Coaching Softball - Effective Post-game Talks

Which situation occurred dictates the general tone and emphasis you want to have with your team.

It is critical for me to mention that you as a coach have the best feel for what your team needs following a game.

While you should follow your intuition, remember that emotions can be running high (both yours and your players) so be careful not to let your emotions cloud your judgment after a loss.

You may want to give a short general statement to the team after the game and then address them the following day. The recommendations below serve as some basic guidelines for you to consider.

1) Play Well and Win

After playing well and winning, it is important to remind your team why they won. Be sure to compliment them for playing well and you might even want to mention several players by name who performed well. You want your team to walk away with the understanding that when they give great effort and have their heads in the game, they are capable of playing well. You want them to realize they have talent to be successful and should expect future successes as long as they continue to take care of the process. Challenge them to come out during the next week of practice and especially the next game with the same focus, confidence and intensity.

2) Play Poorly and Win

After playing poorly and winning, it is important for you as a coach to let them know that you are concerned. They need to understand that this win was more a result of luck or playing a less talented team than it was because of their effort. They should realize that if they continue to play like this in future games, they almost surely will lose. These are the times as a coach when you can be hard on your team. Their confidence will be less fragile because they did get a win, but you have to constructively criticize them for not taking care of the process.

There is a slight exception to this situation. This occurs during tournaments and playoff time. The rule in these situations is typically to “survive and advance.” Despite the game being ugly and far from your team’s best, you do want to let them know your are satisfied because they found a way to win.

This seemed to be the case for our Arizona team during the early part of the 1997 Women’s College World Series. Our power hitters weren’t hitting the ball like they usually did but our slappers were able to manufacture enough runs with their precision and speed. Thus Coach Candrea focused more on the team’s ability to find a way to win despite everyone not being on their game instead of chastising them for not playing well. Fortunately, by not panicking, we were able to hit on all cylinders by the final two games.

3) Play Well and Lose

This scenario is probably one of the toughest for coaches and athletes to swallow. It is also the one where some coaches make mistakes and hurt their team’s confidence and focus for subsequent games by only looking at the negative outcome. Although it is easy to be discouraged because of the loss, it is important that you help your team reflect on the good things they did. You need to let them know you are happy that they executed properly and played good softball. You also want to give them the impression that if they continue to play the way they did, the odds are they will get the results they want for future games. Hopefully the breaks will go your way next time.

4) Play Poorly and Lose

These are typically times when your team’s confidence and motivation are low. Be sure to monitor your team’s confidence level following the game. It is likely you will want to point out that the obvious reason why your team lost is that they did not execute or take care of the process of being successful. Some teams will outline three to five goals before the game that if achieved, the team has a great chance of being successful. It is easy then following the game to evaluate your team’s success based on these goals. You can pinpoint the specific breakdowns that occurred and assure your team they will work on these areas at practice to improve them by the next game.

The bottom line with post game evaluations is to process the game (good or bad) so your team can benefit from the experience. For games when your team plays well, they benefit through greater confidence. As a coach, it is important to give them credit when they play well and attribute their success to their effort and ability. For games when they play poorly, they benefit because what they need to work on becomes exposed. When they lose, you need to give them hope for subsequent games. This hope can come from a belief that with a little more effort or a slight adjustment in the game plan they will have a better chance of being successful.