POSITIVE COACHING

Today I want to talk with you about positive coaching and why it’s paramount here at Indy Clutch Baseball.

With the arrival of tournament play as the norm, the game has changed in intensity over the years to younger and younger ages.  The pressure to win every inning, game and weekend is HUGE.  People get caught up in it.  Coaches easily find themselves “winning at all costs.”  This creates a myriad of problems, the most common of them is frustrated, stressed out and screaming coaches.  People demand to win (for lots of reasons) and I guess coaches think that by screaming at kids they will play better?  Screaming at players doesn’t inspire them, it usually makes them “tone deaf” and sadly, lose their love for the game.

Coaches often forget that these aren’t adults.  These are young, impressionable, growing kids who may even already lack self-esteem and confidence.  Being negative (even in their humor) or being loud and screaming at players usually just shuts them down. 

I often ask my coaches – “how did we do at the dinner table?”  By this I mean, did the players go home excited and feeling good about themselves after practice or the game?  Or, did they go home feeling dejected, upset or broken down, or even numb? The last thing we want to do is break players down and have them lose their love for the game.  We want to be a positive part of the dinner table discussion!

Why would any parent want to PAY someone to make their son feel bad about themselves?  Ok, we understand that not all players are above average players.  We understand competition, and most of the time you don’t win all your tournaments and the coach can get frustrated.  But as parents, we want our kids to feel confident and good about themselves, right?

Baseball can be a challenging game.  I think it gets even more difficult when a coach is screaming at the same time.  For sure, it doesn’t help.

Coaches yell at players for a variety of reasons.  The biggest reason is NOT about the player, it is to tell everyone standing outside the fence that he (the coach) was not responsible for what just happened on the field.   WHY?  This is for the coaches own self esteem.  The problem is, he just hurt the player – sometimes irreparably.  Maybe they are trying to win at all costs so they can get a better coaching gig or hang onto the one they have.  To me, this is a “coach centered” approach.  It doesn’t work.

At Indy Clutch Baseball we use a “player centered” approach.  We are more concerned with the individual players than we are the coach or the program.  Our goal is to facilitate our players in being more confident, which then leads to them becoming more skilled and better baseball players.  Confidence is the key to a player’s success.  It will lead them towards accomplishing their ultimate goal for playing youth baseball.

There are many factors that can potentially come into play as to why a player is at their current playing level:

• Physical development – have they hit their growth spurt?
• Confidence – emotional development
• Genetic Lottery – some people are just born with the “baseball gene”
• Desire – do they really LOVE the game and WANT to succeed
• Frustration – what is their current mindset, past experience or goals
• Are they playing for themselves or someone else?

Indy Clutch Baseball coaches take the time to understand our players.  Our goal is to reach them and assist them in improving their game, no matter where they are on the talent / growth spectrum.

Isn’t that pretty close to the definition of “a Coach”?

To me the gauge of a good coach is not wins and losses, it is – did the coach facilitate every player on the roster in being the best player and person they can be?