Coaching is more than teaching sport skills

We have now completed two full weeks of practice and are only 21 days from our opening game against Milsaps College.  Our Saturday morning practices are usually a little lighter for the pitchers when it comes to throwing and conditioning.  All the pitchers have now thrown to live hitters and will be ready to ramp it up to fifty pitches in the cage next week.  They will also throw a few breaking balls to hitters in their appearances next week.

In addition to our normal practice routine, I had an opportunity to spend some time talking to the pitchers while we waited for the infielders to be ready for situational practice stuff with the pitchers.  I purposely sat the pitchers on the floor in a corner of the gym so that they would be able to plainly see the outfielders doing some of their defensive drills.  What I told them, though, was that I wanted all of their attention on me, their eyes on me as I talked, and that whatever the outfielders were doing was just a distraction.  Today this was my way of having the pitchers practice their focus with a distraction in the background.

Distractions are part of any sport, if an athlete or a team allows them to be.  Ideally, athletes can remain focused in spite of distractions.  Some of those distractions may be directly visible and audible to athletes while they compete.  Other distractions can come from their academics, their families, girlfriends, injuries, or other issues in their personal lives.

Still other distractions appear simply due to the wrong kind of thinking going on in the minds of the athletes.  They may think that they should be playing more than they are, or that the things we do at practice are not worth the time, or that their teammates don't work hard enough, or even that a teammate or coach might annoy them.  No matter where an athlete lets his distractions come from, it is in his complete control how he handles those distractions and prevents them from affecting his attitude and performance.

So much of what I talked to the pitchers about today was just that.......that they have control over their thoughts and actions, over their body language and how they respond to perceived adversity.  We discussed how important it is that they can practice and compete with a positive attitude and be happy when teammates perform well. These ideas are all important if the team has any hope of achieving its lofty goals for this season.  Even though they may be competing with their teammates for playing time, they are all trying to help the team advance in the post-season and win a national championship.  That can be accomplished together, but not if any teammate decides to put his own needs ahead of those of the team.

I also talked to them about using mental imagery, or visualization, to help them improve their performance in game situations, and especially in potentially stressful situations.  Our seniors have been to the DIII World Series, and they should easily be able to visualize themselves on the mound in Appleton, Wisconsin in the National Championship game.  All of our guys should be able to envision themselves succeeding against great opponents in crucial situations.  They can do this by making pictures and videos in their minds and seeing themselves succeed over and over again.

By using this type of imagery, I am hoping our guys can visualize so well, in varied circumstances, so that when they do actually step on the field in important situations they can feel as though they have been there before, that they have succeeded in that setting before.  When they can do that, it can help them to relax and control their emotions better.  It can also give them additional confidence that will enhance what they already have.  They know that if they have done it before, even if just in their minds, then they can succeed again.

Their are many teams with goals that are similar to ours.  Our job as coaches is to prepare the players and the team so that they can go out and compete with confidence, enjoy the game of baseball, play hard without the fear of making mistakes, and execute the game plan one pitch at a time.  In preparing them, we can't neglect the mental/emotional parts of being a competitive team athlete.  That is just as important as the ability to pitch, hit, play defense, and run the bases.