Nature v. Nurture

absdad said:

I agree with you 100%. The two fastest girls on my dd's team, are also the smallest in height and mass. They both have speed like a Jackal, and are prolific stealers. One is my dd.

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I'll brag for a moment. My littlest never ceases to amaze me. Athletically she can do anything she puts her mind to. Does tumbling and dance in addition to softball. Is the only kid in her advanced tumbling class that can execute no-handed cart wheels. She's 7 and there are kids as old as 12 in there. She batted lead off for me at 8U and played short last summer. I finally saw a kid in her age range that can out run her last year when she tried out for that 9U team and that was special.

But we also had two other kids that were about her size that were good little ball players. All three started all-stars in the infield. Some of the bigger kids could hit the ball farther. But with my one and two stick (little farts) when they got one past the outfielders it was a triple or home run because of their speed. This was in a machine pitch league @ 37 mph, not coach pitch.

PA SB Dad said:

For those that have more time than common sense, I would suggest taking a look at Chapter 2 of SuperFreakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner for an interesting perspective on this issue. They point out that one factor makes a baseball player 800 times more likely to go on to play in the major leagues than the average person - a father that played in the major leagues. Is that nature or nurture? I vote more nature than anything else, though I would not discourage otherwise "normal" kids from working hard towards their goals.

In terms of physical maturity, consider in softball that the age cutoffs are December 31/January 1 of a particular year. Now consider that a 7 year old born on Jan 2 plays at the same level as one born Dec. 30. The one born earlier in the year (she is almost a full year older) will generally be more physically mature and the differences are much more pronounced at the younger ages. Combine that with greater athletic skill and at the younger ages you have a kid more likely to dominate. That becomes less of an issue as all the kids physically mature and catch up, but subtle differences remain based on what month of the year a child was born. Read the chapter - if nothing else it makes for some fun reading and quotable material.

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Having a father in the major leagues suggests a strong baseball envirorment in the household and surroundings. How can you distinguish nature vs. nurture in such a case?

DonnieS said:

Agreed. Proper mechanics/technique, lots of practice, and passion beat exceptional athletic ability. And raw love for the sport is what I appreciate the most. When a kid asks me, hey call up my hitting coach and see if he has room for me this evening, I get excited. Or I dont have much homework tonight, lets go some more, I could use another round on that pitch. Or 'kid, you need to make a choice this weekend, we have both pitching lessons and a pitching camp, which do you want to do?', and she says 'Can't we do both?'. This is after 8 years of pitching.

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To me, this has always been one of the most fascinating facets of high level softball. The answering of the question, "What does it take to play at the highest level."

I coached at the 18u/Gold level for 5 years. I will offer my TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE criteria for what I saw in players. To me, and again this is just my experience/opinion, I judged athletes and their potential success on 3 criteria.

1) Talent- In this category, I include genetics/raw athletic ability.

2) Work ethic- How hard is the kid willing to work on the skills necessary to perform at the highest level.

3) Heart/ Love of the game. Essentially, if given a choice, would you rather be playing softball more than anything else.

In furtherance of my SUBJECTIVE criteria, I think that to make it to a top 25 D-1 or top 10 D-2, you had to have a nebulous level of ability in all 3 categories I listed above. By that I mean, if you can't walk and chew bubble gum, (the talent part) then I don't care how much you work or how much you love the game, you simply don't have the minimum threshold of talent to make it. Conversely, if you have the most talent, if you aren't willing to work at it, you won't be succesful either.

Also in my subjective criteria, not only did you have to have a minimum threshhold for all three, two of the 3 had to be above the average elite athelete.

I'll offer a couple of examples that reinforce my beliefs. I had a SS who was without question the most athletically gifted player I ever coached. She was one of three sisters, all of whom played for top 25 D-1 schools, Her next oldest sister was a multi-time all-american and went on to set the NCAA record for stolen bases in a season. Her father was a track star and competed for a spot on the Olympic team in the 100 meters
, So, in the genetic lottery, she won the gold medal many times over. In the "love of the game" category, she wanted to play, If she felt like it. In the work ethic category, she sucked. When we played, the crowd, and many coaches, ooohed and ahhed over how quick she got to the ball and was able to get rid of it and make the play. However, if paid close attention, you would see how many steps she had to take to get to the ball and how poor her technical skills were in the release. I tried to tell her that regardless of how good she was athletically, if she didn't bear down and work on her skills, someday it would come back to haunt her. She got a full ride to a top 25 D-1 school and was relegated to pinch running and quit after her sophmore year.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, I had a pitcher who definitely didn't win the genetic lottery. At the younger ages, she still was better than 90% of the kids she played against. She was always an all-star and recieved many athletic accolades and was always the first girl picked in grade school when the boys and girls played coed games. So, compared to your average girl, she was pretty athletic, compared to elite athletes, not so much. She was terribly slow of foot. I have seen her rope a hit to CF and get thrown out at first. She was too slow to hit in the top of the order, not powerful enough to hit in the middle but somehow, no matter the composition of the team, she was always in the line-up, mostly through shear force of will. She was always the first at practice and always the last to leave. She would pitch/bat/field/run hour after hour and day after day. Simply put, she willed herself to play. She went on to play for a top 10 d-2 schoool on a full ride and got to be an academic all-american. Her accomplishments, mainly owning to shear force of will.

So, just a couple of example of how I saw it play out on the field...........YMMV

A couple of things to think about, in the book "Outliers" one chapter focuses on professional hockey players and birthdates. Almost all of the pro players were born in Jan, Feb, and March (cut-off date for leagues is 12/31) which made these early calendar year kids bigger and more mature than the other kids born in later months. These older kids generally played in the league all-stars, getting more playing time than the kids not on all-stars and playing against better competition. And then the cycle starts over again the following year. The bottom-line is that birthdates and maturity does matter. Second point in the book, there is a rule of 10,000 hours. In order to master something you need to do it around 10,000 hours. Kids who practice a lot will start to become extremely good at that task (e.g. fielding ground balls, pitching riseballs, hitting fastballs, etc.)

Regarding a child born to a pro athlete, environment and money is more important than genetics in player development. These kids are around the game since birth, have the best equipment money can buy, hitting instructors, camps, influence on coaches for best positions, parents/coaches expectations that kid will excel, etc. The same is true with academics, don't fool yourself thinking that ones environment is not key. Genetics plays a role but is the the determining factor.

800 Times more likely. Interesting study about driving skills.

Blame genetics for bad driving, study finds - CNN.com

If driving skill can be determined to be genetic, why can the not be same said for baseball or softball.

Bill

SoCalSoftballdad said:

Genetics plays a role but is the the determining factor.

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I can see that to a point, but when pro athlete dad, marries a pretty blonde with no athletic ability at all, isn't that "diluting the pool" with regards to athleticism?

I meant to say that it "is not the determining factor". Good point about the marriage, kids are only getting 50% of the athletic ability assuming other spouse has none.

Someone very successful once said that the greatest gift his parents ever gave him as a child was that they believed in him. For our DDs in softball, we should never use lack of athletic ability as an excuse not to succeed in the sport. Kristina Thorson (NPF Bandits) IMO is not the most athletic person in the world but according to her, she excelled at pitching through sheer determination, living by the motto "Champions do uncommon things, things that are boring and tedious to others" and the belief that she could be the best.

You've watched to much ESPN and sport movies. If it were only so, then EVERY child could be a superstar. All you would then need is the right mental attitude and enough money and time to make it happen. But, it doesn't work that way. "A coach can't put in what God left out."

I've hit this twice where someone was more gifted athletically than my kids.

DD#1 went to the same pitching coach as Girl#1. DD#1 worked about 10 times harder than Girl#1. Trouble was, Girl#1 could throw 65 mph at 14. She had great form. The coach told me that she was almost technically perfect from the day she first came to see him. But, girl#1 didn't enjoy playing softball. Girl#1 ended up at a perennial softball powerhouse and played in the CWS. My DD#1 caught on with a mid-level D1 team and had a relatively good career. The pitching coach said that if Girl#1 worked as hard as my DD#1, then Girl#1 would have been an Olympian. But, she didn't--because she really didn't like the game very much. She was just good at it. Even with a 50% effort, she was twice the pitcher my DD#1 was. And, my DD#1 was an all-conference pitcher.

DD#3 was a hoop player. She grew up in the same town as Candace Parker (2 time NCAA MVP, rookie of the year WNBA, Olympic gold medalist, and generally considered to be the best female college basketball player ever). DD#3 and Candace were the same age and same height. DD#3 scored 1400 points in HS and Candace had 2500 or so points. (Candace is a great young lady, by the way.) There were many, many girls in Chicagoland who went to the same coaches as Candace and worked as hard as Candace. But, none of them were even close to being as good as her.

This is just reality. It is neither bad nor good.

I would not assume that since someone is a better pitcher than your DD doesn't necessarily make her "athletically gifted". In your example, the coach didn't see her until she was 14. She might have been pitching since she was 6 and had 8 years to perfect her craft before this coach ever saw her. Most times when we say someone is naturally gifted, there is a lot of hard work, practice, and passion that went into it. Lastly, every child is not a superstar for many reasons, not just because they are not "athletically gifted". Take Spud Webb, NBA player for many years, was only 5ft 8in. He had no right to play at the highest level, but somehow he overcame his physical limitations and played with the best in the world. How did he do it?

I have to admit, when I posted about SuperFreakonomics, it was tongue-in-cheek, especially since most of the book (and the one before it) is as much about humor as it is about statistics. On a more serious note, having spent the past month or so reading various posts here, what I see is a lot of people who are passionate about softball, particularly passionate softball parents. I can see there is a lot of buy-in to the notion that limitless hard work and effort will ultimately win out over natural athletic talent. I can only buy into that so much, knowing that no matter how hard I work and how much I want it, I will never run a sub-4 minute mile!

I think I am realistic about my daughter's abilities. She's a good travel ball player for an 11 year old on a good 12U team. She plays center field and pitches. She bats 7th or 8th. She will probably get to play on her middle school team. I think making the high school team is a stretch. Playing D-1 is out of the question, though she might prove me wrong (you never know). If she had the chance to play in college, it would most likely be at a small D-3 school, in which case she would be playing because she continued to love the sport and nothing else. That is all OK with me.

She loves to pitch and has been going to lessons for the past year. She has me out throwing every chance we get, sometimes every day. However, she is no better than #4 on her travel team - she will never pitch this year on Sunday, and will rarely see circle time in pool play except in a blow out. She does however pitch rec league and will probably pitch for her middle school. I pay for lessons because she loves going. I look at it like I were paying for piano lessons - I don't pay for them thinking she has to make it to Carnegie Hall in order for it to be worthwhile.

I think many parents buy-in to the notion that limitless hardwork and effort will win out over natural talent because they are not realistic about their kids' abilities. How often have you heard people criticize a kid who made an error in a game by saying "That kid has no business being out there!" Now how many say that about their own kid? When we talk about "reaching one's potential" and "peak performance", it implies there is a ceiling to one's performance. You will only get so good before you no longer improve. Anyone who tells you differently must be selling you lessons. Look at all the parents who bought into the "Baby Einstein" theory that teaching a 1 year old to read would give their kids a head start and make them smarter. We don't have a bunch of genius kids walking around, only rich salesmen.