Softball Coaching: Your Number One Job Is…
As A Coach, Your Number One Job Is…
Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog
It's always interesting to ask a group of coaches what they think their number one job is. Some will tell you it's to teach their players the game. Others will say to get their players in shape. Still others will say it's to get their players scholarships, win State or Nationals or this weekend's tournaments or some other similar goal.
Me? I believe your number one job as a softball coach, especially a coach of female athletes, is to get your players to feel good about themselves. If you do that, most of the other stuff mentioned above is a lot easier to attain.
I've seen Coach Mike Candrea credited with saying "Boys have to play good to feel good, but girls have to feel good to play good." I don't know if it actually originated with him, but there's a lot of truth to it. While it may not be true for every girl — yes, yes, I'm sure your daughter is the exception whose game is not affected by how she feels at any given time — in my experience it's true for most.
If that's the case, then it stands to reason your number one focus should be on getting them to feel good. If they feel good they will be more receptive to instruction, play harder, be more focused and be more successful. If they do all that, winning can't be far behind.
Yet it's surprising how many coaches don't really get that. They watch the movie Miracle or Remember the Titans or some other macho sports flick and decide that the way to coach their team of 12 year old girls is to yell at them, scream at them, punish them for any minor indiscretion and otherwise make them "mentally tough."
Only they don't actually become mentally tough. They take it to heart, willing to believe they're every bit as bad as you're telling them and they end up quitting the game.
Of course, those are the overt cases. At least they're easy to recognize. Sometimes coaches do things they don't realize are being taken personally until it shows up somewhere else down the road — usually at the most inopportune time. It might be praising some players while never saying anything good about the others. It might be talking to some and not others — even if the players being spoken to are the ones initiating the conversation. It could be giving some players first choice of uniform number or something seemingly silly like that.
As a coach you have to be on the lookout for it because whatever it is might not only impact those players' seasons but their whole perception of themselves. With a positive approach you can help your players build confidence in themselves on and off the field. With a negative approach you can feed their self-perceptions of not being good enough, which hurts the team at the least and may hurt those same players in a bigger way down the road.
This doesn't mean you need to shower your players with false praise or excuse their lack of effort to improve. To the contrary, it's important to be honest with them. But it usually doesn't take much effort to catch them doing good and recognizing it. That way when you make a correction, they'll know you're doing it because you care, not because they're secretly bad people.
And the caring thing is important. Remember that other axiom: players don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. If your players perceive that you have their best interests at heart, you won't have to ask them to run through a wall for you. They'll do it on their own.
It doesn't take much to show a little caring and kindness. Start by assuming your players want to do well for you and the team, and look for opportunities to encourage that. The better they feel about themselves the better they'll play, and the better you'll look as a coach. And in the end, everyone will be a lot happier.
Anyway, that's the way I see it.
photo credit: flickr - welch ok
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