Sure, losing hurts and it’s not what we spent all that time and effort practicing for.

If you’re mired in a rough patch, here are 10 things you can do to help right the ship and make it to Post-Season!

I’m just going to say it – How You Handle your losses now, determine your wins later. While it might not be too popular to say something like that, especially if you’re in the middle of a rough patch right now, deep down we all know it’s true. I picked this week’s quote to highlight this exact point. Confucius hit the nail on the head when he said,” The gem cannot be polished w/o friction, nor man perfected w/o trials.“

If you’re a college coach right now struggling through some early season losses there is hope! We all know doing well, against higher rated teams is only important if you don’t get the job done on the field during conference play. If you’re a borderline team come post-season, well, there might not be a post-season for your team. And that’s when these early season losses come into play – after your team didn’t get it done during the regular season.

So, instead of replaying last season, or whatever season it was that still haunts you because that exact thing happened – play THIS season, THIS team! Turn those early season struggles into later season wins, and come out of the fire with a stronger team to do battle in conference play! Take the rest of your season into your own hands and create a masterpiece! Here are 10 ways you can make that happen:

1. Keep the Faith – it’s critical that YOU can see a way out of the darkness, instead of projecting darkness after a few losses.
2. Welds Create Strength – just as it takes fire to seal, or weld two pieces of steel together making them even stronger, it takes loses and adversity to shape our ultimate team. According to researchers, emotions help memories form and stick in our brains. Loses, or failures are our strongest emotions. They stick with us and motivate us to work harder in practice, lift longer in the weight room and battle fiercer on the playing field. If we never lose we aren’t forced to confront the strongest of motivators – preventing loses from happening again in the future. Those losses also give us the best chance of welding tighter as a team – or not. It’s all in our choices when confronted with adversity.
3. Weaknesses Uncovered – early season losses can be great for developing your eventual team since they reveal weaknesses, or cracks in the armor, and allow you to fix them since they will certainly be attacked again as the season wears on. Find the weakness and set about fixing it. Hopefully you knew enough to expect some resistance and bumps in the road along the way. Loses are part of playing softball. They happen and they are just as much a part of the game as an umpires call, foul weather or transportation delays. Things happen differently than we’d hoped, but certainly not differently than we’d planned – so plan for struggle and be ready when they come. Because they will come!
4. Remove Your Emotion – it’s easy to get mad and be emotional about losing. Nobody likes it, and I’m not suggesting that by removing your emotional reaction to a loss means I think you should like it. No way! You should hate losing. But, you need to avoid being too emotional about it because emotions waste time, and more importantly, conveys panic. The last thing your team needs to see is their leader panic. Avoid questions like “why”, and “how come”. Those won’t lead you to answers. Instead, questions like “what” let you delve deeper into the parts of the game that are weak and yet fixable.
5. Avoid Calling on Wonder Woman – the tendency, when your team struggles is to expect and even demand more from our pitcher. I should put this as #1 since it’s the response I run in to most often. I get lots of 911 calls from coaches asking me to urgently fix their pitchers since their team is struggling. And, sure, their pitcher might not be doing great, but asking 1 person to do even more instead of asking lots of people to do a little better spells trouble. Nobody, pitchers included, plays better when they’re stressed and pressing. Suddenly standing next to your pitcher, with a pained or panicked look on your face and telling her she HAS to get better isn’t the recipe to recovery! Instead of throwing ALL of it on your pitcher, what if you practiced more on helping your defense work on getting an out immediately following a walk, and your offense hitting to the opposite field more consistently with runners in scoring position?
6. Hitting it Hard – it’s not realistic to expect your pitcher to throw a shutout every single game. That kind of pressure will eventually destroy her, and yet that’s what so many softball teams expect. 1 run by the opponents and the dugout gets nervous. Instead, the better your offense – and by this I don’t just mean you stand there and smash homeruns – the less pressure on both your pitcher as well as your defense. Your offense needs to be built on the strength of your team. Are you fast – then RUN your opponents into losses. Are you a good short game team – then master placement and the push bunt and destroy your opponents at the space vs base game. Or are you a patient team with great eyes – then draw those walks, get on base and put pressure on the opposing pitcher to throw strikes that you then hit to the opposite field. Whatever your team’s offensive strength is leverage it to help put offensive pressure on your opponents and relieve some pressure off your pitcher!
7. Stay Low and Think Now – it’s too easy, when we suffer a couple losses early, or ugly wins to think we aren’t good enough. For us to pull our heads up and look too far down the road and say something like, “If we don’t fix this it’s going to kill us!” And while that might be true, a scarier statement was never uttered to a team. As coaches, you might think that motivates your players, but to players, a statement like that only scares the hell out of them. Your team doesn’t need you to be Captain Obvious by pointing out all the bad that can come from losing. They need a reason to continue fighting, to know that they can win the next battle and that they have what it takes to battle. Give them that strength. Keep your focus point low-to-the-ground and fix today’s problem, always knowing there will be a “today’s problem”. Tomorrow is just that – tomorrow, not today. When it comes, be stronger!
8. The Answer Guy or Gal – instead of being the person that’s always pointing out what’s wrong with your team, your role as a coach is to find answers and create solutions! Your team needs that from you. Your knowledge and experience far surpass anyone on your team so use both of those and detail the main problems then set about finding solutions. Doing so will not only make you feel better but will calm and reassure your team as well – who will then immediately start playing better. And sometimes, that’s all it takes for the problem to be solved.
9. Stay Patient – this might be the toughest one. Know that losses happen because your opponent has worked as hard in the offseason as you have, and they’re trying to win as badly as you are. So why shouldn’t they win sometimes? Well the answer is, they should. So fix the issues that need fixing, keep the small things small, give your opponents credit when deserved and most of all – stay calm and carry on. It’s a LONG season that requires you to be better at the end than you were at the beginning. Sure, it hurts your RPI to lose games early on, but unless you learn from them and use them to help your team build toward being stronger in conference play, then what you’re doing is carrying each loss around with you and dragging it into every single game you play – pretty much ensuring it will happen again, and again, and again.
10. Beware the Anarchists – not everyone reacts well to losing and those players with limited playing time, or with a negative inclination will seize this opportunity to create a following. Anarchy only thrives when it has numbers, so know that a losing environment is like warmth to mold so keep your eyes peeled coaches, do your best to keep the anarchists separated from the general population – and – kill their message with kindness and optimism.

Most hitters think they need to focus on the pitcher’s hip to locate the ball as the pitcher releases it, but that’s not accurate.

See just how far off this advice really is.

I think it’s really important that whenever we tell our players something that we do our best to make sure it’s accurate. So much of what we know in softball is softball-lore. Meaning, it’s been said over and over and passed down from coach to coach without anyone really questioning it. Sometimes that’s good if what’s being said is accurate, but in the case of “watch the ball come out of her hip” – well that’s not accurate at all.

I can understand if you’re a skeptic and not sure if you should take my word for it. After all, who’s to say I’m not just another person passing along more inaccurate softball-lore?

So, the best way to figure out exactly where the hitter should focus when a pitcher lets go of the ball is to look at pictures of pitchers at their release point. This will tell is where the ball is actually released, and where our hitter’s should visually focus.

Let’s start with the front view of 4 different pitchers releasing the ball; 2 lefties and 2 righties, 3 in shorts and one in pants.

As you can see, all 4 of these pitchers are actually releasing the ball BELOW their hip. In fact, the release point is quite a bit below their hip. When the pitcher’s wearing shorts it looks like she releases the ball at the bottom of her shorts, and if she’s wearing pants the release point is about half-way between her waist band and her knee.

From the side view we see the same thing – both pitchers releasing the ball near the bottom of their shorts line, or about half-way down their leg.

So to help your hitters do a quicker and more accurate job of visually picking up the ball as it leaves the pitcher’s hand, we need to let them know exactly where they should be looking – and it’s not the pitcher’s hip.

Ever make a game decision only to be second guessed by parents, players your other coaches, or even yourself? If so, then join the club.

Discover how to leave the second-guessing out of it.

There’s always more information after a play then before it, but as coaches, our job is to find ALL the information we can before the play and then make the best possible decision with the information we have.

“When you make a strategy decision as a coach, it’s a good or bad decision if it was based upon all the factors involved and NOT if it was successful or not. It’s a good or bad decision at the moment you make it, NOT after the play is over. As a coach, you must make your decision ahead of time – only the fans (parents) and the media get the advantage of waiting until the play is over and then deciding what you should or shouldn’t have done.” – Cindy Bristow

How true is that? All the people watching a game are able to see the results of your strategy decision and then make their judgment as to what you should have done, and what they would have done. Hey, great point! But, irrelevant since as coaches, we have to make our decisions before the play happens based on the information that we can gather at the time – which is usually what the second guessers leave out.

So, what is this information we should be considering before the play? Let’s take a quick look at some factors to consider before any offensive and defensive play:

• Offensive Factors: (to go through in about 5 seconds between pitches & still have time to make the decision and give the signal)
  1. How is this batter hitting this game?
  2. How does this batter hit this pitcher?
  3. How does this batter hit righty or lefty pitchers (which ever this pitcher is)?
  4. Is this batter hurt (physically or even mentally as far as confidence goes)?
  5. What are our chances of scoring with this part of our lineup vs. later in the game with another part of our lineup?
  6. What are our chances of scoring now off of this pitcher vs. later off of another of their pitchers?
  7. Are our chances higher of hitting or bunting off of this pitcher?
  8. Can we move our runner 60 feet without giving up an out?
  9. If we bunt, can we get our runner to 2nd or is their defensive coverage going to throw us out at 2nd?
  10. Does their defensive coverage allow us to advance our runner without a bunt – by using a fake of some sort based on 2nd or shortstop coverage or position?
• Defensive Factors: (these change with each pitch as the count changes)
  1. What has this batter done in previous at-bats against us and this pitcher?
  2. What are they most likely to do offensively?
  3. What defensive set do we need right now based on them, us and the pitch?
  4. Where do we want this batter to hit the ball so we can position our defense accordingly and make the play we want to make?
  5. We then need to have our pitcher throw the type of pitch and location that will result in the batter hitting where we want her to – can our pitcher do this?
  6. Can we attempt a pick off to either keep the baserunner close to prevent her from advancing, or to pick her off?
  7. Do we need a pitch out to see what the offense has planned?

These are just some of the factors that must fly through our coaching minds on every single pitch. Based on our answers to questions like these we’ll determine our action for our best chance of success. As long as you considered the right information and made your decision based on those factors then regardless of how it actually turned out – it was a good decision. Remember that there’s a difference between a good strategic decision and a successfully executed play. Sometimes you get both, but if you’re thinking right as a coach you should always have at least the good decision part!

Softball season is starting in many parts of the country – inside that is!

Make sure you know the 4 things that will help give your hitters more outside success!

If you’re located in a cold weather climate that probably means you spend a lot of time practicing inside. For anyone who has ever been in that situation you know just how hard it is to go from inside to outside – especially when it comes to fielding flyballs and hitting. Your players will have a hard time picking up the ball because of the change in light and environment. Going from hitting inside, usually in a cage, to hitting outside in the wide open spaces with natural sunlight is a HUGE challenge for our eyes. In order to help our hitters be as successful as possible, as soon as possible we have to somehow help their eyes prepare for that outdoor light, while hitting indoors.

This whole issue first came to my attention when Larissa Anderson was the Associate Head Coach at Hoftstra University (Larissa is now the Head Coach at the University of Missouri). At that time, Larissa sent me an email asking how she could better help her players more successfully hit outside immediately after having hit indoors for so long. Larissa helped me get my brain going in a direction I hadn’t considered before!

Before we check out some possible solutions to this problem let’s first look into how our eyes work in light, and how our brains process what our eyes see. I think it’s some pretty interesting stuff!

How Our Eye’s Handle Light:

• Our eyes have automatic light sensitivity which means that in bright light our eye’s sensitivity drops and we see fine details and bright colors and in dim light our eye’s sensitivity climbs and after a slight adjustment we can see in the dark. All of this happens automatically.
• Our eyes adapt very quickly to bright light but take a longer time to become more sensitive to darkness. That’s why we can’t see anything when we first walk into the dark and why over several minutes we begin to see more. How does all this translate into Softball Hitting– to me, this means that since our indoor lighting is never as bright as it is outdoors, our player’s eyes become overwhelmed when they’re outside, for the first time, and their eyes take in everything missing the important details – like the ball.

How Our Brains Perceive What Our Eyes See:

• Our eyes only see detail from a tiny central spot. We perceive detail by our brains stitching together images as our eyes look around.
• Our eyes don’t send images to our brains. Images are constructed in our brains based on very simple signals sent from our eyes. The mental processing required to perceive images is so great that it represents about 40% of the body’s at-rest caloric consumption. This is why it’s so resting to close our eyes for a moment.
• Our brain recognizes images based on previous patterns. This is something our brains learn as we grow up and continue to see similar patterns.
• This pattern recognition is why motorcyclists and bicyclists get hit every day by people who were looking right at them. Most drivers are looking for cars. If they’re not looking for cyclists, people often won’t even notice them. Drivers can run right into cyclists and never even see them even though the driver was looking right at the bicycle or motorcyclist. If the driver isn’t paying attention, his/her brain won’t perceive the lines and shapes from their eyes as being a motorcycle or a bike.
• And yet, drivers can spot a policeman on a motorcycle a mile away. It’s not just because of the white helmet; it’s because the visual system is working hardest to manage all the inputs it’s receiving and prioritizing how it recognizes things. The brain can only recognize so much, so it’s looking for what concerns it and misses everything else. How does all this translate into Softball Hitting – All this tells me that one of the problems our hitters face when switching from indoors to outdoors is a lack of prioritizing what the brain is seeing (BALL being #1) since it is suddenly seeing so many more things outside than it did inside (like the sky, clouds, trees, space, dirt, grass…)

Even though the lights inside wherever you’re practicing are probably decent, they are nowhere near as powerful as the sun, so whenever your players finally hit outside their eyes are behaving like they’re going from dark into light. This takes an adjustment period that means your players will struggle until their eyes adjust. What we want to do is shorten this adjustment period as much as possible.

With all of that in mind, and remembering that I am not an Ophthalmologist, here are my suggestions for helping your players go from hitting indoors to more successfully adjusting and hitting outdoors:

1. I think we can help our players make a faster adjustment with their eyes by brightening up our indoor hitting/fielding environment. I think that getting some portable halogen lights and really brightening the hitting area would really help. These lights are pretty cheap ($45 at your local hardware store) and you can use them near your pitchers, catchers and fielders. These flood lights should start to make your player’s eyes work more like they were outside rather then inside.
2. Also, I think painting your hitting area ceiling and walls a Light Blue color or else putting light blue tarps up behind the pitching end of the cage would replicate the outside sky better and help your players eyes adjust quicker to the outside environment. I know this one is pretty random, and might not even be possible for your indoor hitting situation.
3. Another suggestion – hit old-fashioned WHITE softballs occasionally, instead of always hitting optic yellow. Again, something to challenge the eyes to more quickly adjust.
4. I know that players don’t really know how to use their eyes in a helpful manner, in regards to filtering. Here’s what I mean. Pitchers usually practice in a bullpen of some sort, and whether indoors or outdoors it’s pretty much a library – quiet please and virtually no stimuli. Put that same pitcher in a game – she has the same catcher with the same glove throwing the same ball from the same distance – but the visual stimuli has gone off the charts! There are batters and umpires and fans and cameras (maybe) and on-deck hitters and expectations and blah, blah, blah. It’s not that she suddenly can’t see the catcher or her glove, it’s that she is doing a horrible job of filtering out all the crap! Same goes for our hitters. We have to let our players know that this is normal, and that we can look at all the unimportant stuff when it doesn’t matter – like in the dugout, or even in between swings to help us relax – but then we need to zero in on the important stuff – like the ball – when we’re ready to hit. I really believe that helping our players learn how and when to filter what they see is HUGE in helping them perform successfully under pressure. Any pressurized situation has more crap then usual – whether it’s mental, visual, auditory or even sensory (wind, rain, heat, cold) and we’ve got to learn to filter the crap from the crux! Hitting outside for the first time is nothing if it’s not sensory overload, starting with our eyes but continuing to our ears, our minds and our senses. So overload senses occasionally during indoor hitting practice to help your hitters learn to filter the crap from the crux!