KARA LAWSON - HANDLE HARD BETTER - www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDzfZOfNki4
Watch it with them today and often!
Peace and be well,
Coach Adam
Coaching Champions for Life |
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This is the best inspirational speech you can show to everyone you coach and mentor:
KARA LAWSON - HANDLE HARD BETTER - www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDzfZOfNki4 Watch it with them today and often! Peace and be well, Coach Adam
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“Be a Student-Athlete and the Student Comes First.”
During a guest appearance on a podcast recently, I asked the host who is a long-time college coach and professional scout, “During all of your years as a high school and college coach, how many of your players worked a job for four or more months in a year?” He immediately held up his hands to form a big zero. This emphasizes the sad reality of how few high school athletes are educated about how to determine and develop their marketable skills and how those skills relate to their goals and passions in life. This discernment is essential to an informed decision about whether college is necessary at all, and if so, which one is the best choice for them. Athletic careers can be over in a second for a variety of reasons. Yet, few athletes ask themselves, “If my playing days were over or if I were not an athlete, would this college be the best fit for me given my other career goals?” If not, the athlete should not have attended that college to begin with. Typically, elite high school athletes spend almost all of their “free time” training and playing sports with no balance in their life. Their college choice is based on which schools offer them the best financial incentive package after the athlete attends a “showcase.” The showcase-first process is flawed because not all colleges offer the same quality of education and preparation for the working world and not all careers can be studied at every college. If a major is not offered, a student cannot study it. Not all academic departments between colleges or, even within a college, are of the same quality with regard to their professors, facilities, internship and job placement opportunities, etc. College may not even be necessary for the best career choice for a particular athlete. If college is necessary, the student-athlete should first determine what college is the best fit academically for their possible career paths and then attend baseball camps at those colleges or showcases where coaches from those colleges will be present. A student’s goal should be to graduate college with a degree that affords them many high-quality choices to pursue a life-long career the person is passionate about. The college degree alone only certifies that the student completed the school’s curriculum for a particular major. The curriculum and the work experience afforded by the school’s placement department, or lack thereof, may not be respected by graduate schools or the working world. And the degree certainly does not certify the student will be happy in the career choices that the degree can offer them. Approximately, 40% of college students today drop out and 46% of the students who graduate work in a career that does not require the degree they received. 33% work in a career that does not require a degree at all! Only .5% of all high school baseball players will ever be drafted by an MLB team even if they play baseball in college. With the exception of a very few top athletes in a very limited number of sports, the average financial incentive package pays an athlete only a fraction of their annual tuition and expenses. Therefore, the scholarship only partially finances the debt the student-athlete will incur to earn a degree they may never use or do not need. Today, an athlete cannot even be assured the coaches and their teammates will be the same year-to-year because the fluidity of the transfer portal is causing coaches to leave the profession and teammates to transfer to other programs. If athletes prioritized a career path and academics over sports, they could tell a coach who is recruiting them that they will stay with the program regardless of money or playing time because their enrollment at the college was based first on the ability of the college to afford them the best education to pursue their career outside of the sport. This may be a scale-tipping factor for whether that athlete receives a scholarship over another one who is prioritizing money and the sport. Elite athletes deserve to be compensated for their talent. There is nothing inherently wrong with scholarship money. Athletes just need to be careful that when they are considering it, they do not prioritize short-term money over their long-term career goals and happiness. In many cases, the short-term scholarship money may just be an enticement that in the long-term will get them nothing more than a purely symbolic piece of paper. “Never confuse winning with succeeding. A successful league and team is one that inspires its players to want to come back again tomorrow.”
Too often, leagues and teams define their success by their won-loss records. And yet, if evaluated objectively, those wins and championships were more a consequence of a few elite players and mediocre competition than general player development. The individual skills of the overwhelming majority of players on every team did not significantly improve at all during the season or, if they did, they were a result of private coaching outside of the league. Here are some concrete steps leagues and teams need to take so that every player on every team along the entire ability spectrum improves and develops every season: 1) Leagues should redefine success and distinguish it from winning. Success is having systems and a process to develop better people and better athletes, not just better players. Success is when the players use the life skills they learned on their team to be better sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, students and friends. Success is also when the players learned athletic and self-care skills that will benefit them in all sports and later in life. 2) In practices and games, coaches and leagues should prioritize rewarding intangibles such as leadership, kindness, forgiveness, tenacity, perseverance, etc. Educational talks and role plays using quotations, role plays, and guest speakers should be proactively programmed into every practice and training session so that life lessons are taught within the game for beyond the game. 3) The philosophy and systems must be required for all teams and coaches in the league. The system should also be monitored and progressed year-to-year so more is expected from the players as people and as athletes every year. 4) Leagues should do much more than administer practice and game schedules and adjudicating coach-parent-player disputes. Coaches should be trained and should prioritize being master teachers of individual athletic and sport skills not just playing the game with better tactics and strategy. Leagues and coaches must regularly assess and monitor whether the athletic and sports skills of every player on every team is improving. This may require re-thinking how practices are structured. Instead of receiving “instruction” from the same set of coaches for all aspects of the game, players may need to attend mini-clinics 2-3 times per week from league coaches or instructors who specialize in teaching different individual skills of the game. Coaches must teach using all of the learning modalities, auditory, visual and kinesthetic, appropriate for each player. 5) The players in the league should be divided into different development levels and the “games” they play may need to have different formats. Only when the pitchers can throw 70% strikes, catchers can regularly throw out runners attempting to steal, hitters can regularly put the ball in play, and fielders rarely make an error should teams play traditional baseball games. Lower development level teams, maybe even the entire league, should play games where a) every batter puts a ball in play, i.e., no strikeouts, no walks, b) making baseball plays is prioritized, i.e., no stolen bases, and c) every player hits and plays defense, i.e., no outs, every inning so that maximum engagement is achieved. If these criteria were used and steps were taken, leagues and their teams could honestly state that they are working for the benefit of all players and not just a select few. Many times I think youth coaches copy what other coaches do without thinking why they are doing it. One of those times this is frequently done is between innings of games. During those times, much team preparation and development could be happening, but is not.
Elite team and player development is very difficult and takes a ton of hard work. To accomplish this development, every throw, reception, and swing a player takes needs to be done for a specific purpose and with intent to be better. Typically, the priority today in youth sports is preparing for and playing as many games as possible and not on practicing to improve individual skills. Therefore, coaches teaching their players before, during and after every minute of a game is critical. The following is a description of what typically happens between innings during a youth game and what I think could be done to better prepare the team and the players when the game begins. Pitchers and Catchers Here are some of the important factors that need to be accounted for to properly prepare pitchers and catchers for the game: A knowledgeable coach, not just a teammate, needs to help warm-up the pitcher. The pitcher must warm-up at the same distance as the pitching distance in the game, on a mound with the same slope as the mound in the game, and facing the same direction as the mound in the game. The pitcher must work on all types of pitches from both the stretch and the wind-up ending in whatever delivery he will start the game. They must not throw too many pitches in the bullpen so they leave their best stuff there. The pitcher must know the “umpire’s zone” not just the strike zone before they take the mound. The pitcher must be prepared mentally to attack the weaknesses of the hitters they will face and to play defense to the offensive tactics of the opposing team. During the between inning warm-up, the catcher must remind the pitcher of these same things. The catcher must receive every pitch for a purpose based on the pitch type and delivery. The pitcher’s last warm-up pitch before the game begins must be one the catcher can easily handle to make a good throw to second base. Coaches should be prepared to warm-up a pitcher between innings if the catcher needs time to put on their gear. League or tournament rules typically dictate the maximum number of warm-up pitches a pitcher is allowed to take before the first pitch or between innings. But what occurred prior to the pitcher ever taking the mound may have as much or more of an impact on whether the pitcher performs at their best or not. The weather and the amount of throws the pitcher already threw in prior innings, before the game in team warm-up drills and in playing other positions during the game may dictate the pitcher may not need that many pitches or may need more pitches to warm-up. Infielders First basemen should be able to throw ground balls at different heights and speeds to the infielders to simulate what they will experience during the game. This is a skill that needs to be trained during practice! The first basemen should deliver those throws from off of the base so they have to move to the base after each throw to execute proper footwork. Every throw from an infielder should be caught. Period. If the throw is not accurate, after catching the ball, the first baseman should be sure to touch the base after every throw. The first baseman should properly stretch for every throw. An extra ball should be placed behind first base so valuable time is not wasted chasing wild throws. A coach should throw two balls to the first baseman at the end of each inning so they have them ready for the start of the next inning. The other infielders should field every ball from the first baseman with game-like intensity and purpose starting at the maximum distance they could throw in the game. They need to work on all types of fielding e.g., forehands, backhands, etc., all types of footwork that accompany those balls, and all types of plays they might perform in the game, e.g., double plays and force plays. Coaches need to observe and coach not just the result of those throws, but the process and mechanics that lead to the results. Outfielders Outfielders should not just play catch. They should throw each other fly balls and ground balls using momentum for each throw to protect the health of their arm. If their skill level does not allow them to do it, coaches should do it. Similar to infielders, every throw and catch should have a purpose. All types of catches, forehand and backhand, lateral, drop step, “wrong way” turns, and balls in sun with all of the accompanying footwork, e.g., inside pivot, reverse pivot, step behind, “do or die”, etc. should be practiced. Hitters All at bats begin in the dugout. Before a player ever reaches the batter’s box, they should know the game situation which may dictate the sign they will receive to do their job, the umpire’s zone, the pitcher’s tells and tendencies, how the pitcher will attack them as a hitter and base runner, and the pitcher’s rhythm so they can work on their timing in the on deck circle. Bench Players All team members are players and are in the game whether they are on the field or not. They are thinking along with and communicating with the players on the field and the coaches in the dugout about what the players who play their position should do, did do or did not do during the game. At the appropriate age, the bench players should help keep all of the game stats not the coaches in the dugout or the parents in the stands. Most importantly, all players need to hold each other accountable for all of these things including communicating with each other, verbally and non-verbally, about the score, the other team’s potential tactics, and what they need to do to counter them so they are mentally prepared to compete at their best when the inning begins or a new hitter is at bat. The accountability and communication must continue forward, backward and side-to-side among all the players on the field for every hitter and after every stolen base during the game. My experience is youth baseball teams and players rarely do these things between innings of games. As a result, many opportunities for optimum game preparation and player development are lost. I have spent as much time in my 45 years of coaching watching other coaches coach players at all levels as I have coaching teams myself. What I have observed are coaches with a ton of well-meaning energy and effort underachieving in the development of their teams. This is not completely their fault. In my experience, youth leagues rarely give their coaches enough equipment, resources, and training to enable them to do their jobs well.
Here are some essential factors missing from many coaches’ approach and practice plans that will dramatically improve how and why they coach. Pre-Practice 1. Do your homework – set goals for the team as persons, athletes, and players for the season, each week and each day and consult reputable resources to be sure what you are teaching is fundamentally sound. Do not assume what you were taught as a player was or is correct. 2. Master teaching what you know for the entire ability spectrum before expanding what you know. 3. Prepare physically and mentally to mentor the person, train the athlete, and develop the player. A team member will not fully accept what you have to say unless they can trust that you understand them as a person. The best athletes have the most potential to be the best players. 4. Post a written practice plan with timed segments that the players read before practice that has a logical progression leading to an end of practice game-sim or scrimmage where the coaches do and say nothing to see what the players have learned. Be sure quotes, acronyms or guest speakers for the discussion of life lessons are included in the plan. 5. Coaches should arrive early enough to prepare the field, set up all equipment and stations, and to discuss who, what, and how practice will be done so that the transitions will be short and, most importantly, so that all coaches, at all times can teach, role model and mentor from the moment the first player arrives until the last player leaves. Dynamic Movement and Stretching Routine 1. Have one. Running to a tree or a pole and back will not prepare your team mentally or physically to be trained as athletes or developed as players. 2. Be present and physically able to teach it. Do not simply show the players what to do at the beginning of the season and tell them to go do it at the beginning of every practice and game. The word Coach is a verb, an action word. In youth sports, telling is not teaching. You must be able to demonstrate and teach it using the appropriate learning modality for each player. Take this part of practice as seriously as you do teaching throwing, fielding or hitting fundamentals and mechanics. In fact, it is the foundation for success or failure for all of those things. 3. All team coaches and the league itself must have a system to assess, teach, program, progress and monitor each player practice-to-practice and season-to-season how to crawl, walk, march, skip, run, bound, sprint, shuffle, backpedal, jump and hop in all planes of motion optimally in a coordinated and synchronized manner. The training must include mobility, flexibility, stability, balance, breathing, visual acuity, mental mindfulness and focus, speed, agility, quickness, strength and power. 4. Train preparation, anticipation and reaction, as well as, action. Explosive and baseball actions and footwork, e.g., chatter steps, lateral/crossover steps, drop steps, “wrong way” turns, must be taught here first in dry mechanic progressions before you ask the players to do them on the field. 5. Make it fun, rewarding, and motivating by having competitions here too by using speed ladders, shuttle runs, gauntlets, and all types of chase/tag games. Incorporate baseball tosses and receiving often. Throwing and Receiving Progression 1. Do an arm care routine for every player before this part of training at every practice and game. 2. The players should never perform just “catch play.” Every day coaches must carefully teach the mechanics of receiving, transferring, and throwing a baseball so that at the end of the season every player has dramatically improved these skills. 3. Every throw and every reception must be done for a specific purpose and with an intent to be accurate and mechanically correct. Use training gloves and striped balls to aid this process. 4. Every type of throw, e.g., underhand, backhand, dart, glove flip, relay, long hop, clock throws, right foot, “do or die”, muff and dive that every position player will be asked to make in practice and, eventually, in games must be practiced here every day. Every situation, e.g., relays, rundowns, tag and force play mechanics that a player will be asked to execute in practice and games must be practiced here first every day. 5. This is the most individual part of practice. Not every player should perform the same number of throws from the same distance every day. Their health/fatigue, conditioning and level of development may dictate fewer or shorter throws. The positions they play may eventually dictate at a certain point in the season that some players work more on certain types of throws than other players, but versatility is a key asset for a youth player. Position and Hitting Fundamentals 1. Follow the six step teaching process. A player fielding a ball hit to him during position fundamentals or hitting a ball during batting practice is step five in the process, not step 1. 2. Use training aids such as speed ladders, discs, cones, hexagons, hurdles, bands, training gloves and weighted balls to teach using all of the learning modalities, not just auditory commands. 3. Teach by doing the skills with your players; let parent volunteers or non-coaches roll, feed and hit balls. At the high school level, invite youth coaches from your feeder programs to do these things so they can watch you coach and learn what you teach. High school coaches should only have to refine, not reteach when the players arrive. 4. Multi-task at all times, e.g., 2-in-1 and 3-in-1 drills; priority, shadowing, relays and tags at home plate mechanics with fly balls; baserunning mechanics and game situations with team hitting (shag balls after every round, not during, unless it’s necessary for safety). 5. Please do not have players line up. If a coach has more than 2 or 3 players at a station you have design flaws in your practice plan. Have enough coaches, equipment, and stations so that all players are active all of the time. There is no line standing; only mental and physical preparation doing. Pitchers and Catchers Bullpen 1. Again, please take care of your pitchers’ arms by being sure they have done arm care and dynamic movement routines before any of their throwing. 2. Utilize valuable time by coaching both pitchers and catchers at the same time, e.g., when a pitcher is pitching out of a wind-up, the catcher is working on signal calling, a no runners on position, and framing; when the pitcher is pitching out of the stretch, the catcher is receiving in a runners on position and is working on ball transfer and footwork for to throws to bases. 3. Have hitters stand in to work on pitch and strike recognition and load and stride timing. Coaches should take turns standing in too. A pitcher’s effectiveness is more than what the data indicates. 4. Do not overuse technology. Pitch selection and sequencing, managing emotions, overcoming adversity, mental mindfulness and focus are just as important as grips, spin rate, spin axes, velocity and location. A player’s mind is always with him. His device is not. 5. Carefully monitor the number and intensity of the throws and pitches the pitchers make during practice and games at all positions, not just as a pitcher; count throws in bullpens and between innings, at private trainings, and on other baseball teams. The arm does not know whether a player is pitching. It only knows how well, how hard, how often, and how many balls he is throwing. Recommended Resources for Coaches’ Education and Practice Plans: CoachesInsider.com; ABCA Barnstormer Clinic and National Convention Videos; overtimeathletes.com; @CoachLouColon or Coach Lou Colon on YouTube; troskybaseball.com;; ericcressey.com; drivelinebaseball.com While watching youth baseball and even the Little League World Series tournament games, I am sad to see how many pitchers are removed from mound duty as a result of a sore arm or shoulder. I think it is a tell-tale sign that after being removed from the mound, the pitcher almost always goes to shortstop or to an outfield position. The pitcher replacing them typically comes in to pitch from one of those positions too.
This illustrates an often overlooked and critical fact about arm care; the arm does not know whether you are pitching or not, it only knows whether you are throwing well, too much and too often. A February 28, 2024 article in the Seams Up Journal listed these alarming facts:
Throwing a baseball at maximum velocity is one of the most stressful movements on the human body in all of sports. And yet, the focus of most coaches and leagues is almost entirely on how much and how often a player pitches in games, not how often they pitch in practice and throw at other positions in practices and games. No count is kept of how many throws are made at maximum velocity in general and the pitch count in games does not include pitches thrown in the bullpen during warm-up or those thrown between innings. Even more alarming is how rarely youth coaches carefully and methodically instruct players how to throw the ball properly during “catch play” at the start of games and practices. The average youth player’s throwing mechanics do not improve significantly during the season except if they can afford quality private instruction outside of the league team. If the players can throw hard and relatively accurate most of the time, and if the team is “winning”, the coaches typically take a hands off approach to improving the players’ throwing mechanics. This is assuming the youth coaches could properly instruct them how to do it if they wanted to do so. When asked if there was one thing they would have done differently during their days as a youth player, almost all college and pro baseball players say they would have taken their nutrition more seriously. Assumed, of course, in this response are the other factors that are essential to development and recovery, e.g., rest, quality sleep, hydration, and arm care (both pre-season and during the season). Even if their nutrition was proper, chronic fatigue would likely still have been a huge problem contributing to arm problems for them because it is very common for players to play on multiple teams and in multiple sports during a baseball season. It is also very common for players to play in many more games than they have practices and in those games and practices, as stated above, proper throwing mechanics are rarely properly coached. Too few parents and players know enough about these factors to set, monitor, and execute guidelines for them. Most coaches and leagues certainly are not vigilant about them either. It is long past time to take a more diligent and holistic approach to the care of the arms of youth baseball players. Their long-term health and that of our nation’s pastime depend on it. During the first week of the season, I watched an 11 year-old pitch one inning of a game against a much superior team. He threw only fastballs, surrendered six runs on thirty four pitches, six hits, three walks, there were four defensive errors and two dropped third strikes with the batter advancing safely to first base. During his pitching, the player exhibited frustration with his own performance and the lack of support by his defense. When the pitcher finished the inning, he was greeted with a “nice job” by his coaches, and seemed generally satisfied and relieved that he survived his outing without giving up more damage.
I witnessed this same player pitch four innings in the last game of the season. He threw both fastballs and change-ups, 54 pitches, struck out six batters, gave up four unearned runs on four hits, two of which were “home runs” on errors by the outfielders and missed relays. He picked off two runners at first base and one at second base (although none were thrown or tagged out) on pick-off moves that would make a high school pitcher proud. He was calm and composed the entire time and supported his teammates in every way during the game. Once again, when he was done pitching, he was greeted with a “nice job” by his coaches. However, this time when he arrived at the bench, he was visibly very upset. The game and the season ended for the Tigers about 15 minutes later. Despite the best efforts of his coaches and parents to console him after the game, the tears continued to flow. When asked why he was so upset he exclaimed, “I did terrible. I’m a horrible pitcher and player. I hate baseball!” That would be his last and most indelible memory from the season. By any objective measure, this pitcher had obviously improved significantly in every tangible and intangible way. Yet, the player did not realize or feel any of it. He only knew that his team record was 2-19 and he failed to “win” a single game as a pitcher. In his words, he and his team “were a bunch of losers.” Why was there such a disconnect between the reality of his performance and improvement and his perception of them? First, the district and league set his team up for disappointment. There were no regulations at this age for limiting mismatches. No rules existed for stopping an inning after a given number of runs were scored or stopping a game when the “winning” team was ahead by a given number of runs after a certain number of innings. The Tigers lost almost all of their games by 10+ runs and were behind by as many as 21 runs in one inning. Most games were only remarkable by the number of runs scored by both teams by walks, stolen bases, wild pitches, passed balls, and errors. Rarely did a team on offense have more hits than walks or errors by the defense. Second, the priority for all teams was on playing games and not on practicing to improve athleticism and individual skills. The players’ abilities did not improve during the season regardless of the team’s record, the pitchers’ ERA’s or the hitters’ averages except through private coaching outside the team and the league. Finally, and most important, the season was sabotaged because “winning” was defined solely by the final score. Prior to the season, the league and its coaches should have established a list of process-oriented goals for pitchers, position players, and hitters and a list of athletic and life skill goals to be taught proactively during the season. These goals should have been tracked, recorded, communicated and rewarded after every practice and game regardless of the score. In fact, the game best suited for the development of the players in this league would have been one in which no score was kept, each batter put a ball in play for the defense to handle, i.e., no walks or strikeouts, no stolen bases, and in every inning each player on the team had an at bat on offense and played a position on defense. If these things had been done, the Tigers’ pitcher would have ended his last game and the season with a smile on his face, a huge boost to his self-esteem, and a growing love for his sport. At a minimum, he would have recognized he was able to throw two pitches for strikes in any count, had developed excellent pick-off moves to first and second base, and could pitch with confidence and composure for a much longer period of time no matter the support he was getting from his defense. Most importantly, he was able to support his teammates regardless of how he was performing individually. Sadly, after coaching and observing youth sports for more than four decades, I think the scenario of the Tiger’s pitcher is the rule, not the exception. Despite the best efforts of all coaches to rehab hurt feelings and damaged self-esteems, players only feel like “winners” when their teams win the game. Most youth coaches do not realize that a won-loss record is not indicative of the quality of coaching, of a “winning” team or of the players’ long-term success. Players do not realize that elite statistics do not necessarily indicate improved or elite skills. Training, tracking and rewarding the process of sport, athletic, and life skills develops champions, Champions for Life. MY NEW BOOK IS AVAIALBLE ON AMAZON IN HARDBACK, PAPERBACK AND EBOOK VERSIONS! Here is what is being said about it by baseball authorities throughout the country:
“Adam Sarancik has the unique ability to see sports both from the ‘inside out’, as a coach, and from the ‘outside in’ as an accomplished writer. His combination of firsthand experience, astute observation skills and the ability to take complex subjects and simplify them, help his work stand out as pertinent, applicable, and easy to read. His contributions for Inside Pitch magazine are among the most popular with our readers. Just reading through his table of contents will make you want to get out on the field and get to work. As he outlined in his book, A Ground Ball to Shortstop, coaches do indeed “see the world differently.” The level of detail that Adam provides in his topics can provide even the most novice baseball parent who’s just been handed a clipboard a real opportunity to shorten the learning curve. Adam’s passion for mentoring young athletes is evident in these writings and his words will benefit coaches at any level. So whether you’re ready to kick back and relax with some easy reading on our favorite pastime, are a clean slate ready and willing to learn more baseball, or someone who’s just interested in learning how to be or to coach a ‘Champion for Life,’ this book is for you!” Adam Revelette, Editor, Inside Pitch Magazine, American Baseball Coaches Association “This book is packed with vital insights offering a compelling and compassionate exploration into holistic coaching grounded in the integrity and purpose necessary for the success of coaches, players, parents, and leagues alike.” Brooke Johnson, Coaches Insider.com “Adam’s notes and lessons learned from a lifetime of coaching are essential guidance for any coach who aspires to lead young athletes in a positive manner in baseball and as ambassadors for their communities.” Cole Thomas, Fast Performance Baseball “This book is an invaluable resource for coaches at any level. With over four decades of experience, Coach Sarancik provides a not only a comprehensive guide to developing athletes and players, but as he says, Champions for Life. His holistic approach emphasizes mentoring the whole person while seeing players as individuals and athletes first before focusing on their sport-specific skills. Coach Sarancik's insights on building relationships, player buy-in, teaching life lessons through sports, and creating positive team cultures are essential tools for all coaches. From practice planning to player communication, this book covers all aspects of quality coaching. Coaches who apply the principles found in this book will not only produce better players on the field but, more importantly, will help mold young people of strong character primed for success beyond just athletics." Coach Bo, 80/20 Baseball “This book is a compelling and insightful read that delves deep into the essence of coaching beyond the playing field. The book transcends the conventional boundaries of baseball, offering a wealth of wisdom applicable to all aspects of life. It is a must-read for anyone involved in coaching, teaching, or leadership and offers invaluable lessons that extend far beyond the realm of sports. Whether you are a seasoned coach or just starting out, this book will undoubtedly leave a lasting impression and inspire you to be the best that you can be.” Jimmy Filingeri, Clearing the Bases Podcast, USA Baseball Scout "Face Toward the Problems - Nothing worthwhile comes easy."
Baseball is a wonderful sport to teach life lessons within the game for beyond the game. The first step in this endeavor is to connect with, validate, and support the players as people to earn their trust so they will be willing to adopt the coach’s philosophy and to learn from them. Today, before coaches can empathize with their players as people, they must recognize that the players have been raised with some difficult challenges that may be far different than those faced by the coaches when they were children. Traumatic events in the world (e.g. the pandemic, wars, etc.) and in society (e.g., mass shootings, the disintegration of the family unit, etc.) have caused many parents to overcorrect by wanting to snow plow life for their children to be sure there are as few bumps in their road as possible. These parents tell their children they are “special” and that they can “have anything they want in life”. In school, too often, low standards, weak competition, and parent “advocacy” to teachers and administrators delude their children into believing they are honors students. In sports, they level up their children through politics and bullying. The truth is the children are loved, but are not special or entitled just by existing. The children have abilities and talents which, if developed and utilized properly, make them capable of achievement. These misguided parenting strategies cause children to grow up with very low self-esteem. Youth learn very quickly when they enter the working world that they are not special and they do not get rewarded or promoted just for showing up. Their parents can no longer advocate for them; they must self-advocate. As a result, their self-image becomes shattered. Many youth today seek to cope with the stress caused by all of these things through quick, temporary means such as tobacco, alcohol, and drugs. Youth suicide and death by accidental overdose are at an all-time high. Technology brings children tons of information, but not necessarily facts or truth. The information may come very quickly, but it is merely consumed with very little independent thought or creativity. Youth become impulsively dependent on instant gratification. They seek solutions for their problems from devices, not people because they have never learned that the truly important things in life such as love, joy, marketable skills, self-confidence, real friendship and an appreciation of the beauty and joy of life itself are obtained through a long, arduous process and journey. In sports, many coaches and leagues enable these same behaviors by doing such things as: micromanaging every step and thought of their players during games, participation trophies, speaking to parents before the player when disputes arise, not admitting that high batting averages are the result of using aluminum bats and facing mediocre pitching, and that wins are the result of weak competition, over-using technology at the expense of teaching personal communication and mindfulness skills, and allowing teams with losing records to make the playoffs. In short, they prioritize winning, numbers, and short-term gains rather than growth for a lifetime by achieving results and character through persistent hard work. As teachers, coaches must reward the process and not just results and prioritize life skills more than sport skills. They must not rescue players from tough situations and protect them from failure by quickly pulling them from a game when things go bad or by being afraid to change a player’s mechanics for fear of disrupting what they have always been comfortable with. As role models, coaches must demonstrate that the “get better every day” mantra begins with them and that they can stay in the “this pitch, this moment” state of mind at all times too. As mentors, coaches must have the hard conversation that while the personal challenges described above are not the fault of the players, they are realities which must be retrained to achieve success in life and maybe to even survive. Many parents get very angry and confrontational when their child is not chosen to be on a Select or an “All-Star” Team. Our country’s obsession with sports and the professionalization of sports has deluded coaches, parents, and players into believing such things have a much greater meaning and significance than they actually do.
Prior to trying out for a Select Team, a parent should explain to their child that an important lesson to be learned from youth sports is, many times, life is not fair. And neither is the decision of whom to include on a Select Team. At best, such decisions are one group’s opinion of a player’s value to a team at one point in time and the player may objectively need to work harder to get better. However, at worst, such selections can be very politically motivated. The choices can be heavily influenced by which players have parents who are coaches or Board members for the league and their close friends. Children hear how excited their parents and their parents’ friends are when they talk about the “fun” of traveling to different cities and states to play in tournaments. The truth may be that fun for the parents may not be fun for the child. A child may intensely feel the stress of the practical and financial impacts of the extra time and travel requirements placed on their family. The intense actions and reactions of the parents to the outcome of the games may even cause the child to feel their parents’ love for them or their self-worth is tied to getting a medal or trophy and the child’s relative contributions to “winning” those things. From a purely sports perspective, the child may be deluded into thinking that being selected to these teams is an indication they are an elite player. The truth is good is never good enough and a player’s ability can never be accurately judged based on a comparison to a small sample size such as the players in one league. In some sports, the quality of players has been significantly diluted by the number of options players now have for leagues and teams to join. It may take comparison to regional and national select players to gauge a player’s true ability at that time. I remember sitting with five college coaches watching two select high school baseball teams play. The parents probably thought their children were elite players because they had paid thousands of dollars every year to participate in the Club Ball circuit. And yet, after the game was done, all of the coaches unanimously agreed that of the 22 players who played in the game, only two had the tangibles and intangibles to play college baseball. The best athletes have the most potential to become the best players. From a very early age, players must participate in a variety of activities that use their upper and lower bodies simultaneously and that challenge their minds as well as their bodies. Eventually, to be elite, players must compete in programs where the standards are very high, the competition is very tough, and they are consistently challenged to work very hard to improve even if they are currently better than anyone else they know or watch. All youth practices and pre-game routines should have an athleticism training component that is developed and mandated by the league with assistance from nationally certified strength, conditioning and movement optimization trainers in that sport. The program must be diligently monitored and progressed every year to be sure every player is developing as an athlete not just a player. The judgement of whether a player is currently elite must be made by knowledgeable and experienced coaches at the next level who have no affiliation to the player’s family, team, or league and no business self-interest compromising their objectivity. Most importantly, a child must have a balance in their life beyond sports so they are confident they have skills, talents and life experiences that will mean their happiness and success in life will be determined by what happens off the field or court, not on it. A small group may not think that you are currently an All-Star player, but the world will know that you are an All-Star person. |
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February 2025
AuthorAdam Sarancik is the owner of Elevate Sports Academy which mentors student-athletes in physical conditioning, nutrition, career and college counseling, and sport skills. He has spent most of his adult life coaching youth ages 8-22 in baseball, soccer, and basketball. He is a favorite speaker at and director of coaches' and players' clinics. Categories |