Teaching Game Awareness and/or Game IQ

[Rolling Hard]

Another Antonelli video runs over. Lol.

 

[gdc03120]

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.

I played baseball until 8th grade (I was a classic case of "coach ruined it for me, so I stopped playing"). In sophomore year, the JV softball coach (great guy - RIP) asked if I was interested in doing his scorebook for an away game. I had ZERO clue, but he said he would teach me on the bus ride. He did, and I did that game and stayed on for the rest of that season. He then moved up to varsity the following year, and I stayed with him doing his book for that season, then the next season as a senior when the original varsity coach returned. I picked up SO much information about rules, but also strategies, about softball from just watching, scoring, and watching our coach(es) talk with officials about their interpretations of rules.

In my junior year, I was approached by our local youth baseball/softball group about umpiring. $25/game for 2 hours of work, 4 nights a week, equipment provided, and minimal knowledge needed (especially for the minors' level, etc - I was sold. That was in 2006. I umpired at this level until 2018 when I decided to go for my HS/TB softball certification, and I've done this since then. I also picked up my coaching certification in 2014.

I will openly say, from 2014-2017 before I started doing HS ball as an official, I was a complete jerk of a coach because I thought, "I've umpired a little bit, that means I know enough to argue tiny details, and look smart while doing it." OOF - significant error there. Once I got my HS certification in 2018 and saw what goes into the training, etc, and took some nasty remarks from some TB coaches over time, I realized THEY were being the same coach I THOUGHT I could be. It definitely caused me to mellow out as a coach on the field because I try to put myself in the situation and think of what I'd call. Doesn't mean I won't go out and ask just for the fun of it, but I often know the answer ahead of time.

I've always felt, at a minimum, varsity softball coaches should be required to take a modified form of the same training the officials take. Certainly they don't need to know EVERY SINGLE rule there is - I've been working 6 years and there are still things I mix up after a while - but it would certainly clear up when a defensive coach yells out how the "runner obstructed his fielder" (vs. interfered with) or know basics about the appeal processes (or what can be appealed), for example.

 

[SoftballDadnWV]

My middle DD had really good 8u coaches when she was 7 and just learning the game. They really taught that young team a lot of situational awareness in practice and it paid off for my daughter. But I will add, in my opinion, watching baseball or softball on TV helps quite a bit. We watch 4 to 7 MLB games a week and talk about what happens in the game and why it happened. She knows a lot of baseball and it translates into knowing what to do at where ever she may be playing. She will do something in a game and I will ask, how did you know to do that. She will often reply, "well, I saw Bellinger (or Trout, or someone else from one of her favorite teams) do it the other night in that situation."

 

[Dabears17]

I've always felt, at a minimum, varsity softball coaches should be required to take a modified form of the same training the officials take. Certainly they don't need to know EVERY SINGLE rule there is - I've been working 6 years and there are still things I mix up after a while - but it would certainly clear up when a defensive coach yells out how the "runner obstructed his fielder" (vs. interfered with) or know basics about the appeal processes (or what can be appealed), for example.

Agree 100%. When I was a rec league president, I wanted to make one of the requirements to be an All-Star coach is that they had gone through basic umpire training and umpired a couple games. Never did.

 

[CoachJD]

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)?

I won't say this is never a part of it. Some coaches are like that.

What I've come to understand is that this is actually one of the differences between boys and girls. Everything here is a generalization, and I realize not all boys/girls are exactly the same. It's very difficult to get girls to put themselves in a position where they might fail. They don't want to look bad. They don't want to be embarrassed. Boys? They just do stuff (often times dumb stuff!), and whatever happens happens. If it goes poorly, sometimes they learn from it.

I've set up scenarios in practice where I actually try to force them into aggressiveness to the point of failure to help them learn their current limits. How far can you get off on a leadoff before you're too far? How far can you go on a pop up and still get back? Stuff like that. I've done a drill where I was the catcher, and I told them they had to get picked off by me at least once. So many of them still took forever to get more than a step or two on a lead-off, and that's with a coach that was literally demanding failure.

Being a coach who does not get on players for taking chances/failure/learning their limits helps, but it's not a solution. Or at least it's not a quick solution. It's taken me years to get some girls to develop that mindset, and I'm not sure if it's because of anything I've specifically done/not done or if they've just learned the game during that time and become more confident.

 

[CoachJD]

Good luck teaching this:

Not only can you not teach this stuff. Most people can't learn this stuff just by being out on the field. They have to see it. This is why watching the game is so important.

All my best players have always been fans of baseball/softball (they watch more baseball just because it's more available, but in recent years, my groups have been more into softball and actually follow teams/players). I strongly disagree with the sentiment in this thread that most kids only learn by doing. They learn by observing. They become good by doing.

 

[Northball]

Learned a lot by being on the wrong side of teams effectively doing things against us.
-Faced pitching style that was more effective than what my DD was doing before learning about IR.
-Learned more about effective small ball game and aggressive baserunning by having it executed against us.
-Picked up better swing mechanics and approaches and processed them as the batters rounded the bases.
-Watched defenses shut us down when we seemed to have the momentum.
In those games, you really learn which team has a game plan and is executing it and which team is waiting to try to react to what happens next.
As a coach you can get mad in the moment, gnash your teeth, curse, blame, and wish everyone was better when you're being outplayed/outcoached, or you can learn from it and bring some of those competitive elements to your team.