Teaching Game Awareness and/or Game IQ

[MoJo]

Working through the age groups, Game Awareness and/or Game IQ is always lacking.

Getting out of the "B" level is hard to do without knowing more about the game. Of course softball has a million and one situations. Each position can have a full book written about it.

How have you teach or have seen Game IQ taught? Any good resources out there on the web?

 

[cvsoftball]

Start with the basics at an early age - take the easy out, don't swing at anything stupid. repeat as needed.

 

[CoachJD]

You can teach the rules. You can teach situations. But Game IQ comes from thinking about the game. Playing it helps. Watching helps just as much if not more.

Girls who watch a lot of softball/baseball will have a higher Game IQ than those who just play it almost always. It's not absolutely necessary, probably, but it certainly helps (I'd say 90% of what I know about the game I know from watching/studying and 10% from actually playing).

Edit: It's too bad almost every softball broadcaster is absolutely terrible. I learned so much about baseball from the commentators explaining what was going on. As I got older, I learned when they were just old dumb baseball guys spouting nonsense, too. With softball, you very rarely get any kind of insightful comments. You're lucky to get mostly accurate comments.

 

[Dabears17]

What I like is players that become youth umpires. They learn the rules and get a better understanding of the flow of the game. I know when I started doing rec games it did that for me and made me a better coach.

 

[tim_s]

we did a LOT of situational work

9 defenders......i'd hit.......early on i'd call the situation, and we'd play "innings" (usually using ghost runners, which forced them to think......we'd use real runners when we could) - we'd spend a good chunk of practice time here

as they got older, i'd tell the catcher the situation to start the inning....i'd let the girls know the outcome of the previous play (got the lead runner at 2nd, safe at first) and they'd call the situation on their own

i was able to make sure they ended up in situations we wanted to work on, because i could control where the ball went

 

[heman1202]

You can teach the rules. You can teach situations. But Game IQ comes from thinking about the game. Playing it helps. Watching helps just as much if not more.

Girls who watch a lot of softball/baseball will have a higher Game IQ than those who just play it almost always. It's not absolutely necessary, probably, but it certainly helps (I'd say 90% of what I know about the game I know from watching/studying and 10% from actually playing).

Edit: It's too bad almost every softball broadcaster is absolutely terrible. I learned so much about baseball from the commentators explaining what was going on. As I got older, I learned when they were just old dumb baseball guys spouting nonsense, too. With softball, you very rarely get any kind of insightful comments. You're lucky to get mostly accurate comments.

When it comes to game IQ and situational awareness in softball, I think it's opposite. They learn the most by experiencing the situation, either in a game or in practice. I think most people (especially young people) learn by doing, not watching. Most of the kids on my 14U team hardly watch any softball. Of course you can certainly learn something from watching, I just do not think it's that important.

As far as game IQ/awareness, the biggest game changer in this category (from my experience as a coach) is base running. If you can get your kids to understand situational base running and when to think for themselves, you can potentially generate a run or two (or more) a game just from that alone (e.g. stealing on a pitch in the dirt, reading a fly ball to outfield and understanding if it will drop, knowing how far they can get off base on a fly ball). Getting extra bases by having high game IQ or general game awareness (plus being aggressive) pays dividends.

 

[_MIA_]

Lots of people/coaches on here who think they effect winning/losing more than they do (both in this thread and in the thread
about "teaching" competitiveness)

My kid and her teammates have played at least 5 times the number of (organized) games and probably had twice as many practices in the 6 or 7 years they have been playing then I did in my whole 15 year baseball career but most of them still cannot read whether a shallow ball hit to the OF is going to drop or not...

 

[heman1202]

My kid and her teammates have played at least 5 times the number of (organized) games and probably had twice as many practices in the 6 or 7 years they have been playing then I did in my whole 15 year baseball career but most of them still cannot read whether a shallow ball hit to the OF is going to drop or not...

The question is "why is this?" How can they play so many games and practice as much as they do and still can't read a fly ball?

My guess (and this may not apply to your daughters team but I'm sure it very much applies elsewhere) is that the ladies are not allowed to fail. The coaches do not allow them to make their own decision for fear of failure so they are tethered to the coaches direction. How would a player become competent in their own decision making without being able to actually make their own decisions without fear of failing (which may lead to being yelled at or benched)?

Sometimes coaches have to get out of their own way and see the bigger picture.

 

[_MIA_]

The question is "why is this?" How can they play so many games and practice as much as they do and still can't read a fly ball?

No idea. There are MLB'ers who are shitty at it too (at least comparatively speaking)..just like competitiveness some people are just "better" at it for whatever reason. Could be at some point somebody caused them to be afraid to fail I suppose.

 

[_MIA_]

Good luck teaching this: