COACHES' INTERACTION WITH PLAYERS

Now I want to talk about the coaches’ interaction with the players.  We demanded perfection in all of our practice routines from stretching all the way through to sprints.  We set the boundaries early on and we strictly maintained them.  The players were expected to be as intense stretching as they were for hitting or bunting or tackling or pass catching drills.  We wasted little effort in all we did.  For example, when playing catch to warm up before baseball, not only were they given a strict routine to follow for warm up, but the players were also encouraged to throw at a spot on their catch partner.  When, in a baseball game, are you not throwing AT something?  Make it a habit. 

Allow me to address how we corrected players when they were not perfect at practice—yes, they were not perfect all the time.  My coaches were encouraged to be themselves.  I am fairly VOCAL.  Other coaches I worked with were a little more reserved.  We were always conscious of being genuine—no fakes.  But never let it go when a player needs to be corrected.  NEVER.  You are cheating that player out of an opportunity to get better and learn. 

Try to start with a positive—I think we’ve all heard that.  The most important requirement I had of myself and my coaches was that they were to make as big a deal out of when the player got it right as they did when they were correcting the imperfection! 

But most of all NEVER LEAVE THEM DOWN!  If a player had a particularly rough practice, I wanted his coach to have his arm around him as he walked him to his parent’s car.  I wanted the coach to let that player know how valuable he was to this team and how much we enjoyed his spirit, his smile, his humor…  Whatever was true for that particular player.  I have called kids at home in the evening following a tough practice just to tell him all the reasons we love having him on our team.

Now, other than the obvious common human decency and respect every player (person) deserves, let me tell you the result of NEVER LEAVE THEM DOWN.  Every game day, the players that showed up on our teams were confident, proud, full of self-esteem, in a great mood, and expecting only good things to happen.  They were not afraid to make mistakes and consequently were able to play loose and focus only on their responsibilities.  They had a confident swagger—and that reality was not lost on our opponents.

MAXIMUM USE OF VALUABLE PRACTICE TIME

MAXIMUM USE OF VALUABLE PRACTICE TIME

Which brings us to Practice Organization.  You have already done the most difficult part of drawing up practice schedules when you completed your lists of skills and drills.  So now it is a matter of which skills are taught in what order.  Most of those decisions are pretty much common sense.  However, you will no doubt be tweaking your order as you get into actually implementing those drills.

Several basics need attention.  Nothing bugs me more than to watch 1 or 2 players actively involved in a drill while the 20 remaining players stand around and watch.  That is absolutely a waste of valuable time, not to mention complete boredom for the 20 players forced to stand and watch.  It is absolutely imperative to involve as many players as possible at every minute of practice.

We had several assistant coaches in football, each assigned a position.  Sometimes group drills were necessary when teaching skills everyone should learn.  In our form tackling drills, for example, instead of 2 lines facing off where only 2 players went at a time, we instead spread everyone out into 2 parallel lines.  One side was the tacklers and the other side ball carriers.  On command, ball carriers moved forward to the left, or to the right, or straight ahead.  The tacklers had to “settle up” (shorter steps with widened base and weight on inside balls of feet and in “striking position”) and then move in and up with head in front of the ball carrier’s movement.  The coaches were spread out up and down the 2 rows to monitor the perfection in technique.  On each command, all 24 players were involved!  If a player needed extra instruction, the coach took the player aside while the remaining players continued their perfect form tackling drill.

When position work was needed, we broke up into position groups.  As always, coaches were expected to maximize the productivity by involving all players in drills at the same time.  As head coach, I floated and handled the players who needed the extra work or I concentrated on techniques that might require a little more expert attention.

               In baseball, we practiced the same way.  Even though you don’t have the same advantage of position group breakdown, we nonetheless organized what we referred to as a clinic practice.  What we mean by that is that we set up several stations specific to whatever skills we were working on that day.  The players were split up at each station and each player had a designated role to play when not the “featured” player.  We then rotated stations depending again on what skills were being drilled.

So, for example, on hitting days we might have a tee station, a short toss station, a bunting station, and a live hitting station.  Each station had particular goals that we expected the players to accomplish and coaches were there to monitor each station.  All players were busy and working every valuable minute we were at practice.  Compare that to a team with one player hitting and 18 players standing around bored to tears, wasting valuable practice time while learning nothing!

Our goal was to make maximum use of practice time.  It’s obvious that you accomplish much more crucial teaching but you must also tune into the attention span of your players.  You could be out there 3 hours but they will only tune you in 1/3 of that time.  Get there, tune them into to the technique work scheduled and let them know the expectations while they’re stretching, and get to work!

BEHAVIORS IT TAKES TO WIN

So…  That begs the question, WHAT ARE THOSE BEHAVIORS IT TAKES TO WIN AND HOW DO YOU TEACH THEM?

First of all, stop talking about winning and losing.  Change your focus to each player DOING HIS/HER BEST at practices and in games.  Do you see how this can be accomplished by each and every player in spite of talent levels--no matter the score?  

Next, sit down and make a list of ALL the skills you want your players to exhibit--one by one and be specific.  Have a brainstorming session with all of your assistant coaches.  Do this very early on, like several weeks before your first practice.  I promise you, it will not be your only session.  That list will change over and over and over.  It will change from year to year and it will most definitely get tweaked from game to game.

One thing I found to be extremely fun and actually very gratifying was to invite some of the local high school coaches to lunch.  Explain to them that some of your players will be involved in their program and that you want to pick their brain for skill sets that are specific to that coach’s program.  My invitation was never turned down and I ended up picking up some very productive drills in addition to other skill sets.

OK, now you have your skills list.  Now what?  You will take each skill listed and devise a drill (or several drills) that you believe will help teach that skill set to your players.  Now, with the Internet, you have unlimited access to drills in every sport.  It also doesn’t take a rocket scientist to develop your own drills.  Just make sure the drills are teaching what you want.

Once you have devised one to several drills per skill set, you now have your daily practice schedule.  Huh?  Yes, there it is right in front of you.  All you have to do now is prioritize those drills so there is some logical order.  In other words, you will want to work on gripping the baseball before you work on throwing drills.  Or you will want to work on the lineman’s stance before you work on blocking drills.

Once that prioritized list is completed, you will know what you will be doing each and every minute of at least your first few weeks of practice up until your first game.  Not only does that ensure you will have covered everything and left out nothing, but your players will know before each and every practice what will be expected of them that day.

It will also serve as a checklist for you.  What areas need work?  Where were our strengths?  Where were our weaknesses?  What needs to be covered again?

OK…  Now a very important message about those drills you devised, found online, or gathered from other coaches.  YOU MUST DEMAND THAT THE DRILLS ARE DONE PERFECTLY IN PRACTICE!  YOU MUST NEVER SETTLE FOR ANY PRACTICE PERFORMANCE LESS THAN ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!  If the drill is not done perfectly, repeat the drill until they do it perfectly.

Another point…  Make sure your players UNDERSTAND WHY they are doing that particular drill.  In other words, set up a game situation where the skills from that drill will be utilized.  This helps them refer back to that skill and how they learned it when they come upon it in game conditions.  Don’t leave your drills in a vacuum.

SO...YOU WANT TO COACH, HUH?

Why are you coaching?  Listen, there is nothing more thrilling than the accomplishment of designing a program that results in success.  However, let’s discuss what “success” means to you and what it means to your players and their parents in regard to your being a little league coach (or any level coach, for that matter).

Ego.  It can be good or it can be devastatingly bad.  It is defined as the “image of oneself” or “self image, self esteem”. 

Why do I bring that concept up here in this article?  We all have an ego.  Your ego can make you or break you.  I think you’ll agree that this issue has a big flashing neon sign all around it when it comes to coaching kids.  I will be the first to acknowledge the thrill of coaching.  But I will also be the first to ask you the source of your ecstasy—which part thrills you?

I have a philosophy in which I very strongly believe.  For me, it was the ultimate issue that I had to resolve before I could relax and approach coaching in a manner suitable to my conscience.  It took an unforgiveable mistake (on my part) to help me determine exactly what was that philosophy.

I want to be perfectly clear as sometimes my words are misinterpreted and I leave confusion rather than clarity.  The issue with little league sports is how to marry the competitiveness (winning/losing) with training, education, learning, and enhancing a player’s self-esteem.  Here is where the sport offers the young athlete training that he or she can get nowhere else; and you, as the coach, have an awesome opportunity to provide your players (and the parents) that learning.  It is truly humbling!

Why are you coaching?  Let me suggest an answer for you to digest.  You SHOULD BE coaching to stimulate your players’ interest in playing NEXT YEAR.  Yes, you read that right.

How does that happen?  How do you, as the coach, have that power?  Here is where confusion sometimes begins.

I want you to make the experience fun for your players and for their parents.  Understand that there can be many levels of “fun”.  I know there are some of you reading this right now that are interpreting what I just said to mean no work, no correcting them, no stress…  You can have fun at a picnic.  You can also have fun accomplishing a goal.      

So, work them hard.  TEACH them the sport.  Correct them when they do it wrong and celebrate with them when they do it right—just as passionately in both cases!  Do not be afraid to be yourself—don’t play the role as coaches in your past have done.

What about winning?  Isn’t that what it’s all about??  No, it’s not just about winning.  And those of you that concentrate on winning are in for a huge let-down and so are your players.

Now, I’m about to say something that will make you think I’m nuts.  Let me assure you, I may be varying degrees of nuts but I am very clear on this, the crux of my philosophy.  Winning is much more fun than losing.  DUH.  However, please allow me to suggest the appropriate way to bring winning into your program.

Convince your players (and instruct their parents) that your concentration MUST BE ON DOING WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN.  I repeat, you should be emphasizing DOING WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN.  How do you convince them?  You live it on the practice field, during games, and in all of your dealings with players and parents.  Think about it…  If you’re always doing what it takes to win, the winning will take care of itself.

What if you don’t win?  WINNING wasn’t your goal anyway.  Doing what it takes to win is your goal.  Sometimes, even when you are doing what it takes to win, you will end up on the wrong side of the score.  Isn’t that a part of it too—to learn to come back and continue to work on what it takes to win?

Notice that I didn’t say “sometimes you’ll end up losing”.  If you accomplished your goal of DOING YOUR BEST TO DO THE THINGS IT TAKES TO WIN, you didn’t lose—you won!

There is a very fine distinction here and I hope I’ve explained that distinction.  Athletics are inherently competitive and it is impossible to legislate the competitiveness out of athletics.  But set your players up for enhancing their self-esteem.  You don’t have to always be on the long end of the score to do that.