Thread: Emotions

I have a great group of girls on my team and i feel they can go real far this season. only problem is now that the season has started they feel they have to play at everybody else level and get intimidated by the good teams on our schedule.
mind you our summer and winter schedule was 20 times tougher and we did great.
what can i do or say to get these girls to believe that they are the best and stop with the crying and everything else that comes with there emotions.

This has been discussed here a couple of times already. You don't give the age group, but I'm guessing younger girls.

It starts at the top, meaning YOU as the coach. The way you stop the crying stuff is to not be an enabler. Don't let the other players on the team be enablers. It's in the female psyche to mother, comfort and fix someone when they are crying. You can't have that on a team. Before you know it you have 12 players who are down because Suzie feels sorry for herself after she made a mistake.

The way you handle it is to acknowledge the player is crying. Ask her why she's crying. Let her try to verbalize it. Most of the times they don't know why they are crying. Then tell her it's not worth crying about. It's a game of failures and successes. The important thing is the tone. It's a very fine line when you talk to a crying kid. What I found works best is to just talk to them. Don't lecture them and don't comfort them. What it does is let them know that crying will not help them and there really is no reason for it without belittling them or discounting their feelings at the moment. By doing that you condition their thought processes from "Poor me." to thinking about how to correct the mistake and move on from there. It doesn't have to be long either. Usually it's 30 seconds or less. The important thing for you as the coach is to let it go as well. The short duration also conditions them to let it pass quicker as well.

Originally Posted by hollywoodtone

I have a great group of girls on my team and i feel they can go real far this season. only problem is now that the season has started they feel they have to play at everybody else level and get intimidated by the good teams on our schedule.
mind you our summer and winter schedule was 20 times tougher and we did great.
what can i do or say to get these girls to believe that they are the best and stop with the crying and everything else that comes with there emotions.

You could try to emphasize that it is a game and when it is over, it's over and worrying about it isn't going to help. Winning is nice, but the only thing that comes after winning or losing is the next game.

Of course, might be a little tougher to sell at the younger ages, but that depends on how much emphasis is placed on winning and trying to not be a loser. Of course, much of that comes from adults.

BS> They know why they are crying and you do to. It is not rocket science. Plus little boys cry a lot too, so everyone should get this by now. I am not sure why the female psyche was brought into this when 90 percent of coaches are male...

I have been through the mill with both of my daughters. I have coached 10 - 13 year old's for the last 7 years who range in skill and experience from rec to full-time travel. I will tell you this. Almost every time I ask a player why she is crying they can't tell me. As for the female psyche it is something that is conditioned into them. I have witnessed it several times where a player will come off of the field after making an error or striking out. I will have three or four of them want to come over and make it all better by sharing in the failure with the player. I've had to chase them away from a habitual crier so I don't have 5 of them feeling sorry for themselves. I learned that lesson the hard way.

Once they get older it gets better and there is less and less of it. But it does happen, even in college.

Originally Posted by Sparky Guy

I have been through the mill with both of my daughters. I have coached 10 - 13 year old's for the last 7 years who range in skill and experience from rec to full-time travel. I will tell you this. Almost every time I ask a player why she is crying they can't tell me. As for the female psyche it is something that is conditioned into them. I have witnessed it several times where a player will come off of the field after making an error or striking out. I will have three or four of them want to come over and make it all better by sharing in the failure with the player. I've had to chase them away from a habitual crier so I don't have 5 of them feeling sorry for themselves. I learned that lesson the hard way.

Once they get older it gets better and there is less and less of it. But it does happen, even in college.

And even in the AAGPBL

Not for everyone by my philosophy is sometimes you get beat. I clap for players on the other Team all the time when they make a good play. Telling a player on the other Team good job also sends a message to my Team that they did not do anything wrong.

When your players are batting it is a little bit harder because I am not cheering for their pitcher, but again sometimes the other player is better. That is over and done with maybe with more practice we can them, sometimes maybe not.

The JV team I help coach is actually a B team, so that means we are the younger with average 6th to 7th graders while we play 8th-10th graders. The team we played the other night drove themselves to the game. So how do we keep the fear from creeping in when my best 2nd base player is about 4ft tall while playing 5ft 6in giants. I tell them I would be worried if we were playing football and David knocked Galiath out with one little stone (good base hit). Every game we pump them up and tell them to have fun because their day is coming. So far this young team has lost every game but never gives up, sure a tear here and lip poked out there. I tell them I tast victory and it is bitter sweet because they will take out a top team. They lost to the #1 in the conference by 2 runs Friday night. Every game I see improvement, stay positive no matter what, get them to smile and cheer. All will be well and they will know they tried their best no matter what.

Girls (little women) always will have different emotions than men. Learn to drop a compliment and get them to smile.

thank you for all the responses my group of girls are high school age.none of them ever played rec or travel before high school.
i do get what some of you say i did have a hard talk with all of them so im hoping that with this spring break they turn it around.

Send them to the pole barn to run wind sprints until they have a reason to cry.

(sarcasm)

-W