fear of failure

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Jun 19, 2013
753
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Haven't you guys seen the story about the spoiled, emotionally unstable kid who has potential and wants to be a college pitcher but she just doesn't have quite the right attitude so she is taken under the wing of the caring and patient softball coach and is then transformed into the next Cat Osterman by the end of the movie? It's an amazing fairy tale - look for it on the Hallmark Channel - because it isn't happening on the ball fields.

You can't sacrifice the rest of your team and your family life for a kid who's parents have screwed them up ever since day one of t-ball, and they are used to the world revolving around them, and now they want you to fix what they've made. Send her back to rec ball or to high school ball where her talents will be amazing and the pressure won't be so great. This doesn't sound like a girl who needs a little encouragement and a chance in the circle to see if she can hack it - you've given her that.
 

sluggers

Super Moderator
Staff member
May 26, 2008
7,132
113
Dallas, Texas
We cant focus our whole day, practice, or tournament focused on keeping one kid emotionally up! At some point the high maintenance player will either suck it up for whats best for the team or she will not be on a team

Absolutely...there is no need to get angry or upset about it. Some kids love to play and other don't. So what? Sitting on the beach eating and ice cream cone just may be a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon then covered in dirt up to your chin with some Crazy Daddy who never pitched an inning in his life screaming "just throw strikes".

Everyone make such a big deal out of it. Adults change their hobbies all the time. How many people have golf clubs/fishing rods sitting in their garage that haven't been used in years? Yet, no one is coming around wringing their hands. When a kid does the same thing, suddenly we have to pull out psychotherapists, sports counselors and the clergy.
 
Jul 2, 2013
381
43
Sluggers is on the right track here.

Give her one more chance to pitch and the next time she says "I suck" or "I don't want the pressure" tell her that's fine and never pitch her again. Don't make a point out of telling her that she won't be pitching, just do it. If she's good enough to play another position then put her there. If she continues the drama there, ignore her. Coach her if she needs coaching but don't feed into the drama any more. One of two things will happen. Either she'll give up because she's not getting her way or she'll realize that she can't depend on others to constantly prop her up. Either way, problem solved.

I've seen this happen with 14U girls and the coach in the situation babied the girl because he thought he needed her. The rest of the team hated it because she was getting special attention whenever she whined about something. The girl ended up moving away and the team actually got better after she left. What a shock! ;)
 
Jun 27, 2011
5,089
0
North Carolina
Spoken like a true outside the fence parent..its easy to say "do you job and coach them" when your not in my shoes.

CJ - I agree. That was spoken like a true outside the fence parent. I tried to make that very clear:

‘’Easy for me to say when I'm not dealing with what is obviously a great challenge.’’

‘’I'm not in the dugout with this particular girl. Maybe she's one who crosses the line, poisons the rest of the team and needs to go.’’

I was not telling you specifically to do your job. I was trying to say that coaches in general should coach attitude and the mental part of the game just as much as the technical, mechanical part of it. I don’t understand why so any coaches that I see get more frustrated at players for their emotional/mental shortcomings than they do about their physical shortcomings. To me, they're the same. Does that apply to you? I don’t know. I’m outside the fence. I apologize for my choice of words, but I can’t apologize for putting this point of view into the debate. That's the best part of the forum. Anything that makes us defend ourselves, right or wrong, makes us stronger, IMO.
 
Jun 24, 2013
427
0
I, for one, do not put up with the "I suck" comments. I have a team rule. Anyone that says the words "I can't" must drop and give me 10 pushups. I do not tolerate that phrase at practice or in games. Like I said before, I had one of "those" girls. It was almost like everytime I gave her an instruction or "coaching" she would look over to the fence to her parents for a thumbs up or thumbs down to see if they thought she should listen to me. I tried coaching her in a positive way, I tried coaching her and building her up. Some girls are uncoachable because their parent is not their official coach. I had another girl (a pitcher no less) who was all over the place with her throws. Once, when her dad was catching for her while warming up, I was observing her throwing wild pitches with her dad saying things like "C'mon! Get 'em straightened out", "Throw strikes Heather*!", "Throw it harder!", "Throw it like you mean it", etc, All to no avail. I walked over and told her "Say this out loud" "This pitch is going to be a strike!" I then told her to throw. Boom. Strike! I told her to do it again, say those words before she threw and then throw. She did it again, another strike. 4 times in a row she did that, throwing a strike each time. As I started walking away I saw her look at her father and he just shook his head like he was saying "You don't have to do that." Right back to the same throws and same lame "correction" attempts by dad. I coached her, gave her something that worked and then dad overruled me. I did my job, she didn't do her job as a player, which is to be coachable. She lasted one season and still struggles on her new team(s).
I work really hard on coaching the positive side of the game, some girls just do not want positivity in their lives. I understand the girls mental attitude and percieved mental weaknesses because they are girls. I work on building them up because I know how important it is to them. I try to tell the girls from time to time something special that they did at practice or in a game. Also when they demonstrate something right in practice I will call attention to it using their name like "See how Suzie held the ball in the glove with her hand when she made the tag? That is how it is done correctly! Good job Suzie!" (Keep in mind that I coach from 8U to 14U so some examples may seem basic!). I want girls that want to be there and want to get better. If they want to be the center of attention or really want their parent to be the coach, then they need to move on. Like the old saying goes "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink!"
 
Jun 27, 2011
5,089
0
North Carolina
Coach James - Got your message. Your inbox is full. Can't reply. Appreciate what you said. You put yourself on the line by starting threads about challenging situations on your team. I respect that and enjoy your posts. Thank you.
 

JJsqueeze

Dad, Husband....legend
Jul 5, 2013
5,436
38
safe in an undisclosed location
I think it is ridiculous for a dad to mess with something that is working. On the flip side, our HC was telling my daughter to throw strikes. It was like a stuck record and it drove me nuts. I don't think I've ever told her to throw a strike, our whole goal is to get her to learn what her mechanics are and get used to certain adjustments by using the feel and location of her pitches to know what to correct. I specifically tell her that if she gets the mechanics right then the location will follow. Then one day when she was having problems in the circle and I noticed her stride was too long I was telling her to shorten it up and he asked me to not say anything because it distracted her. I did as was requested and his next feedback for her.....throw it in there, throw hard, throw strikes, you can do it.
 
Dec 5, 2012
4,143
63
Mid West
Coach James - Got your message. Your inbox is full. Can't reply. Appreciate what you said. You put yourself on the line by starting threads about challenging situations on your team. I respect that and enjoy your posts. Thank you.
Went online last night and deleted my inbox...including your msg that I hadn't read yet ! lol
 
May 7, 2013
31
0
Texas
I think it is ridiculous for a dad to mess with something that is working. On the flip side, our HC was telling my daughter to throw strikes. It was like a stuck record and it drove me nuts. I don't think I've ever told her to throw a strike, our whole goal is to get her to learn what her mechanics are and get used to certain adjustments by using the feel and location of her pitches to know what to correct. I specifically tell her that if she gets the mechanics right then the location will follow. Then one day when she was having problems in the circle and I noticed her stride was too long I was telling her to shorten it up and he asked me to not say anything because it distracted her. I did as was requested and his next feedback for her.....throw it in there, throw hard, throw strikes, you can do it.

Change your relationship with the coach or move to another team. My dd played on a team with a coach who liked to control every aspect of the team. Very common on tb teams. I kept my mouth shut and helped at practices. We became friends. Easy to do in between tourney games if you like the coach. He realized i had something to offer. I became an asst coach. After that I realized he was discussing/polling his coaches on a lot of pre game decisions. He never passed the buck.
 
Jun 24, 2013
427
0
I only tell my parents to refrain from saying things that are derogatory, like "C'mon you can do better than that!". If they want to correct mechanics, I do not have a problem with that. I do have a problem with the "Throw strikes" comment. Are they not trying to do that anyways? Is it going to suddenly dawn on them that they should have been trying to throw strikes instead of balls? It reminds me of an event that happened at a local car race track. This guy running the race had his buddies watching him from the stands. He was not in the lead but was trying to do so (like everyone else out there!). Every time he came past his buddies in the stands they would make hand motions for him to pass the cars ahead of him. I thought to myself "What do these guys think he is trying to do out there? Is he going to take the time one lap around to look over at his buddies, see them telling him to pass the car and go 'Oh! you want me to pass him? Got it! I'll get right on it.' ?" I mean he looks like he was trying pretty hard to do that to me.
If a parent notices something about their mechanics, such as the stride comment, I let it happen. If they are putting pressure or demeaning the girls, I stop it with a quick "Mom/Dad, I got this." comment.
Things I discourage:
"Don't lose this one!"
"Don't let this one get away!"
"We need this out!"
"FOCUS!"
"You can throw better than that!
"The team is counting on you!"
"Throw strikes!"

In my first mound trip I will speak to the girl and ask "What do you think is going wrong with your motion?" I will listen to her response and say "Good. Sounds like you know what to do to fix it. I believe in you, go get them. And take a moment between pitches if you need to." Second mound trip will be more like "It looks like you are getting frustrated and before you get too frustrated, let's give you a break and shake the other team up by bringing in someone they haven't seen yet. I still believe in you. We will work on your mechanics in practice on Tuesday. Thanks for being strong and taking the mound today."
If the girl makes any comment about her ability, I redirect it to her mechanics. So if she says "I'm not doing so hot today" or "I suck today" I say, "No. There is something off in your mechanics. When your mechanics are functioning correctly, you get the ball right in the place it is supposed to go. You and I both know that. We have seen you do that before, so something is off. We will work on it and figure it out in practice (or in between games during a tourney).
By placing the emphasis on the mechanics being the problem and not the girl being the problem, I have found that my pitchers bounce back well and continue to enjoy the game. They also become less dramatic.
 

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