In one of my long car rides with a good friend of mine who was a very successful college baseball coach, we talked about poor coaching. What is it that makes some coaches “bad”? And we were not talking about the coaches who have losing records rather we were looking at the coaches who just don’t “get it”. The coaches that have this negative aura around them. The coach who creates a lot of tension around his players and their parents. The coach who just can’t explain/teach fundamentals. The coach that gets little respect from the players.
We agreed that some folks just don’t have the experience to be good coaches; it’s not for lack of effort; it’s for lack of experience. Heck, I look back at my first 2-3 years of coaching and I regret some of the ways I acted and treated my players. Of course 25 years ago, the coaching culture was still very much a coach-centered mindset; a one-way street. I used to get so upset about their mistakes. Every mistake needed to be dealt with or acknowledged. I actually allowed the actions of 14-17 year olds to impact my general well-being. It wasn’t until we got a new AD who worked with the coaches that I became a much stronger coach. The AD never talked about winning and losing but rather about building relationships w/ the players. He got me to realize the bigger role of sports and coaching…being a mentor and teacher to the players.

Good thing about “rookie” coaches, we hope they learn and improve. What we need to watch out for are the “veteran” coaches who still make the “rookie” mistakes that causes them to be “bad”. So what are those “Rookie” mistakes? Those habits of poor coaching?
See if any of the following apply to you either when you first started out coaching or heaven forbid, they still apply to you.

1. The Rookie talks about winning. The Veteran talks about playing the game the right way.
2. The Rookie talks about their win-loss record. The Veteran talks about their players.
3. The Rookie takes credit for wins and blames players for losses. The Veteran blames himself for the loss and gives players credit for the win.
4. The Rookie tends to allow players to blame others (players, refs, coaches), while the Veteran teaches accepting responsibility and the meaning of “my fault”.

5. The Rookie wants to do everything and be the one in charge of everything. The Veteran develops and trusts their assistants.
6. The Rookie micro-manages his assistants. The Veteran oversees his assistants.
7. The Rookie hires less knowledgeable assistants, the Veteran surrounds himself with the best people.
8. The Rookie wants to control everything. The Veteran will ask the team to design uniforms, choose footwear, and even contribute to practice and game plan strategy.

9. The Rookie coaches through intimidation. Will yell and scream at players. The Veteran has a sense of humor and has developed a relationship w/ each player. The Veteran knows that each player in motivated differently and knows how to motivate each player.
10. The Rookie corrects players negatively. The Veteran attaches something positive with the comment of correction.
11. The Rookie is more apt to bench a player immediately for a mistake, while the Veteran will not embarrass the player but even use the situation to build the player’s confidence.

12. The Rookie focuses on the starters. The Veteran also works with the “role players”.
13. The Rookie talks to the media about their star players, while the Veteran talks about their role players and the contribution of their subs.
14. The Rookie tends to hand out MVP and high scorer awards. The Veteran believes in “practice player of the year” and “defensive” awards.

Part 2 Coming Soon!!!!

Appreciate the contributions from
Bob Rikeman- former Rollins College Baseball Coach
Jack MacMullan- former AD at Haverford and McDonogh Schools

Is the following true?

Boys have to win to feel good
Girls have to feel good to win

This is a very simple phrase that has lots of implications.

It suggests that:

• Boys play sports for the thrill of winning while girls play sports for camaraderie.
• There is more psychological and emotional factors for girls before they start to play
• There are some post-game strategies that coaches should employ, depending on the sex of the players.
• The coaching relationship and overall team chemistry with girls has a bigger impact on their performance than it does for the boys.

So what are the implications as a coach?

1) If you coach girls, understand the importance of the emotional state of the players as well as team chemistry issues. Perhaps you need to address these issues rather than ignore them.

2) Maybe understand that the socializing that occurs during practice, with the appearance that the girls are not focused, is actually important to the team being able to perform at a high level. This socializing helps them bond which helps them perform better.

Kudda would love to hear your thoughts!!

I know that I’m speaking for the masses out there when I start to question the reasoning behind some of the rules in girls’ lacrosse. Now I’m well aware, 100% supportive and understand the need to protect the players. That, to me, is priority #1. But… as I watch the games at the HS level, some things just don’t make sense.

If a girl gets carded and has to leave the field her team plays “man-down”. Unlike boys lacrosse or hockey, you’re still able to keep 7 defenders back to match up against the 7 attackers. The “man-down” gets taken off the offensive end. So it’s still a 7-7 situation… so where is the advantage and motivation to not commit those types of fouls? What if… both teams still had to keep 4 players back? That way, the defense would be “man-down” and there would be a 7v6 situation. The only thing that the current interpretation of the rule gets is confusion. Some proponents say that in transition the man down team gets hurt? Not sure? Change the rule to truly penalize the team that commits a foul by forcing each team to keep 4 players on the other side.

Here’s another rule that makes no sense. A girl goes in and scores but the defense is guilty of a “shooting space” foul and the whistle blows after the goal is scored. So what happens? The goal gets taken off the scoreboard and the offensive player gets an 8M shot. Then what happens? 7 out of 10 times they miss the shot. So, the offense scores a goal but the goal gets taken away because of a defensive foul and the burden is placed back on the offense to score again? Who gets penalized here, the defense or the offense? Supporters, meaning the referees, say that they need to teach safety and that committing shooting space fouls is dangerous (which it is). I was at a Jr level game over the weekend, where one team scored but the other team was offside. Logic suggests that you count the goal and continue. But no…not in girls lacrosse. The referees took the goal off the board and gave the offense an 8M shot. And guess what happened? They missed! Was safety an issue in an offside situation? Makes no sense.

How about this?
You penalize the shooting space infraction by carding the girl who committed the foul and then have them play man-down. If the team scored on that play, you count the goal and the team gets a man-up situation. Or count the goal and the offense still gets an 8M shot. Possibly offense walks away with 2 goals. Believe me, you would see a decrease in shooting space fouls. However, right now, what’s the incentive to NOT commit a shooting space foul?

Check out what the rules say about Shooting Space and how to properly teach how to avoid this call by going to Howard University Coach Jessie Morgans videos on Kudda. Click hereShooting Space

What has happened to the game of baseball lately? The games are getting longer and parent’s patience are getting shorter. Why do the youth games take so much longer to play? Why are games lasting well over 2 1/2 hours for a 7 inning game? Are the strike zones suddenly smaller so there are more pitches? Are players trying to imitate the pre-pitch antics of the Mike “Human Rain Delay” Hargrove, or Nomar or David Ortiz? Are the pitchers that much slower in between pitches? Are they not throwing strikes? Whatever happened to hustling on and off the field in between innings? Nowadays players waltz out to their positions.

I had to give up coaching baseball after 20 years because I wasn’t getting home until 7:15 after a 4:00 start. Thus I was missing my kids’ games. I remember getting home by 6:00 on a regular basis. We had many games that were over by 5:30? Why the gradual slowdown of the game? What is happening out there?

MLB is also experiencing longer games. This may be more to time in between innings to maximize the ad revenue. However, teams are more deliberate in changing pitchers, having mound discussions, and taking their sweet time in between pitches. The effect is with a 7:30 start time, games are lasting until 10:30-11:00. This makes it hard for families to attend a weeknight game.
When was the last time you saw the conclusion of a World Series Game?

Big question: What can be done to speed up the game? Of course, we need to figure out why the games at all levels are taking longer.

In a perfect coaching world, every game is close but your team wins because you have prepared your players better than your opponent. In other words… you out-coached them!! Granted, during the course of a season there’s going to be some close games and probably several more where there is a larger margin. However, what we hate as coaches are those games where one team is so dominant that the outcome of the game has been determined in the first 5 minutes. Coaching in these blowouts is one of the more demanding roles of a coach and needs to be handled with sportsmanship and dignity. If not, it’s a lose-lose situation… for both teams.

Coaching in these games is difficult because if you continue to score, you’ll embarrass your opponents by running the score up. Coaches try to prevent this by playing their bench or playing defenders on offense. Realize that if you empty your bench, they want to score as much as the others. And the defenders moving up to offense? They’re even worse about wanting to score!! In both cases, everyone wants to score! You still end up running up the score.
If you play keep-away, you embarrass the other team by “teasing” them.

We’ve seen some other “tactics” that actually embarrass the team more than if they just continued to run the score up.
For example, one of the prep schools here in Baltimore had an extremely big and fast RB at the middle school level. After giving the ball to this guy 4-5 times straight and having him run for touchdowns the coach decided to switch it up in an attempt to exhibit “good sportsmanship”. This star RB was also the 3rd string QB so the coach moved this stud to QB. OK, sounds like a nice gesture. Unfortunately, the coach called for QB draws and options which enabled this player to run for 2 more touchdowns. Basically they took the “handoff” out of the equation. When he was challenged by the opposing coach, the coach responded that this player was the 3rd string QB and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Lesson here is to make sure that your intention is actually effective.

Coaching Strategies in a Blowout are sport specific. I’ve noted some of the basic strategies we’ve seen exhibited but would welcome more ideas from our viewers.
These are strategies for the dominating team.

Basketball:
Defense- go into a tight zone where every player has to keep one foot inside the lane. This will allow the other team to at least get to shoot.
Offensively, Have a 5 pass rule or “windshield wiper” rule. Players have to complete 5 passes or get the ball from one side baseline by the 3-point line to the other side. Or possibly limit their shots to ones off of backdoor cuts or from a pick and roll.

Lacrosse:
Defense, everyone has to have one foot in a zone (girls: be aware of the 3 second call for being in the 8M)
Play off-hand. Work on the weak hand. Try to get something productive out of the game. Possess the ball for either a certain number of passes or a certain length of time.

Soccer:
Play possession. Get the ball into the offensive zone and then switch fields while bringing the ball back to defenders Focus on changing the attack.
Avoid- Keeper Sweeper or playing with fewer players. These tend to embarrass the other team and make your team appear to be cocky.

Baseball:
Bring in your players who don’t pitch that much. Could be painful if they can’t find the plate.
Offensively: You don’t want to bunt… that’s just plain disrespectful. Have your players work on hitting to the opposite field.
What you can’t do a whole lot about:
If their pitcher can’t find the plate. You don’t want your players swinging at bad pitches and developing bad habits.
If their fielders can’t field. Your team puts the ball in play. As long as they’re not knocking it over the fence, really nothing you have to do. Just don’t bunt.

There’s a balance between running the score up and embarrassing the team by exhibiting certain strategies that actually backfire.
If you have the right attitude and approach, you could go up to the opposing coach and say, “Coach, I’m aware of the score and we don’t want to run it up. I’ve got my subs in and we’re going to work on switching the field, connecting 8-10 passes before we attack the goal. We’re still going to be working hard and I know your team is still going to work hard.” Maybe say this at halftime (certainly not after 2 minutes… that’s a little arrogant!) Hopefully you’ve already talked with the coach and have established some connection with them.

Kudda welcomes comments and other strategies/tactics that coaches can use in a blowout situation.