- Nov 29, 2009
- 2,973
- 83
benny & trojan,
There have been a lot of mistakes made along the way with this pitcher.
The first is with the pitching coach. There is no way you show a pitcher that young 7 pitches without her mastering the first one you taught them. There is a progression each pitcher must go through in the learning process. You can't skip steps. Who knows? The The dad may be pressuring the PC to "teach" the girl the pitches. Only the PC knows the answer to that question. As you've said he's a respected PC. I know I've had a few parents I've had to set straight. I usually don't see them after that because it's not what they want to hear. The PC may be doing what the client wants to keep from losing the revenue.
The second is the dad who has no clue what's going on so he's emulating what he thinks the pitching coach wants done. He's trying to learn with his DD. That is a recipe for disaster in most cases.
The third is your not understanding the learning to pitch process. You knew the father's sports background and still let him in the dugout to begin with. You've been coaching the team for multiple seasons with success against travel teams. Did you doubt your abilities when it came to pitching? I would guess you'd do a better job at calling pitches than the dad.
When it comes to learning new pitches and incorporating them into a game the process is rather straight forward. When the girl is throwing a certain pitch well regularly in practice you bring it into the games in situations where making a mistake with it will not hurt the team. The 3-2 changeup can be thrown if there are two outs and no runners on. If the batter walks it's not good, but it's not bad either and the pitcher gets some experience trying to throw it with pressure on.
The softball world is a lot smaller than people think. If this dad keeps on the same track he will run his DD through several travel teams for various reasons. Sooner or later his reputation will precede his DD and none of the travel coaches will want anything to do with her. I've seen it happen before where a good player is passed over due to a parent. And the parent usually has no clue.
There have been a lot of mistakes made along the way with this pitcher.
The first is with the pitching coach. There is no way you show a pitcher that young 7 pitches without her mastering the first one you taught them. There is a progression each pitcher must go through in the learning process. You can't skip steps. Who knows? The The dad may be pressuring the PC to "teach" the girl the pitches. Only the PC knows the answer to that question. As you've said he's a respected PC. I know I've had a few parents I've had to set straight. I usually don't see them after that because it's not what they want to hear. The PC may be doing what the client wants to keep from losing the revenue.
The second is the dad who has no clue what's going on so he's emulating what he thinks the pitching coach wants done. He's trying to learn with his DD. That is a recipe for disaster in most cases.
The third is your not understanding the learning to pitch process. You knew the father's sports background and still let him in the dugout to begin with. You've been coaching the team for multiple seasons with success against travel teams. Did you doubt your abilities when it came to pitching? I would guess you'd do a better job at calling pitches than the dad.
When it comes to learning new pitches and incorporating them into a game the process is rather straight forward. When the girl is throwing a certain pitch well regularly in practice you bring it into the games in situations where making a mistake with it will not hurt the team. The 3-2 changeup can be thrown if there are two outs and no runners on. If the batter walks it's not good, but it's not bad either and the pitcher gets some experience trying to throw it with pressure on.
The softball world is a lot smaller than people think. If this dad keeps on the same track he will run his DD through several travel teams for various reasons. Sooner or later his reputation will precede his DD and none of the travel coaches will want anything to do with her. I've seen it happen before where a good player is passed over due to a parent. And the parent usually has no clue.