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Winning and Losing Are Great Teachers
By Dick Smith
Head Coach – University of St. Francis (Ill.)
All coaches want to win. There’s no two ways about it. We feel wonderful when we win and badly when we lose. There are times that we feel awfully lucky when we win, but still that good feeling is there. Winning “ugly” happens when we do everything wrong, but still come out on top. Losing is never good in the eyes of most and this is the way of things.
There are many reasons for losing. The opposing pitcher might have been very good. Our bats just didn’t come around even thought the pitcher we faced was not that good. Our fielding might not have been all that good, and we might have made mental mistakes , especially on the bases. Our outfield might have forgotten their fundamentals and allowed balls to fall that would normally have been caught.
Softball Hitting – Attitude for Success
By Provincial Women’s Softball Association (PWSA)
A complete hitting plan emphasizes both the physical and the mental skills necessary to become a consistent hitter. With careful attention and regular practice, players can develop a fluid and powerful hitting stroke. Developing physical aptitude is one dimension of hitting, a second dimension is also essential–developing a positive hitting attitude. A good swing without a good attitude to direct it will produce poor results. To be effective, hitters must learn to regularly combine a proper batting stroke with a positive mental strategy.
A powerful swing needs a powerful attitude to guide it!
The goal of a positive mental strategy is to develop a hitter’s frame of mind. Such a mindset is the key factor that controls and releases all the explosive power of your hitting plan. This mindset is the hitter’s mental edge. Just as the development of the hitter’s physical skills require careful practice and repetition, mental skills require similar development. Before the game, during the game, each turn at bat, and with every pitch that is thrown, a hitter should seek to develop and strengthen his/her edge at the plate. Doing so will provide him/her with the greatest opportunity for success. There are simple and important keys for successful hitting. Each key unlocks more power for a super strong attitude.
Mental Preparation – The Key Factor for Consistent Performances
By Rhonda Revelle, University of Nebraska
Adversity is guaranteed in athletics. The most consistently successful athletes are those who learn skills to handle adversity through compensating and adjusting to ever-changing circumstances during competition. Mental preparation and skill development enables an athlete to maintain this consistency even when external conditions are inconsistent.
Mental preparation and physical preparation are the same in that they are both skills that need to be constantly sharpened in order to become a consistently high level performer. Athletes understand the need for ongoing physical practice, but sometimes don’t quite grasp the how’s and why’s of mental training. As a coach, one of my biggest responsibilities is to have the athletes understand the correlation between preparation and consistency of play.
Athletes enter college often times without giving much thought to mental skills. In talking with them about the mental game, they just figured either someone “had it” or “did not have it.” We not only let them know that everyone can “have it” but it is a skill that needs to be trained just like any other skill and ultimately, it is the responsibility of the individual to develop her own talents.
Marc Dagenais was born in Mirabel, Quebec, a primary French-speaking province of Canada. As a kid, Marc practiced many sports but baseball was his favorite. In 1989, at age 13, his parents decided to sign-up his younger sister for softball and Marc thought that coaching softball could be fun so he offered to help out. That day, Marc's life changed forever. 