Team Player or Stand out Player?

I’ve never been great.  I’ve been good all my life…but never great.  Now all of us have great moments…by that I mean that time when you have a great moment.  Scored the winning run, hit a walk off,  etc.  That moment is something special.  However, there are really only a handful of truly special players.

I’ve been fortunate enough to get to know many of them, and to have witnessed the growth of some who will truly be considered great some day.  But (there’s always a but isn’t there …) in all my time of playing I’ve come to realize something.  One great player cannot force their will upon the game.  This is a team sport.  You win because you play your part, or role as it is, and you do it to the best you can.

What do I mean by this? Well, simple… I’ve got a closet full of trophies and T-shirts and even a couple of rings… all were won by teams.  I have been on winning teams far fewer times than I have been on losing teams, but I have always done my job to help that team win.

The true measure of a player is when they are that stand out player who can play the game and play what role they need to for the sake of the team.  I’ll give you an example.  It was probably 15 years ago (early 2000 or 2001) and I was playing on a B team at a tournament in Mesquite Texas.  We had lost our Short Stop to an ankle injury and we had been playing without our starting Center Fielder who couldn’t make it that weekend.  We lost our second game (the game in which our Short Stop got injured) and then proceeded to win 7 straight games in losers bracket to make the finals.  No we didn’t double dip the champs but we did force the IF game… only to lose on a great diving catch by the left fielder to nab the 3rd out and prevent the tying run from scoring.

Doesn’t sound like an ABC after school special, but it should have been.  We were down to 10 guys. 3 of us (including me) were not generally starters.  Yet with 10 guys who were middle of the road we put on a great run. Supporting each other and playing team ball.  We nearly pulled off the upset.  Yes, we got hot, but what we did was play our roles.  We hit the ball behind the runner, hit the ball in the air for the SAC flies, etc.  We did everything our coaches taught us to do to win… and we did.  We knew we didn’t have a great player among us to lead the charge so we each pitched in and played to our own strengths, offering to do the things we knew we were good at, even if we didn’t like it, to win.

So if you had handed us a Premier player, would we have done as well? Would we have won more? or maybe won less?  It’s an interesting question.  In the end I think the lesson from this is very simple.  Win as a team, lose as a team, but NEVER stop fighting as a team.  You don’t need 1 or 2 special guys to win… you just need 10 (or 11) guys with heart, desire and faith in each other and the winning will take care of itself.

 

To Coach or Not to Coach

Okay, so I hear this a lot “It’s not that hard to coach softball”.  WRONG.  Now by this I mean that there are two parts to being a good coach. Part 1 is managing the game, Part 2 is managing everything else that goes into a weekend of playing softball.

So before we can really talk about part one, I should probably give you some background on what we as coaches have to do to get an event:

1. Create a Roster (online or paper) of all players with their full names (spelled correctly) and everyone’s address and DOB.  Why? Because you can’t book a ticket without the players information.  Make sure you have all email and cell phone numbers for contacting players.
2. Set up a facebook or website group page  AND a group text so that everyone can be in communication with each other.
3. Have the park location and use websites to track which hotels are the closest to the park and still have the required number of rooms you will need for your team.
4. Book the hotel (I suggest using Hotels.com as after 10 stays you get one free – and with 15 players for 2 nights you wind up with 1 free stay immediately following your event).  Create a room list.
5. Book all the flights, once booked capture all confirmation numbers, airline and other information in case a player forgets or loses the information…because it will happen.
6. Book rental cars (I suggest using priceline.com as you can compare all the car prices for all the different rental companies or if you have time and patience you can name your own price)
7. Using the arrival times (if your team is from all over) build the car pool list so each player knows who they are riding with and who is responsible for the rental car.

THAT my friends is part two… setting up the event.  The entire process takes hours and often requires multiple phone calls to make sure players have there flight information, that they can leave on that flight, if they need money to pay for the bags, etc.

Now let’s talk about part 1… this involves the following:

1. Decide who’s going to start at what position.
2. Determine who’s leading off, and all the subsequent hitters.
3. Using any previous game stats determine which pitcher you should be using against the team your playing against.
4. Review any notes you have on the opponents team to make sure in the team huddle before the game you fill them in on what to expect.

While all of this seems simple enough, try doing it and playing.  It won’t work.  You’ll be too distracted by squabbling about who’s hitting where in the line up, who needs money for their bags, and who needs to change rooms to have ANY idea when you’re up to bat.

For years I tried to do both… I learned the hard way, that if your going to play you can’t coach… your head will just explode into a guewy pile of sludge..

So the next time your coach makes a move you don’t understand or that you think is wrong, remember what he/she probably goes through every weekend there is a tournament.