Is winning how to judge whether you have done a good job coaching? A wise old

coach once told me “ The first rule of how to be a good coach is "get good players”.

I will amend his statement by adding "particularly a couple of stud, hard throwing pitchers".

But what if for whatever reason, you find yourself with a team with no pitchers and very

little talent. YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE...A LOT. Does that mean you didn't do a good job

coaching? No, there are instances where, say, you take over a team that won the league last

year and all 6 of the 12 year olds including the two stud pitchers moved up. Because you are

the defending champ, you draft last and a lot. No matter how good that stud 10 year old is, he

isn't going to lead you to glory. A 12 year old moving up from the minors may be big but there

is a reason he was in the minors at 11. So you are going to be young and inexperienced. You are

going to lose. Your job though is exactly the same as if you had a "stacked" team of studs, to motivate

them to work to become the best that THEY can be.

This is a good time to get them to understand that baseball is an individual competition played within

a team concept. It is a team game only in the aspect that the final score reflects the amount of runs the

teams scored. Each pitch is an individual competition between the pitcher and hitter. Your pitcher

can win by throwing the best pitches he has for strikes. If the hitter crushes it or the fielder boots it,

he has no control over what happens once it leaves his fingertips. Your hitter can "win" by having

a "quality at bat". (See the definition of a "quality at bat" in the ARCHIVED TIPS at

www.tipsfromthecoach.com). If you use this system the batter can go 0-4 but have 3 "quality at bats"

and have had a successful game. The fielders are not competing against the other team but with a

ball bouncing along the ground or if you have poor pitching, rebounding off the fence. The fielder

executes a play.

Your players must understand that they must concern themselves only with those things over which

THEY have control. They can't control how young or small they are. They can know where they

need to be on each play and how to execute the play. Then it is just a matter of the amount of

reps to master the necessary skills. It is hard to have fun when you are getting you butt kicked game

after game. That is the challenge for the good coach with a bad team. You goal is to motivate them

and inspire them to focus on those things they can control, working to improve their skills so that in

the future they can expect to have success.

If you can teach them these lessons and they improve and continue to play the game, you'll have been a

successful coach. Another wise old coach once told me, "you can win or be popular". You won't have

another trophy but just think how much more popular you will be!

Until you whip them next time. SEE ARCHIVES

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