9 Key Lessons From Playing in a Tournament
This weekend, I took my 16U team to a 12-team tournament. The team played well and we ended up being winning the tournament.
The are 2 reasons why we chose to participate at a tournament during the off-season:
1) Assess where we're at and measure progress
2) gain valuable competitive experience that you can't acquire in practice
Every participation at a tournament brings in loads of experiences and learning opportunities for both coaches and players.
Here are few valuable key lessons that I either learned or was reminded of as a coach through various things that happened throughout the weekend as a coach.
1) Confidence Matters - how you speak to your players, your body language, and decisions you make will greatly influence the level of confidence of your players.
2) Emotional Control - losing your temper will only hurt you and never help you. Learning to control your emotions is key for both
coaches and players to stay focused and under control at all times.
3) Ability to Flush It - softball is a sport where there is a lot of failures and frustrations. You've gotta learn how to flush it quickly so that you can stay focused and not carry those negative emotions to the next play, at-bat, inning or even game.
4) Heads Up Baserunning - I like aggressive baserunning. That means taking risks. However, being aggressive doesn't mean to go wild. You have to be heads-up and make smart choices. If not, you will pay for
it.
5) Communication - On-field communication while on defensive is key. Players must be taught how to communicate and communication system must be established and practice. Too many errors happen because of
poor defensive communication.
6) Playing Time - As a coach, you must clearly communicate what your philosophy about playing time is. You must explain what are the factors that you consider when making playing time decisions. You must also be willing to reconsider it based on the level that you coach at. Never forget softball is also supposed to a fun experience.
7) Short Game - Being able to successfully put down a bunt or use short- game tactics (running slap, drag bunts, etc.) to put pressure on your opponents is a big part of fastpitch softball. You must spent time refining your short game in practice.
8 ) Walks and Passed Balls - They really can hurt you. A few walks and a few passed balls and it doesn't take long for your team to fall behind.
You must do whatever you can to minimize them.
9) Making Adjustments - softball is all about making adjustments, especially hitting. Pitching machines and tee balls can certainly be helpful tools but they can't replace live pitching to learn how to adjust.
These are some of they valuable key lessons that I learned or was reminded of this weekend as a coach through various experiences.
I take good note of them and I am back to the drawing board.
Who loves ya? 
Marc
"Your softball Peak Performance Coach"
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