Discipline

[Greenmonsters]

I've tried several times to type a response here. I can't without sounding wrong. In short, when my team had practice, it was a hard practice.

Coaching styles differ and players respond differently to different coaching styles. From either perspective, to be successful, you need to know yourself, find the fit, and be accountable.

As far as hard practices go, games should be easy compared to practices!

 

[grcsftbll]

A hard practice isn't punishment IMO. If a girl thinks of hard work as punishment that's the problem.

 

[BuckeyeGuy]

Here we go with Wooden again. Wonder how many of those championships he would have gotten if he would have followed NCAA rules? Yes, money man Gilbert was actively involved in the recruiting process and to quote the NCAA field investigator, he could have "suspended UCLA indefinitely" had he not been told to drop the case. Gilbert did everything from cash to play all the way to arranging abortions and Wooden is on record saying he turned a blind eye. Not objecting is the same as condoning. How about him letting Walton smoke dope?
Wooden would yell at and harass the opposing team's players while they were going down the court. This is someone you want emulate? Look it up, it's all out there. Wonder how many National Championships Bobby Knight bought, sure as heck wasn't as many as your mentor.

Coach speaking of Gilbert: "Maybe I had tunnel vision," Wooden once said. "I still don't think he's had any great impact on the basketball program." and "There's as much crookedness as you want to find. There was something Abraham Lincoln said — he'd rather trust and be disappointed than distrust and be miserable all the time. Maybe I trusted too much." and ""I tried my best," Wooden told the Basketball Times in 2005, ". . . My conscience is clear."

"Gilbert's influence ultimately helped land UCLA basketball on NCAA probation. In December 1981, UCLA was cited for nine infractions and received two years' probation, which included a one-year NCAA tournament ban and an order to vacate its 1980 NCAA national title game appearance against Louisville.
The most serious allegation levied against Gilbert was that he co-signed a promissory note so a player could buy a car. The NCAA ordered UCLA to disassociate Gilbert from its recruiting process.
Larry Brown was UCLA's basketball coach in 1980; none of the violations were tied to Wooden's era."

"The paper quoted Brent Clark, an NCAA field investigator who said that, in 1977, he was told to drop his case in Westwood. "If I had spent a month in Los Angeles, I could have put them on indefinite suspension," he said of UCLA. An NCAA spokesman disputed this claim, saying that Clark was living a "fantasy world." ' Coach retired in 1975.

And you're really crying about Wooden talking to opposing players, saying such awful things as "When are you going to let my guy shoot?" While pulling Bob "Here's an effing chair to help you shoot free throws! Oh, and let me slap an opposing coach in the head before I choke one of my own players." Knight out? Really?

But by all means, focus on tearing down and slinging mud. Way to contribute.

 

[JAD]

I am not sure why everyone considers running "punishment". Well conditioned players are going to win more games than poorly conditioned players and since most teams do not have a swimming pool available, running is one of the best ways I know for conditioning. If running is so bad, why does anyone join the cross country or track teams? I would love for the anti-running parents to ask college coaches how much their players run and report back to the group.

 

[RetiredCoach]

What if a team was so good that they didn't have to do any running? The teams that are bad and do a lot of running might start kicking their butts. Point being: Running is part of a good conditioning program for a serious fastpitch athlete. Running's primary purpose should be conditioning, not punishment.

 

[grcsftbll]

I agree and that's really what I meant. Working hard is part of playing a sport. If a girl thinks it's punishment perhaps she should take up knitting. That's what I do. It's all about how you frame things. If girls are making certain errors, you do things to address the errors & decrease their frequency. Not punishment, teaching and practicing. If they're unfocused you do something to bring them back into focus. That's not punishment, it's just coaching. And consequences are part of life - if someone is goofing off or not taking the game seriously, they sit. They may feel they're being punished but the coach is just doing what's best for the team.

 

[Easton33]

Guess you expected the NCAA to confirm they told him to back off? Yeah right. You failed to include this other quote from the same story.
"The Times established that Gilbert, during Wooden's heyday, helped players get cars, clothes, airline tickets and scalpers' prices for UCLA season tickets. Gilbert allegedly even arranged abortions for players' girlfriends."

You decided to tear down someone else's coaching methods and decide to bring Wooden into the conversation as someone that should be revered. Unfortunately some of us don't think he was that great and you get butt hurt, sorry. He was not a god, he had the best players money could buy, (literally) so it would be hard to not come up with successful seasons with any coaching style.
One last quote, "He furnished championship-era players with cars, clothes, and heaven knows what else, because he had lots of money (some of it allegedly ill-gotten) and he really liked UCLA, I guess. Some have argued that Wooden never knew about Gilbert's gifts, but the coach is on the record as having asked players about the clothes as early as 1969, and it's likely he noticed the excess before then. (Does a man as detail-oriented and intelligent as Wooden miss his amateur players rolling around Westwood in brand new cars? That, uh, seems unlikely.)"
Not trying necessarily to tear anyone down, but then again I am not placing anyone on a pedestal either. To address your closing remarks, your ( and Sluggers) contribution to this thread was nothing but tearing another coach down but somehow you are offended when I do the same with Wooden?! Hypocrisy a little?
I like the fact that there is a distinction made between 14/15 year old girls vs college (freshman usually 17/18) and that one way is good for 1 age group and not for the other. However you are offering up a coaching style that was successful with a BOYS BASKETBALL program and it is relevant how? Just an FYI, Wooden ran his players relentlessly in practice to make sure they were in peak shape. We don't run our players relentlessy because this is SOFTBALL, not basketball. I add running and burpees to discipline our girls because I am getting a little extra conditioning on them in a sport that doesn't necessarily require them to be in top condition.

So pick a softball coach you like that has methods that work for him in the softball world and lets discuss that. Not a basketball coach that retired 40 years ago.

 

[CoogansBluff]

When you have a lot to offer, you can mistreat people and they'll tolerate it. Pretty girls don't have to be as nice. Woody Hayes and Bear Bryant and Bobby Knight don't either. They offer the opportunity to play at the highest level, win national titles. And if they really cared about their players, then they offered that mentorship and guidance as well. Just because a coach employed a certain strategy doesn't necessary mean it was part of their success.

Also remember that this thread began with 14U girls. They've never heard of Woody Hayes. That was 40-50 years ago. He coached young adult men in a different era. I understand why Bear Bryant could use punishment running to cull the herd. If college athletes don't want to compete and win by that point in their lives, they need to be culled. But IMO, that's entirely different than running a 12U travel softball team. There's too much culling of the herd too soon in youth sports, where Bear Bryant-minded coaches suck the fun out of the game for kids that just want to enjoy it and grow and not treat it like it's life and death, at least not yet. Give them time.

 

[RetiredCoach]

If we can all agree that winning isn't everything for 14U girls fastpitch softball then, I think, it becomes an easy decision for whom you would want your DD to play for. The short list probably would NOT include Bobby Knight types, Woody Hayes prototypes, et al...

 

[Easton33]

If we can all agree that winning isn't everything for 14U girls fastpitch softball then, I think, it becomes an easy decision for whom you would want your DD to play for. The short list probably would NOT include Bobby Knight types, Woody Hayes prototypes, et al...

Agreed. Let's be realistic here though. Nobody is out here pulling the shenanigans Bobby Knight did and I don't even endorse what he did with his teams. He is just on the opposite end of spectrum and was successful. Pretty sure that is how is name was brought up.
I personally think that as girls age up their practices should progress up as well as their conditioning. I think milk and cookie coaching for lower ages is exactly what they need. Let them learn the game, enjoy it, and love it. As they get older gradually increase. I wouldn't coach 8u the way I coach 16u, big difference there. However, I would coach 14u and 16u with few differences. 16u is a harder more firm approach for me but they would resemble each other. Dial down the tolerance, increase the conditioning. Just how I do things, like it or not, agree with it or not. It works for me and the girls I have.