- Jun 1, 2015
- 501
- 43
As coaches, what are some of your go-to strategies to turn negative moments both at-bat and in the field into positive moments? I tend to find myself steaming from my ears when my girls do the silly errors we spend all of practices going over to avoid (not swinging the bat on pitches in the zone, then fly-swatting high balls outside of the zone; not calling fly balls and letting fly balls drop between two oncoming fielders, etc.) in games, then not seem too overly-worried/bothered by it. Yes I know, "you can't want it more than they do" and all that, I get that.
Whereas I generally find myself being rather aggressive with how I approach these situations, I want to try and turn that corner and develop new strategies to overcome internal anger/frustrations I'm developing (I would rather blame myself for someone's error as me not teaching them well enough vs. blaming a kid for not doing it how I want them to) and to take negative scenarios and make them positives. I don't want my negative feelings/attitudes to be the cancer that engulfs an entire team's momentum/attitude, but at the same time don't want to be 'that' coach who just says "every little thing is going to be alright" after basic errors committed by girls who are old enough to know better.
(background - this is a VERY young team. Most players are 12-14 and we are playing in a 16U rec-level league. There are no 12U or 14U leagues in our area, so this is what we do for summer-level competition, and I'm trying to keep age/experience in the back of my mind.)
Whereas I generally find myself being rather aggressive with how I approach these situations, I want to try and turn that corner and develop new strategies to overcome internal anger/frustrations I'm developing (I would rather blame myself for someone's error as me not teaching them well enough vs. blaming a kid for not doing it how I want them to) and to take negative scenarios and make them positives. I don't want my negative feelings/attitudes to be the cancer that engulfs an entire team's momentum/attitude, but at the same time don't want to be 'that' coach who just says "every little thing is going to be alright" after basic errors committed by girls who are old enough to know better.
(background - this is a VERY young team. Most players are 12-14 and we are playing in a 16U rec-level league. There are no 12U or 14U leagues in our area, so this is what we do for summer-level competition, and I'm trying to keep age/experience in the back of my mind.)