Coaches, are you actually coaching or are you just being a manager? Players, are you aware of how your self talk is affecting your game? Let's talk softball with Coach B

Have a question for Coach B? Send us a message on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TalkingSoftball

I want to welcome everyone to talking softball with Coach B.

This has been an exciting time.

The fall is always exciting because we're getting back

out on the field teams are practicing teams are playing.

And I today I want to talk about a couple of different topics.

The first that I really want to get into in staying

with our idea of player development is

I want players and coaches to listen closely today.

And I'm talking to coaches and players

at all age levels, 10u through 18u.

Because I think I think there's some important things that we need

to really concentrate on during this time of the season.

And and I'm getting feedback from players, coaches, parents,

and I think we're missing

what the real purpose behind this fall season is.

And I think that we all have to understand that player development

should always be our number one priority. And

when we talk player

development, we're not just talking about physical skills.

And we've mentioned that before.

We're not just talking about how do I field a ground ball?

How do I hit, you know, how do I throw my curveball or my rise ball?

But we're talking about the total player development,

developing the mental game, developing the emotional game

that we want our players to have as they grow through the game

and through their

their experiences and playing at whatever level they're at.

I think that we have to look at the entire development of a player

and not spend all of our time just concerned on their physical skills.

So I want to talk to each of those areas just a little bit

if we start out talking about mental development.

I ask everybody to understand that it depends a lot on what stage

your player is in the game,

what their mental development of the game is going to be.

You know, when we talk about 8u and 10u and 12u teams,

we want them understanding the game, understanding

the rules of the game, understanding

basic concepts of the game. OK.

And as we age through to 14 and then into 16 and 18,

obviously we want to go through an advanced stage in each of those areas.

And we want to really concentrate

more on the idiosyncrasies of the mental game of softball.

So if we look at it at a young age and I had a conversation yesterday

with a very good friend of mine

that's been involved in the game a long time, and he expressed

the same concerns that that I'm seeing right now.

And that is we're overemphasizing

the result on the game rather than taking the time

to truly teach and develop the process of the game.

And coaches, I'm speaking to you first on this.

I think we have to decide

what our role is going to be as a coach.

Are we truly a coach or are we a manager?

Because I believe if we're a coach, then we understand that

we have to have the ability to teach every aspect of the game.

And it's critical that we can teach the mental

aspect of the game to our players,

just by definition a coach is an instructor. Right.

They're a teacher.

There's someone that goes out and teaches all the basic fundamentals

and is able to put those together

into creating the best individual players,

but also the best team concept for their team to be successful.

Whereas we talk about managers and I'm seeing a whole lot

of managers in the game right now and too many at the young levels,

a manager is is very similar to a to a major league baseball manager, OK?

They get the opportunity to go out and recruit top talent

and they are going to spend their time

working with finished products

or those players that are closer to being finished products.

And I think that we have to understand

the difference between the two roles.

You know, a coach is going to go out

and spend their time on development and spend their time on really

making their players better and making their team better. A manager.

They look at the talent they have.

They write a lineup card and they manage some during the game.

But for the most part.

They're just out there playing with

finished products or very talented players.

And there's not a lot of coaching that goes on. And

my buddy and I were talking and we say we see a lot of that.

At 10u, 12u, and 14u

where our coaches are expecting to be managers.

Number one, they're expecting that they have 12

talented players on their team

and they're just going to play games every weekend.

They're not putting a lot of time into practice

or not putting a lot of time into individual player development.

They're just playing every weekend.

You know, in those situations, you pretty much get what you put into it.

You know, your team's going to perform

well at times and they may not perform well at times, you know, whereas

I think that our coaches at those younger age levels need to have

more of a mindset of a coach where they're actually going out.

They have a plan. Right?

We've developed a plan.

there's a plan for individual player development.

And there's also a plan for developing your team concepts.

And along with that plan, you have a timeline.

When do you want to see

the benefits or reap the benefits of your work?

What is your timeline?

You know, do you expect to go out the first weekend

when you play and be the best team you're going to be all year long?

Well, I don't. And I hope that

I hope that we don't play our best softball

the first weekend

because there's a whole lot of softball left to be played,

and I don't want our young players

to be finished products

at 13 and 14 years old, because, yes,

they may be excelling at the level they're at,

but as they grow and get older and get into high school

and have an opportunity to move on to college,

the players around them are going to get better.

And, you know, There will be players that get better and pass them by.

And I think we can all look back at our experiences and say,

yeah, I remember a player like that.

Boy, that player was a stud when they were 13 years old.

But they kind of fizzled out.

They didn't have a great high school career

and they didn't go out and play in college.

And I think we have to be careful

not to encourage that or even develop that type of player

within our teams

and within our organizations, because we want our kids to continue

to grow, continue to work toward their talents ceiling

and really develop into the best player they can be.

So my challenge to our coaches is.

Are you a coach or are you a manager?

And what role which of those roles is best for your team?

You know, because if you're going to be a coach,

then you've got to make sure that you're willing to put the work in

in the time in to develop a good solid plan.

You're going to be able to adapt that plan.

You're going to see peaks and valleys in performance.

And you have to be able to to adapt to that and adjust.

And you're also going to see a timeline for development

in your players and your team.

So I'm I'm hoping that this fall

our coaches are truly coaching

the game and teaching the mental side of the game.

Are they teaching the concepts?

Are they teaching the ability to react to different situations?

Our game is full of situations on every pitch.

And are we mentally ready to handle that?

OK, players talking about your mental development.

It's really no different than your mental development in the classroom.

You know, you have to study.

You have to take time to really study the concepts

and study the information that's being provided to you

so that you're not just memorizing it and going in and taking a test

to give the answers and then forget it.

But are you remembering the concepts and using those concepts

on a regular basis so that they become a part of your mental makeup?

And I think that's important for our players.

And I see players, they come out on the practice field or

on the game field, and they are just mentally scattered.

Right? We all know the phrase "squirrel".

And I see a lot of players

that are mentally everywhere When they come out on the field.

They see everything.

They're involved in five or six conversations,

but they're not focused on what they're doing on the field.

They're not understanding that there's a concept

that needs to be learned to be a shortstop.

It's more than just fielding a ground ball,

you know, how are you setting up in between pitches?

If the pitcher's going to

if the pitch is going to be on the inside

part of the plate to the right hander, then I have to anticipate

that the ball is probably going to be pulled to my right.

So how am I positioning myself to set up for that?

Am I looking at the conditions or what are the field conditions?

Was the wind blowing?

How are all of those things going to affect the game?

And I have to mentally go through a checklist

Throughout the game

to be mentally prepared.

And I don't think that that our players come to practice

or come to games ready mentally to perform.

And I see that a lot on the hitting side.

And and I talk to our hitting my hitting students a lot

and our players a lot about what is your mental approach at the plate?

What's your what's your plan?

You know, how are you?

How are you mentally prepared for the situation you're in?

And, you know, on the flip side of that, we got to be careful

that we don't mentally lock up because we're thinking

about too many things when we should be prepared to react.

I had a very smart coach tell me one time that it's it's

all about playing in the circle.

You know, pitchers have

that big wide circle around them, so they're always in the circle.

But he talked about every player on the field has a circle around them.

And when they're in that circle, they need to be relaxed

and ready to react to whatever happens when the ball is put in play.

But when they step outside of that circle,

that's when they're going through their mental checklist

of what they should what they should be prepared to do.

So if I'm a shortstop, again, I'll use that position.

And there's a runner on first, OK?

My mental checklist needs to include what am I going to be prepared

for with that runner?

Do I have an opportunity to turn a double play?

If there's a line drive hit at me and I catch it in the air.

That runner may break

and I have a play that I can make it first to double or up there.

Am I mentally ready for a slow roll or a ball hit over my head?

The ball hit to my left. The ball hit to my right.

If a ball gets hit to the outfield, am I prepared to put myself

in a position to be a relay person or do I have bag coverage?

There's so much that goes into

the mental side of the game and it has to happen quickly.

So I step out of my circle, I take a deep breath,

I go through all of my mental checklist,

and then when I step back in the circle, I'm ready to play.

I'm ready for what's going to happen and react to the ball

being put in play.

But I did my mental work in between pitches, and

I think at practice we have to learn that and emphasize that.

Players, Are you going through a checklist at practice?

Coaches, Are we teaching players how to go through

that checklist in practice?

So I think the development of the mental game

is so critically important and there's so much that goes into it.

It just can't be done in one practice.

And then we go out and play the next nine weekends in a row

and expect our players or expect as a player

to be the best I can be, or the team to be the best it can be.

So that that's and I can talk about mental training

and mental development a lot, but there's so much that goes into it.

The next component I want to talk about is our emotional makeup.

You know, as as a player, I have to understand that.

I'm playing a game of

failure, and I have to be prepared

to deal with failure on a consistent basis.

You know, if I go one for three as a hitter, I hit three thirty three.

I had a good day. I hit over 300.

But if I get one out of three questions right on an exam

in school, thirty three percent is failure.

So we have to understand that

this game is based around a lot of failure.

I could have a great day and go four for four.

I might go the next three weekends and go o for 12.

I got to know how to recover from that, and that's that's mental.

But it's also emotional, and I'm going to tell you,

our kids have been through a lot in the last year and a half.

And they have a lot of emotions right now.

And players, we've got to come to grips with our emotions.

And when I step out on that

field to play and I understand I'm playing a game of failure,

I have to stay on on a on a on a level emotional state.

I cannot ride an emotional roller coaster.

I don't want to get too high.

And I definitely don't want to drop too low

in my emotions because it's going to have a major effect on my game.

But I have to have them in check.

And I think our players deal with so many issues right now

on confidence and, you know, self-awareness and self value

that they are very emotional about those topics.

I hit with a young lady last night for the first time,

and I said, tell me about your swing.

She said, Coach, it's terrible.

I'm like, oh, my, this is going to be a challenge.

So we stepped in the cage and she took a couple of swings and there was

there were some things to work on, but she was making contact.

And as we worked into her, into her workout, it got better.

And, you know, I told her, I said, you know, your swing's not terrible.

But if she's telling herself that swing is terrible

in her mind, it's terrible.

And I think that that's you know, that weighs on her emotions

and it weighs on her confidence and It weighs on her self-worth. And,

you know, that's that's a tough situation to be in.

So I think players, we have to to be aware of who we are.

Where we are in our game know that, hey, I'm 11 years old.

I'm not expected to be perfect.

I'm going to make mistakes, but I'm going to learn from my mistakes.

But I'm also not going to emotionally collapse

because I made that mistake, OK?

And and coaches and parents.

We play a major role

in that player's confidence, in that player's

emotional development, because they want to do well,

because they want us to be proud of them.

They want us to give them acceptance that they're performing well.

And if we beat them up

and emotionally beat them up, you know, don't don't ever

give them a pat on the back or don't ever say, hey, nice job,

they don't have very much confidence

and their self-worth is going to be very low.

Now, we don't want to provide false responses,

but I think we have to understand that it's not a matter of always

beating our players up or our daughters

because they don't perform well on the field.

And and I see that a lot right now.

I go out and watch games and I talk to people that have been at games and

You know, they talk about

coaches are always yelling at their players and, you know, telling

their players are not good enough and cursing at them and,

you know, using using hard language on these 12 and 13 year old players,

11 year old players that are in such an early developmental stage

that we're we're taking their love of the game away from them

and we're taking

their ability to go out and perform because they're afraid to fail,

because they don't want to get yelled at

and they don't want to get told

that they're not good and they don't want to let anybody down.

They don't want to let down mom and dad.

They don't want to let down the coach, their teammates.

So they kind of bring themselves into a shell

and don't really challenge themselves to get better

because they're afraid to fail.

And that's a big part of the emotional development of our players, is

we want to challenge them to go out and take a chance,

see what you can do to try to be the best you can be.

And when when they fail, we pick them up.

We dust them off and say.

Hey, we're going to get it.

We'll get it the next time

you'll you'll be better the next time we're going to work on it.

You know, I want you to continue

to try to work on your skills and work on your mindset.

And we're going to get better.

And again, for our coaches, I think that falls into our time line.

You know, do you want to be an A team?

Everybody wants to be an A team.

Everybody wants to play at the high level.

Everybody wants to win every game. Absolutely.

But what do you need

to do to take that B level team

and develop them to potentially be an A level team?

What are you doing for that player that might be a C level player

in developing her to be a B level player

and then eventually one day hopefully being an A level player.

So I think that when we talk about development, non skill development,

when we talk about mental and emotional development,

we really have to be aware of what we're doing.

What's our plan?

What are we Are we putting them in the right direction to to achieve that?

Are we motivating them to want to do it on their own.

and players, Ultimately, it's on you.

You're going to make yourself the the best player you're going to be.

you're going to have assistance from coaches,

but then ultimately it's your responsibility.

And then parents, how are we encouraging that plan or that process

without having too high of expectations too early,

and forcing our daughters

or our players into situations where they're afraid to fail.

So that's the off the field side of it, the skill development side of it.

You know, we can talk all day about what we should be doing,

what what are we doing to develop our defensive skills,

our athletic skills, our hitting skills and

our offensive skills, bunting and

and baserunning and developing

our mental approach at the plate and mental approach on the field.

But, you know, I think that

the thing we have to remember about skill development is.

Again, it's dependent on the level the player is at today,

and what potential do we see?

Again, I had a conversation with a buddy of mine

that we were talking about Man you know, we're 18u coaches. And and,

you know, we got like we play against a lot of players

that were in our organizations when they were 12 and 13 and 14.

But coach just kind of gave up on them and didn't

think they were really going to be the player they needed them to be.

And now at 17 and 18, there's some of the best players in our area.

And that's that's frustrating.

I think that that we have to

we have to understand that development happens in stages.

And, yeah, a lot of it has to depend on their athletic ability.

What kind of body control, body awareness

do they have and and what's their potential

for development.

And I challenge coaches to stick with those players early

and allow them an opportunity to continue to develop and move forward.

So, you know, like I said,

we can talk about development in all different areas.

I feel like we can really get deep into some of those areas

if we want to. But I kind of wanted to just touch on all three today.

And, you know, I just I just want to see

the best opportunity for our players and our coaches and our teams

when they take the field

and understand that all of that is part of the process.

It's part of the timeline.

And, you know, we're going to have good weekends.

And we're going to have bad weekends.

Players are going to have good games and bad games.

But for the emotional and mental development of them

throughout the process, we have to make sure that we are

prepared to work both sides, both success and failure.

And how are we going to motivate?

And how are we going to continue to move forward

as coaches and as players and as parents

so that we can have the best opportunity possible?

Well, that's it for today. I want to thank everyone for listening.

And I hope you're enjoying talking softball with Coach B.

Ask you to subscribe through your local podcast provider.

You can also follow us on Facebook.com/talkingsoftball

gives you an opportunity to provide feedback and also provide

any questions that you might want us to answer on an upcoming episode.

This has been talking

softball with Coach B, and I want to thank you for listening.