Taking care of details is something that all successful coaches do well. Planning for all kinds of situations on defense & offense is one thing, but make sure you know how to plan to win when it comes to your schedule.

The most successful college softball team on the planet has been UCLA - no doubt about it. In the 31 years since they've had a softball program, UCLA has won 11 National Championships, 9 Pac-10 Championships, produced over 60 All-Americans and 15 Olympians! You might say that's because they have a great coach and they do in Kelly Inouye-Perez, but that string of wins has consistently happened over 3 different coaches - all of whom have understood how vital it is to create a Winners Mindset.

UCLA's history of winning doesn't just happen because they get great players. Lots of programs get great players and don't have this history of winning. Plus, teams with great players play other teams with great players so simply having outstanding players won't ensure you win.

Nope, winning like this must include a tenacious attention to all the little details down to something as seemingly minute as their schedule. I want to share with you how detailed UCLA gets when making out their schedule since I believe that this type of thinking is why they've had the success they've had over all the years they've had it. Keep in mind, that while UCLA did not end up at the Women's College World Series this year (they were beaten out in the Super Regionals by a very good Missouri team), they did win the Pac-10 beating out eventual WCWS Champion Washington!

Some of you cannot control your schedule - it is what it is. But most of us have the ability to control our schedule, even if only part of it. That part is usually the pre-season for school teams and for summerball teams you can control the tournaments you tenter.

Scheduling those controllable games is always hard since you're never sure whether you should schedule easy teams so your team can win a lot and gain confidence, or schedule tougher teams and learn from adversity (never mind the RPI that college coaches have to consider these days).

In the July 2007 issue of the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Newsletter (NFCA) UCLA's Head Softball Coach, Kelly Inouye-Perez was asked the following question:

How do you approach scheduling and why?

Here is her detailed answer to what seemed like a very simple question.

At UCLA we approach scheduling with the following in mind:
  1. We schedule tournaments in our preseason to get in a large volume of games to allow us to learn about our team.
  2. We try to stay local to allow us to stay on top of our academic schedule.
  3. We like to attend competitive tournaments with top-ranked teams to build our strength of schedule and get tested early.
  4. We play mid-week games to allow us to reach the maximum number of games allowed with local teams in the area.
  5. We take almost 2 weeks off before finals to allow the players time to focus on their classes.
  6. Then we schedule some competitive games to prepare us for the opening of conference.
  7. We don't play mid-week games during conference to recover, due to travel and missed class on Fridays.
These 7 points show the tremendous thought, detail and care for her players that Coach Inouye has even on something that seems as simple as her schedule. Coach Inouye shows how she uses her schedule to her advantage and takes control of the parts she's able to control in order to benefit her team instead of letting the schedule run her team down, destroy their confidence and take them away from class so often they're ineligible.

I know that travel is something many of you cannot avoid but I do think we can all learn a valuable lesson from the thought and detail Coach Inouye puts into her schedule and apply this same type of detailed thinking to all the things in our coaching life.

For more information on the National Fastpitch Coaches Association and to join this great organization check out their website, and also read more about UCLA's softball success.

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