, mostly to the kids themselves but also it can have unforeseen and unintended consequences with others.
I have observed parental conduct as a newcomer to a team, as one with a daughter guesting, as member of the old guard on a team, as mere spectator, as a head and assistant coach, and from just about every other imaginable point of view. I have seen all kinds of behavior and I'm not sure I am positioned properly to judge all of it. But I can tell you about some of the more extreme examples and how I interpret them.
I want to draw on some images. So I have to tell you some stories.
I have a friend whose daughter has played gold level ball for a few years. Back when she got involved with it, I ran into the father at a showcase. He told me of the instruction he had received from the staff of the showcase team. They warned parents against the sort of conduct they had observed over the years in younger aged tournament ball and gave several examples of what to avoid. The gist of that went something like, "make yourselves invisible at showcases if you want your daughter to make favorably impressions with the college coaches."
This father began his experiences observing his daughter playing showcases by sitting beyond the outfield fence. He arrived at the field, made sure his daughter had her stuff including water and money, and knew how to get in contact should she need something. He saw her off to join her teammates. And then he disappeared from her life for the day.
I say I ran into him but I went to a game his daughter was playing. We had talked by phone prior to this so I went to see if I could find him but had a little difficulty locating him. He told me he would be in the outfield and I scanned the fence to find him but he wasn't there. I expected to see him leaning on the fence. There were some people doing that or sitting in chairs next to it but he wasn't one of them. So I gave him a call on his cell and he said, "look at rightfield and now I'll lift up my arm so you can see me." There he was! He had been lying down in the grass, almost completely out of sight! He had done this purposely because he wanted to be virtually invisible.
This is the model of good behavior for a parent at a showcase tournament.
There is a girl, now off to college where she plays softball, who was a youth and high school pitcher. She tried out for and made various teams over the many years of her career. You could always find where she was playing tournaments even if you didn't know her team because her father always stood out. You wouldn't find her if you looked at the girls on the bench. But if you scanned the dugouts and sidelines, you would invariably not miss her father.
I say "you" because I mean you, the reader. You don't know the girl or her father but you would know them if you happened to be where she was playing. He'd be the guy constantly talking to his daughter and giving her signs about which pitch to throw and where. He was frequently on the coaching staff of these teams but when he was, he was exclusively concerned with his own daughter 100% of the time. Sometimes he might talk to others briefly but he was focused on his daughter. That wasn't just true when she pitched. That was true when she played SS or any other place on the field.
This conduct by the father occurred not merely in travel ball but also in HS. She was a varsity pitcher and I was shocked to see the same sort of behavior there. For a couple years, he merely signaled pitches to her. Then, he actually wormed his way into the dugout and called her pitches directly from there. No matter where this kid played, the father was involved a bit more than he should have been and trying to control what his daughter did on the field, even when she was as old as 17!
I was at a high school game with different teams once when a group of parents happened near my perch along the outfield fence. They were discussing some pitcher on one of the teams. I don't know this girl and it was several years ago so I never really figured out who she was. These parents were talking about the pitcher's prospects with a certain college. They said, and I have no way of verifying it though it does sound within the realm of possibility, "she convinced the college coach to come watch a high school game and she came only to see the father calling pitches by sign language from the sidelines. She packed up and left after crossing the kid off her list of prospects."
Again, I cannot judge the veracity of these comments but they sound plausible. If a coach were looking for a self-sufficient kid to fill the circle, you can imagine what she might think. If a coach merely wanted an effective pitcher, she might ignore the strong parental influence, assuming the kid had several effective outings in front of her. On the other hand, unless the father was planning to go to college with the kid, I know I would want to see how she pitched without him calling the shots. I'd like to observe how she worked with catchers.
Compare and contrast these three stories. How do you analyze them? How do you see yourself fitting into the spectrum of possible behaviors? Are you more like the father sitting, hidden out by the fence, or the father calling all his kid's pitches, perhaps worming his way into the dugout to be a pretend coach?
Let me tell you, I am not like the father by the fence. But I aspire to become like him. I am a nervous, tense person most of the time. I find I can turn this off sometimes, rarely, but I have yet to do that at a softball game. I find that any softball game can make me tense. I get tense watching games at every age level whether I know someone on one of the teams or not. My kids' softball games make me really tense. I suppose I like to be tense and that is why I like softball. But I do not want to ever do anything to harm my kids. I want to do everything I can to make my kids' softball experiences as good as they can be.
When I was an older "kid," about age 20, I had a friend who stood something like 6 foot 4, was otherwise rather large, and was very loud. We regularly referred to him by his nickname, "big and loud." I was known as "not as big but just as loud." I don't know where I got my voice from. It is too bad that it is married to abject tone deafness or I might have been an opera star. When I played ball, I annoyed more people than I would want to admit because I never shut up. I talked so much that many of my teammates mocked me. But I did it on purpose because I was catching and it broke hitters' concentration. Still, that need to talk nonstop with full voice pervades my being whenever I am at a game including my kids' softball games. You would easily find my kids by looking for me at games, unless I am coaching in which case I show a little more discretion and restraint!
Early on, my kids were busy trying to perfect their pitching motions and pitches. I provided nearly constant vocal reminders to them while they were in the circle. I just couldn't help myself. Do this, do that, faster arm, snap it off, hit your spots, spin it hard, etc., etc., etc. almost constantly sprang forth from my pie hole. When my youngest started out in 10U travel at the age of 9, I sometimes went so far as to signal her pitches. The team coach was someone I knew and he began to encourage me to do that. he said he didn't mind because he had no idea and wanted her to be successful so the team would win. So I started acting just like that father of the high schooler I mentioned earlier, acting as pretend coach.
In later years, I started getting involved in coaching so that I was no longer merely calling or signing from the sidelines. I enjoy coaching, particularly coaching other people's kids but I don't like coaching my own. I found myself too involved with my own kids, especially when they pitched. I started calling pitches for all the pitchers on my teams. And I was constantly coaching my daughters when they pitched. That's fine, I suppose, but the reality is they would not be able to grow as pitchers unless I took a step back.
At some point in my kids' softball careers, I attended a large clinic at which kids of all ages were present. Somehow, I got into a conversation with a guy whose daughter had been playing showcase ball with a well known gold team from the southeast for a year or so. She was a very accomplished player who was being recruited by a couple schools. This fellow talked to me for a while and then asked if I was coaching my daughter. When I told him I was, he said I should look to cut that out soon, "by the time she reaches 14." He went on further to say that otherwise she would not develop fully as a ball player. He did not speak about how others might interpret a player's father being a coach, but rather was focused on how that might effect my daughter, herself.
Since I heard these words, I have tried to extricate myself from coaching my kids' teams. Unfortunately, I have been cajoled into coaching by someone who knew me or been convinced to help out on teams that were short-staffed. So I have not yet succeeded in pulling back fully. I keep trying and as I say that, I hear Yoda, the Jedi master saying, "Try not, Do, Or do not, There is no try." Wisdom aside, I suspect there are many of us who coach our daughters' teams against our better judgment and the advice of others.
Many of us who do not directly coach are more like Sandra Bullock in the recently released movie "The Blind Side." (I highly recommend this film to anyone - I no longer go to see movies very often as most really stink. This would be the exception.) In the film, Bullock watches over her soon to be adopted son very closely, especially when he is at football practice. At one point, she gets frustrated with the coaching, marches onto the field and proceeds to give instruction to her son with the help of some of the players.
The story is a true one with a happy ending. The film is very good. But this particular scene got under my skin because it tends to support a bad notion, the idea that it is right and good for parents of young athletes to walk out onto the practice field, perhaps even the game field, in order to instruct their children about what they are doing. This is not a great thing.
In case you might think that parents would never do anything of the sort, I assure you that you are mistaken. Parents very often do exactly that. I was once running an indoor practice in which we set up an infield and ran situations, especially bunting situations. I pulled the girls into a circle before we started and explained what it was I wanted them to do. Then we ran plays. Unbeknown to me, one father was sitting behind the protective net by first base where his daughter was playing. He constantly gave her instruction. He also instructed the other 1Bs. His instruction was directly contrary to what I had told them. I couldn't understand why they could not perform a relatively simple play the way I had instructed them to do it. later I learned what had been going on and corrected it. I gave the father a stern talking to. Thereafter, he stayed in his car during indoor workouts.
On different occasion, we were playing a game in a tournament and suffering through some pretty bad umpiring. Everyone was on edge because most of the calls had gone against us and some were ridiculous. After one call, as it happens a legitimate one, a father walked onto the field to question the umpire about the call. I stood in stunned amazement as the father entered the playing field. Fortunately one of my assistants caught him before he crossed into play and told him to go back and sit down. I gave him basically the same talk I had given the other father.
Lots of the sort of bad behavior is displayed after parents become familiar with the coach and team. They engage in regular conversations, get comfortable with everyone and then lose their heads when games get stressful. Usually this does not happen right away because, just like on job interviews, people have their guard up the first couple times they meet you. But some folks are not at all restrained. Some folks act badly as early as tryouts.
I have had my kids go through tryouts annually since we got into travel ball. I9 wanted them to get experienced trying out so that when they had to do it for real, it would be no big deal. I practiced this in my life at times I was not looking for jobs. I would send out resumes and go on interviews years and years before I was ever actually looking for a job. I figured it would be good for my kids to do the same. Also, I wanted to see how other teams conducted their tryouts so mine would be more professional looking. In any event, what I saw at these tryouts frequently left me speechless.
I can understand a little good natured cheering at all times around the softball diamond but at tryouts, this should probably be a little less loud and frequent than it is at games. Some parents insist on giving their kids encouragement even in this tryout setting. It can be a little absurd but there is nothing wrong with it per se. I guess I prefer to be pretty quiet when it comes to tryouts others are conducting when my kid is involved. I watch but keep my mouth shut. Many parents cheer but others are much more involved than that. They scold their kids when they make mistakes. They walk over to the dugouts when kids are coming off the field and give instruction to their kids. Some transgressions are worse than that.
A travel coach friend of mine wrote in to say, "I think that parents really need to know they can actually do more harm than good during try-outs. The last thing a coach wants is parent issues. I have seen kids rejected due to their over-the-top intense parent. I don't want to deal with that and neither would you. One guy actually went out on the field during try-outs and caught his pitcher-daughter. When asked to let a player catch her, he called pitches from behind the back-stop. Unreal. Dad was told he was the reason the kid was overlooked. She is a very good pitcher, but not worth dealing with dad ... Best thing to do is stay in your car or on the bleachers and just observe!"
In my own experiences, parents can be problematic at tryouts and coaches should always be on the lookout. I had one set of parents behave themselves through tryouts, occasionally cheering but never saying anything directly to their daughter. Then after the tryouts, they questioned me excessively long. I kind of got a bad feeling from them but I ignored it. That was a mistake. It is OK to ask questions after tryouts to learn about the team and organization. But there are common sense limits.
For example if your daughter is asked to be on my team today, right after tryouts and the rest of the roster is also set, there is no way I can "guarantee" her a certain amount of playing time at a particular position. I can say that today she is the best or second best pitcher, catcher, infielder, or whatever but that does not mean she will perform so in games or that some other kid is not going to earn her position next spring. So, why ask about it? Why ask, "can you guarantee my kid infield playing time?" You can get a sense of how many other girls are pitchers, catchers, etc. before committing to the team. But you will never receive a contract and you shouldn't ask for one unless you want to scare off a coach.
I heard from one coach who was asking some girls to play for him. One of the girl's parents called the coach to ask questions before committing. That phone conversation lasted an hour in which the parent needed to know if a couple other girls were being asked to join and then whether they were likely to get the kind of playing time they would be looking for. This parent couldn't commit unless the other kids were coming. And they wouldn't be coming unless ... So on top of asking about her kid's prospects on the team, she had to be concerned with the others as well. The same lengthy conversation took place several times with a parent of each of the kids. After the last conversation, the coach drew a deep breath, pulled out his list of phone numbers and called each family back to inform them that he had completed his roster and their offers were no longer extended. He was not going to deal with these people for an entire year.
I held a tryout once in which I really only needed a couple kids, a pitcher if someone stood out, perhaps a catcher, and a utility player. The rest of my team was set. 7 or 8 kids showed up. One wore these super-kewl sunglasses despite it being very cloudy out that day. Those represented her attitude. She was pretty sure she was all that and more. Her mother felt the same way about her kid. She figured out who my wife was and sat next to her apparently on purpose. She talked non-stop and afterward my wife had a migraine. Not a good start!
Thuis kid wore a weird smirk on her face too, another attitude thing. She was convinced she was a good player and going to make this team. She wasn't and didn't. Back then I always liked to catch the pitchers because I wanted to observe movement and speed for myself. I caught what she suggested were fastballs, changes, curves, and drops. To tell you the truth, I was not able to discern between the pitches. Worse, the mother sat there and told my wife how she "knows your daughter is fast but my daughter is more of a finesse pitcher. She doesn't have your daughter's speed but she has better movement and you'll see that as they get older, movement's more important."
Why on Earth would you say such a thing to a coach's wife if you wanted to make the team? the kid had no movement, not even close to my daughter's. She couldn't change speeds even if she could throw moderately fast. Her curve and drop spun but didn't move at all. It was as uninspiring as it could be and the kid was not even close to as good as my younger daughter who played down an age group. I wouldn't take her on ability alone but I really was not going to have her anywhere near my team once I heard what the wife had said. What if she had been marginal? What if I was seriously considering inviting her?
In another case in which I was not a coach, there was a girl who was perfectly nice and a decent player. Her father, on the other hand, was another story. I won;t go into details but he had absolutely no restraint when it came to what he said and his choice of words to say it. After the first season with the team, a few girls left the team and they held tryouts. After the tryouts, the coach called the father and said, "I am not asking your daughter to join the team this year. She made the cut but you did not." The fgather had to be removed from the team and, therefore, the girl was not invited. That is a shame.
OK, so those are some stories about parental conduct in the softball setting. I said at the beginning that fathers probably relate to daughters differently than mothers do. I guess I didn't develop that so much as just give you examples of each. In the end, I want you to walk away from this understanding that your conduct as a parent of an athlete has an effect on numerous intended and unintended others. It will effect your kid, perhaps in ways you don't want it to. It might color her prospects at tryouts or with her team. It may effect the way college coaches look at her if that is where you are. You must restrain yourself. You have to think about the way others perceive you and your child, and how you would like them to perceive you.Labels: coaching, Conduct, parenting
Permanent Link: Parent Trap
Why Stress Fundamentals
by Dave
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
If you spend time on any large softball forum, you will see very little discussion about real fundamentals. The subject is just not exciting enough for a good read or heated discussion. Instead what you generally see are these convoluted discussions about sophisticated topics, using words you have never heard, brought up by either real experts, those pretending to be such, or people who have no idea what they are talking about. People would rather use big words and engage in the complex then deal with what really matters, fundamentals.
I want to tell you a story that just happens to be extremely timely at this moment. Once there was a young man who was what you would call naturally gifted athletically. By gifted athletically, I mean he was both fast and quick, had good flexibility and strength, was gifted with good hands and eyes, as well as the coordination of the two; he could convert coaches words and descriptions into action; he could watch others play a sport and copy the good parts of their mechanics without taking on the bad; he was motivated to be good at the sport of his choice and became one of the most renowned prospects within it at a young age. This young man rose through the ranks of his sport rapidly and as he got older, he began to play with and against others who were similarly "gifted" with "natural" ability.
The young man became a professional in his sport and rose up to its highest levels. When grouped with the other top athletes, he still stood out. But as his game began to be scrutinized, he was compared unfavorably to several.
The young man was named Derek Jeter. His sport was obviously baseball. His defensive game was compared unfavorably to everyone from the other local MLB team's SS to others within his league and outside of it, not to mention the gentleman who plays the next position over from him. In fact, at times, minor league SS prospects were compared favorably to Jeter in terms of range and other aspects of the position. Most recently, the negative comparisons have died down quite a bit and the man was recently named American League Gold Glove Shortstop as well as Sports Illustrated Magazine's "sportsman of the year."
Wha happen?
Not for nothin but, if you live anywhere near da Bronx, you know wha happen.
Wha happen were several things. First off, the team replaced their stocky, hard hitting, poor foot speed, lousy fielding first baseman with a certain tall, athletic Gold Glover. That made a huge difference to be sure but there was another basket of changes that made a bigger impact.
A certain coach worked with Jeter, watching his fielding mechanics and various aspects of his defensive game. And you know what? This coach changed some things Jeter was doing. For one thing, he moved him deeper. That changed the path he took to the ball. More importantly, he adjusted or corrected Jeter's ready position.
Let me say that again for effect. One of the biggest improvement Derek Jeter made, the thing he did which moved his status from defensive liability or second rate SS to Gold Glove winner and arguably the most heralded athlete in his game was an adjustment to his ready position.
Are you getting this? I just said that a professional athlete who is assumed to be a member of a small elite club of fellows who are, at least potentially though probably at this point likely, first ballot Hall of Famers had his ready position adjusted and that has made all the difference.
Ready position? Isn't that the first thing anybody teaches? How can a professional get that far without a nearly perfect ready position? The answer is we can all always improve even the most fundamental aspect of our games. Professional athletes, even HOF-destined professional athletes, are no exception. If you want to improve your game, look at the basics, not the sophisticated stuff.
If you examine what professional hitters do when they get into difficult times, you will find that they always go back to the drawing board. They go back to the tee and examine their fundamental mechanics. They do not ask ace pitchers to throw batting practice for them. They do not go into the batting cages and tell the coach to turn the speed up above 100. They do not read books about new and better hitting mechanics. They do not start emulating the swing of somebody who happens to be hot right now. They go to the batting tee and review videotape regarding their hitting fundamentals.
While examining the college recruiting game in softball, I have heard several stories which do not seem to compute in my puny head. Once somebody said, lots of times coaches don't even watch the actual games when they go to showcases. Many like to watch warm-ups because they get a better sense of the kid from that than they do from the games. Players are warned against being nonchalant before and after games, and most especially during warm-ups. I can accept this but, on the other hand, I have watched so many teams warm-up like professionals and then when we got into the game, our band of scraggly goof-offs have kicked their butts. What on Earth can you tell from warm-ups?
There are lots of things you can see from an individual player during warm-ups. &nbsop; You can judge attitude, seriousness, approach to playing the sport, etc. More importantly, you get a really good sense of a kid's fundamentals from warm-ups. It is virtually impossible for a kid with poor fundamentals to pretend to be a really well-schooled player repeatedly while fielding simple grounders. Likewise, it is almost impossible for an extremely well skilled kid to go about her business using bad mechanics during a warm-up. On the other hand, when 3 to 10 balls are hit into play during the course of a game, it is almost impossible to gain a sense of a kid's fundamentals when she fields somewhere between 2 and none of these.
Also, it is very possible that some kid with absolutely fantastic skills will have a tough day because her grandfather died the night before, she was forced to stay up all night to complete a school project, she caught a stomach bug from her little brother, her boyfriend gave her heck because she spends too much time playing softball, the teacher in her otherwise favorite subject gave her heck because she spends too much time playing softball, or for any number of reasons. maybe the pitcher throwing today always misses her marks and the SS finds herself out of position because she was expecting an outside pitch for a ball and a perfect, down the middle strike was thrown. There are so many possibilities for something external to a particular player to cause her to look bad that it defies reason.
There once were two catchers on a team with two pitchers. One pitcher hit the mark all the time. The other missed more than 50% of the time but she was a hard thrower and still found success. The catcher who caught the control pitcher looked like an all-star in almost every game. The catcher for the less accurate pitcher spent way too much time with her back to the field while chasing balls bouncing around the backstop. At some point, folks watching the two drew the conclusion that one catcher was much better than the other. Then, one day, the good catcher caught the wild pitcher and the bad catcher caught the controlled one. Everyone's opinions of the two catchers changed instantaneously.
If you were evaluating catchers, would you feel more confident in your assessment if the catcher were catching somebody who always hit her marks or one who always put the ball in the dirt? If you were evaluating infielders, would you feel better about your assessment if you watched a game in which she fielded two or three easy chances cleanly or you watched her field 20 reps in a row during a practice? If you were evaluating a pitcher, would you feel comfortable watching her mow down a team of batters about whom you knew absolutely nothing? Or would you rather focus on her mechanics, speed, movement, ability to hit spots?
OK, enough of that. My point is recruiting coaches often watch warm-ups because they want to observe fundamentals. It is easier to judge fundamentals in drills with repeated reps than it is to see them on display in a game. They want to watch fundamentals because fundamentals are critical. And why they are critical is what this is really all about.
If you watch some games at various age levels, before long, you should form an understanding of why fundamentals are critical. At 10U or 12U, girls who are the best athletes make all the plays. It does not so much matter if they are fielding balls properly or throwing correctly. They are athletic. They move well enough to the ball and get there because they are fast and/or quick. They pick it up cleanly because A) they are confident in their abilities and B) the balls just are not hit as hard as, or with as much spin as, they will be soon. They make the throws accurately because they have experiences making good throws under little pressure, not because their throwing mechanics are right.
Take the successful athletic kid with poor fielding mechanics and move her gradually up in age group. Her success will begin to falter because her mechanics are bad. I have watched some middle infielders who make all the plays at 10U or 12U but who do not get in good ready positions, don't field with two hands, or otherwise make a travesty out of what are normally viewed as sound mechanics. These girls get rather frustrated when everyone catches up to them athletically or strength wise, when the balls are hit so much harder, when everything seems to have a weird spin on it. They also have difficulty getting outs when the kids' baserunning speeds pick up. They do not field properly to make a quick throw and when the girls start getting under 3, they make a lot of late throws to first. l; Then they start rushing everything to make up for their poor mechanics and the wildness begins.
Throwing mechanics, in particular, hold kids back as they get older. I have watched many otherwise decent outfielders cause major problems because they are side-armers. A couple RFs come to mind immediately. Maybe you have seen this sort of thing? There's a runner on first when a basehit reaches right field, down the line. The RF rushes over taking a good line, picks the ball cleanly and fires a side-armer to third trying to nail the runner from first. The ball sails past the line and out of play, more than 60 feet up the left field line! Ugh!
As girls age, like I already said, balls are hit harder and with more spin, runners are faster, and there just is more and more pressure put on players to do everything right, to do everything extremely fast. Girls who have sound fundamental mechanics seem to rise and those who do not, fall. Give me the super-athletic kid with sound fundamentals every time. But if given the choice between the weaker athlete who has sound mechanics and the superior athlete with poor fundamentals, I'll take the former. At some point, you just cannot help a kid who is completely disinterested in fundamentals or who has atrocious ones. That point is probably sometime between 13 and 14. So work kidsensively on fundamentals from the time they start playing until ... there is no until as Derek Jeter can attest to.
Yesterday I wrote a piece about improving softball by improving rec ball by improving pitching and fundamentals. Today I am not fixated on the lowest levels of the sport, but rather the highest. Ignore fundamentals in favor of what you deem more important aspects if you must but consider what happens when the kid who knows where to go with the ball can no longer pick it. Consider the accuracy of the strong armed girl whose throwing mechanics stink. Consider the success rate of the infielder whose foot position is always is improper. Consider how well your team does when everybody fields with one hand, pulls their gloves to their throwing hand while taking excessive amounts of steps, and then fires a rocket to the base after the baserunner gets there.
Football is perhaps one of the most complex games on the planet. We often hear broadcasters talk about the "skill positions." These broadcasters have never tried to put a block on somebody. If you do not have blockers who are capable of blocking properly, you cannot run the ball and the only thing that will come out of your passing game is a continual line of star quarterbacks sidelined with concussions, or broken bones. Blocking is fundamental. Blocking is boring. Blocking is critical.
If you coach a basketball team on which everybody could teach Coach K a thing or two about sophisticated plays but on which nobody can dribble, set a pick, make a pass, or shoot properly, good luck. It makes no difference how much your kids know about the game if they can't perform the fundamentals well.
So why do we put girls on a softball diamond and then worry that they know where to go with the ball? Why do we put the course in back of the cart? Why do so many of us not spend time on fundamentals because they are boring when those fundamentals are the single most important aspect of the game?Labels: coaching, defense, instruction, parenting, practice, throwing
Permanent Link: Why Stress Fundamentals
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