Coaching

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Fastpitch Drills Work Better When You Know Why You're Doing Them

Yet another story from the fastpitch front, i.e. lessons. Tonight I was doing a pitching lesson where the pitcher brought her own catcher. The catcher happens to be a girl named Lindsay, a former player of mine and a personal favorite.

As the pitcher was working, she occasionally threw a ball into the ground. My expectation was that Lindsay would drop and block the ball, or at least catch it competently. But instead, she was just sort of swatting at it, which looked very odd.

After the pitching lesson I asked her what gives, and that's when she told me she'd just come from a team workout (not sure if it was HS or travel ball) where the coach was bouncing balls into the catchers, who were only wearing masks. I asked her what the purpose/point of the drill was, and she said she didn't know. None of the catchers did, apparently.

In this episode of Fastpitch.TV, Gary Leland shares an interview with former Olympian Tairia Flowers.  In this video Tairia talks about:

• when she first started playing softball
• being a catcher
• the importance of her teammates
• her high school softball career
• life lessons her high school coach taught her
• playing softball in college
• why UCLA is special
• what it's like to be an Olympian
• and more!

Written by Stacie Mahoe

Most coaches have fears, worries, or anxiety about something. In fact, I'm not sure I know any coaches who don't.  It's pretty normal, when you really care about something greatly, to have concerns or worries about it.

However there is one softball coaching fear in particular that I see get in the way of good coaching time after time.

Can you guess what it is?

It's the fear of what others will think about you. I've heard advisers in other areas of life say that if you really want to be successful, you have to stop caring what other people think of you and your choices.

I believe that holds true for coaching softball too.

It's an easy trap to fall into. You and I both know how many critics there are of any softball coach. It comes with the territory. It's tough not to take things personally. Sure we all intellectually know that we shouldn't, but that's not always easy.  You're not the only coach who finds challenge in not allowing whispers (for shouts for that matter) from the outside impact what you do and the choices you make as a coach.

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

The day after Christmas is known as Boxing Day in many countries outside the U.S. Traditionally, it's a day where the wealthy either give gifts to their servants or trade places with them for a day.

That latter concept isn't a bad one for fastpitch softball coaches to adopt now and then. We get so used to barking orders and instructions that we forget that what we're saying may not be what our players are hearing. And we may not be coming off quite the way we'd like.

That's a lesson that often gets learned when the team puts on skits as part of a team building exercise. Sooner or later, someone does an imitation of the coaches, and while it's meant to be funny there can be some interesting truths that come out.

A good question to ask yourself is "Could I play for me?" While the temptation is to give an immediate "yes," stop and really think about it for a minute. The answer might surprise you.

In this episode of Fastpitch TV, Gary Leland talks with Coach Patty Gasso about:

• how she got involved with softball
• what it was like to win the WCWS
• how she got started in coaching softball
• what some of the challenges where when she first started coaching
• what it likes to be a Sooner
• and more

In this week's episode of Fastpitch TV, Gary Leland talks about the NFCA convention, what the NFCA is, and why you should join if you haven't already.

Watch More Fastpitch TV

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Many of you have probably heard the expression "Practice doesn't make perfect — it makes permanent." Yet how often have you really thought about that in the context of your own work?

I know I see that in action all the time. Walking through a facility or along a field I will see teams diligently running drills or working on techniques that essentially have them practicing to lose. Even though they may have best of intentions.

I see it with hitting a lot. I like hitting stations as much as the next coach, but they can do as much harm as good if they're not set up or supervised properly.

Now, if you have older players whom you've worked with for awhile you can probably have them work the stations without someone being with them every minute. But for younger players it often doesn't work as well.

I will see young players putting no effort into hitting off a tee because they think it's for babies. So they just sort of knock the ball off instead of working on elements of their swings.

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Whether you're working with a team or an individual, many fastpitch softball coaches struggle with where to start. There's so much to learn in our game that it can be quite overwhelming.

This is where coaches can take a cue from the business world — in particular the "funnel" approach used in sales. Most sales organizations have it down to a science. They know that if they're going to close X number of sales, they need to X number of customers to come to the website, which means they need their promotional efforts to reach X number of people in total.

In the case of coaching, it works this way. Start with the big things, get those happening first, and then work your way down into the details.

Now, that may seem rather obvious but you'd be surprised how many coaches try to get to the detail parts too quickly — or try to teach everything about a skill at once. What usually happens is the player becomes so overwhelmed by information that she doesn't learn much of anything.

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

I'm sure you know people who still believe in "hands to the ball" hitting cue. I, for one, think that's a terrible cue that will cause more problems than it cures, especially because I don't think it will cure anything.

Regardless of the specifics, however, this issue does get me thinking because at one time I DID use that very same cue, and put my hitters through some of the drills that encouraged it (such as soft tossing balls and hitting them with the knob, which I picked up at a coaching clinic).

What I was thinking, though, was thank goodness none of the hitters I worked with, either on my team or on the side, have to give back any of their hits now that I have better information.

That's the funny thing about a forum like ours. We can expend lots of time, passion and electrons arguing various positions on how to execute differen skills. At times it can sound like one of the taboo topics (politics, religion), especially when True Believers clash or those with a particular agenda try to bring everyone else around to their point of view.

In this episode of Fastpitch TV, Jenny Dalton shares and demonstrates more softball hitting drills including some drills to help keep a hitters hands inside the ball and eliminate "casting."

Press play below to watch this softball hitting video!

Click here to watch Part I if you missed it.

In this episode of Fastpitch TV Jenny Dalton shares some useful hitting tips on contact point, releasing the barrel, where to hit, and more. Plus see some hitting drills you can use to improve your hitting.

Press play below to watch this video now…

10 Keys to Championship Success
written by Darrick Brown
Head Coach, Chicago Bandits
2011 NPF World Champions

10 keys to our success this season:

1. Team chemistry - I truly believe this was a big part of our success. The veterans immediately accepted the rookies and new players from day 1. This was one of the closest teams that I have ever coached. A ton of lifelong friendships were made this summer.

2. Management - Our owner Bill Sokolis and GM Aaron Moore did a fantastic job of putting together a team full of great players and most importantly great people. Not a ton of big names but players who certainly are earning the right to be known in the future.

3. City of Rosemont/Mayor Brad Stephens/Rosemont Stadium - The 2011 season began a new era for the Chicago Bandits and most importantly a very positive move to a new location, 27 Jennie Finch Way, Rosemont, IL. Mayor Stephens and Owner Bill Sokolis moved the team to Rosemont and the city built us a 6 million dollar stadium. It could be the best stadium ever built for fastpitch softball. So when the players and I walk out on the field it is truly a honor to wear the Bandits logo.

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

The other day I had a hitting lesson with a girl named Erin, a girl I converted to a slapper last year and who is now playing at the 16U level. As we were working on various techniques she can do to take advantage of what the defense gives her, she told me something that just warmed my old heart.

She told me after the last tournament she went to her coach and asked her if it would be ok for her to make some decisions on her own regarding what to do with the next pitch, based on what she saw with the defense. Apparently the coach had been calling a lot of bunts — Erin is the leadoff hitter — despite the fact that the defense was playing her in close.

To me, that's a great thing on two levels. First, she approached it the right way. Rather than just ignoring the coach or giving up, she went to her with an idea. Second, she knew enough and was confident enough in her own abilities to want the choice of what to do.

Slide with Care
Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

The other day I heard about another player who broke her leg sliding into a base. From the description she probably caught her cleats in the ground so her foot stopped while her body kept going.

While any sport contains some level of risk, I sometimes think the risks of sliding aren't being properly addressed — which means either players aren't being taught the proper techniques — or they're not able to apply those techniques in a game situation.

Some of the latter may be fear. They're afraid it's going to hurt when they slide, so they approach it cautiously. That's the wrong way to go.

Sliding works best when you go all-out. Throwing your body forward with enthusiasm builds up the momentum to let your body glide across the infield; slowing up or getting cautious will tend to make you flop down, increasing the possibility of a strawberry or bruise.

Keeping What You See in Perspective
Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Softball fanatics love evaluating what those at high levels of play are doing. We may even watch the mechanics of some of the top players in Major League Baseball. As fanatics, we love to study those mechanics and try to learn from them in order to help our players, or our own children (male and female) become the best they can be.

There is a danger in all of this, however. Namely an inability to keep what you see in context.

While the mechanics of some of these great hitters make a good model and a good goal, it's important to be realistic in your expectations. Because like it or not, there is a huge difference between a 28 year old MLB player and a 12 year old girl.

Let's start with the obvious: a grown man is much stronger than a young girl. Not just in the upper body, but in every aspect. Take the strongest 12 year old girl you've ever seen and put her in a cage match with a 28 year old male professional athlete, and the girl is going to lose. Badly. So expecting a 12 year old girl to have the exact same swing mechanics, including the explosiveness, of a 28 year old MLB player is not very realistic.

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

This past weekend I was watching a 16U game when I saw something that made me shake my head. With one out and runners on first a second, a routine ground ball was hit to the shortstop, who fielded it cleanly — and then proceeded to throw it to first for the out.

Never once did she consider throwing it to third to get the lead runner. Nor did she consider flipping it to second for a possible double play. In her mind, the play was to first, as though there were no runners on base.

In the meantime the runners on first and second became the runners on second and third. The next batter cracked a long single to left center and two runs scored. Final score? 2-1 in favor of the team that was at bat at the time.

I was shaking my head, of course, because the situation seemed pretty obvious to me. I couldn't understand how a 16U shortstop wouldn't just know instinctively where the play was. Apparently, however, no one had taught her game sense.

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to see the movie Moneyball starring Brad Pitt as Oakland As GM Billy Beane. If you're not familiar with the original book — which is a great read by the way — it chronicles the story of how Beane changed the game of baseball by focusing on a few key statistics rather than the conventional wisdom of the time, which was (and still is in some cases) whether a player "looks" like a ballplayer.

Of course, Beane didn't do it alone. He was assisted greatly by Paul DePodesta, a young Harvard graduate (here played by Jonah Hill and using the pseduonym Peter Brand) with a fondness for Bill James' Baseball Abstract, computers and a love of stats.

You can read about the values of the movie from countless professional movie reviewers. What I found interesting was Beane's reasons for taking such an interest in this radical approach, and the differences between his public and private faces while doing it. Those are things I think most of us can relate to.

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Over the weekend I was working with Erin, one of my former players (who is still a student) on her baserunning skills. Actually, that's a misnomer.

We weren't really working on skills. We were working on the mental side instead — knowing what to do, and working on her opening up her game on the bases.

You see, she has legitimate speed. Not sure where she is now, but I know she was 3.0 home to first a year ago, and probably faster than that now.

Yet once she got on base, she tended to shrink into a shell. Most of the time she would think station to station instead of realizing just what her speed could do on the rest of the bases, so we went out on a field to try and change that thinking.

A big part of her "conservative" running was a fear of making an out. She'd take the easy base, but was reluctant to push the envelope even a little bit despite my encouraging everyone on the team to always "think two bases" when running.

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Anyone who has been following fastpitch softball over the past few years knows we have entered an era of hitting. The philosophy used to be "put the ball in play and hope for something good to happen." Games used to end 1-0 or 2-1 after 12 innings.

Today, though, it's all changed. There's lots more offense in the game, thanks in part to better training for hitters and in part to superior bat technology that turns checked swings into extra base hits.

So it might tempting to think that having that great pitcher isn't nearly as important as it used to be. Yet the truth is the opposite; if anything, it's more important than ever to have good pitching.

Softball/baseball is the only sport where the defense starts with the ball. And who on the defense has it first? The pitcher.

To paraphrase a saying from my underground comic book reading days, "Good pitching will get you through times of no hitting better than good hitting will get you through times of no pitching." Think about it.