GT Athletic Newsletter #1, October 13, 2008

This first article is intended for hitters in baseball and softball.  We coaches often try to encourage hitters to learn the strike zone, get good pitches to hit, understand where their own strong spots and weak spots are.  In the past couple of years I have tried to teach hitters to “square up to the ball” with the bat at contact and try to drive the ball with authority between the shortstop and second baseman.

Below is part of an article written by John T. Reed, on his website, http://www.johntreed.com

Ted Williams said,

“A good hitter can hit a pitch in a good spot three times better than a great hitter can hit a ball in a questionable spot.”

Branch Rickey, the Dodgers owner who brought Jackie Robinson into Major League baseball, said:

“The greatest single difference between a Major League and minor-league batsman is his judgment of the strike zone. He knows better whether to swing or take a pitch.”

Warren Spahn, who won more games than any other lefthander, said,

“Home plate is 17 inches wide. All I asked for were the two inches on each corner. The hitters could have the 13 inches in between. I didn’t throw there.”

The other scientific reason for preferring pitches in the heart of the zone is avoiding foul territory and grounders or pop-ups. The closer a pitch is to the heart of the zone, the greater the probability that it will be a line drive back at the pitcher. As the location of the pitch moves right or left, the angle of the bat in relation to the path of the pitch varies off of 90 degrees so the ball is more likely to go foul. As physicists say, the angle of reflection equals the angle of incidence. In other words, the angle at which the pitch hits the bat will be matched by the angle at which it leaves the bat.

As the pitch location moves higher or lower, because of the anatomy of the human body, it becomes harder to drive the center of gravity of the bat through the center of gravity of the ball. Hitting the ball above or below its center of gravity causes it to dive down or pop up. You also can swing the bat the fastest through the heart of the zone. If you try to swing at head-high or ankle-low pitches, you will feel the distinct loss of bat speed and therefore power because of the way your shoulder, wrist, and other joints are constructed. The same is true to a lesser extent of high and low pitcher's pitches.

You get three strikes. USE them! Make your players stop acting as if they had to swing at every strike. The only one they have to swing at or bunt is the third one.

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Many people have their own definitions of coaching and ideas of what coaching is all about.  Some are simple; others perhaps a bit more complicated.  We like to define coaching as teaching and developing and nurturing relationships.  The following article represents some simple yet important points about coaching young athletes.

Below is an excerpt from an article written by Don Edlin on his website, http://www.qcbaseball.com

Key Aspects Of A Coaching Philosophy

Be Positive

Players need a patient, supportive coach that can teach and motivate in a positive way. Knowing how to be positive and having the ability to communicate with your players is more important to a successful season than knowing many aspects of the game.

Show Them You Care

Each player needs to know that you care for him as an individual and that you believe he is an important part of the team. Take time to talk to all players individually. Try to take interest in what is going on in their life outside of baseball.

Have Fun

Fun is essential for kids of all ages. Develop practices that let them do the things they enjoy. It's also important for you to have fun. Create an environment that is structured and varied enough for you to enjoy what your doing. If you're having fun, chances are your players will be having fun also.

Players Learn By Doing

I love the quote in Mike Krzyzewski's book 'Leading With The Heart'. "When teaching, always remember this simple phrase: 'You hear, you forget. You see, you remember. You do, you understand." Often coaches try to teach players a skill by talking about it. The younger the player the less effective it will be. Give a quick explanation while you show them the skill you want them to perform. Then have them do it.

Attitude And Effort

Coaches that believe winning is the everything have only one direction to take the team...down. Everyone wants to win, but when the main goal is winning a really good season can be lost. If on the other hand you emphasize attitude and effort, a successful season can be had without a league championship. Winning games really will take care of itself if you prepare the team to play hard and always give their best effort.

Sportsmanship

The idea of sportsmanship seems to be lost on many youth players. The fact is, sportsmanship must be taught. If children watch professional sports then their idea of sportsmanship may be to trash talk, spike the ball in the opponents face, or to mimic some other visual statement that demonstrates their superiority. As a coach it's important that you teach the value of sportsmanship. I want my team to show joy when they make an exciting play, but not at the expense of the player on the opposing team. I want my players to always show the other team respect. Your leadership is the best way to get this across to your players. Interact with the players on the other team. Compliment them when they make a good play. Show your players that you appreciate the other team and the opportunity to play against them.

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It is important that parents, as well as youth coaches, understand that all athletes develop at different rates physically.  Many times the superior athletes in elementary school and middle school are mediocre athletes in high school,  and some are no longer participating in sports as teenagers.  The excerpt below offers some suggestions for mentoring early maturing as well as late maturing athletes.

The following is taken from the book, Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports (HarperCollins 2006) by Brooke de Lench.

Research suggests that only one in four children who are star athletes in elementary school will still be stars when they reach high school. Predicting whether a preteen athlete will be a good enough high school athlete to land a college scholarship or even influence the admissions process is thus almost impossible.

Advantages for Early Bloomers

Yet, the sad but unfortunate fact is that an early bloomer enjoys advantages that can continue long after peers have caught up and, in many cases, passed him in terms of skill proficiency.

An early bloomer tends to receive:

·    more positive reinforcement and encouragement from adults;

·    earlier and more extensive socialization into sports;

·    access to better coaching, facilities, and competitive experiences (i.e., places on "select teams") and

·    the benefit of a "residual bias" from being viewed as a talented athlete at an early age.

As a 2004 article in the Journal of Sports Behavior observes, "Early selection for elite sport participants [thus] can become a self-fulfilling prophecy for athletes and coaches. Players begin to think of themselves as talented and are thus likely to invest more time and effort into their sport with predictable results. As the identity of previously selected players becomes known to coaches and administrators, they watch those players more closely lest they miss an elite performer."

Downsides to being early bloomer

Although numerous advantages are conferred on an early bloomer, if your child experiences early success in sports, such success also has some downsides.

An early bloomer:

·    is able to exploit his or her physical ability without having to work as hard at developing skills as less precocious players in order to stay competitive. When they catch up physically, they may end up being better players.

·    often has to try to live up to heightened expectations; this may lead him to practice and play more than his young body can handle in order to live up to his reputation. Playing under this kind of pressure often leads to burnout and overuse injuries.

·    may define himself by whether he wins or loses; if he or she is unable to maintain the success he had early in his athletic career, if that self-image is shattered, the results can be disastrous and may lead her to quit sports altogether.

·    may tempt her parents to push her to specialize too early and/or train too hard. Excessive training too often leads to burnout and/or overuse injuries, some of which don't show up until high school or college but can be traced to excessive training when the player was nine, ten or eleven. Parents need to avoid being lulled into valuing short-term success more than their child's long-term future. If they don't, they may be placing their child's physical safety and emotional health at risk.

Parenting Late Bloomers: Emphasize Skill Development ….If your child is an average athlete or lags behind his peers, he may be a late bloomer. Late bloomers receive markedly less social support and reinforcement from parents, coaches, and peers. Worse, the adults charged with the responsibility of evaluating "talent" - most of whom don't understand developmental variability in children - may unfairly nip her athletic career in the bud by concluding that he or she lacks the potential to play sports at the highest competitive levels. Denied a place on a select, middle school, or high school sub varsity team, the late bloomer is more likely to drop out of sports rather than keep playing until he blossoms (that is, achieves his full athletic potential).

Here are six important lessons for parents of potential late bloomers:

1. Take a balanced approach. Do not to get too down if your child is not immediately a superstar or too high if he is. The important thing is that he continues to play, to develop and learn new skills.

2. Emphasize the process and the journey, not the results achieved; therefore,

3. Avoid praising the outcome and instead praise effort;

4. Help your child see herself as a whole person, not just as an athlete;

5. Be realistic about possible reasons for early athletic success. Make sure your child understands that early success is not a guarantee of future success (and vice versa).

6. Select a sports program that understands child development. Pick a program that recognizes that variability in the way children's athletic talent develops by offering all children a chance to play as long as they want to.

“People do not care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”  John Maxwell