An exercise in communications

[Ken Krause]

One of the challenges many teams face is getting players to communicate on the field. I saw it happen in a high school game yesterday. A throw came from right field to the second baseman, and she had no clue where to go with the ball. She turned toward third to make a throw, saw it wasn't there, and then tried to throw to second from an off-balance position. Needless to say it didn't work out too well, and a run scored and the runner on second advanced.

That's not unusual. I've seen it happen on teams I've coached too. So today at practice we did a little experiment that I got from John Tschida at the University of St. Thomas. We sent the girls out into positions with one instruction: absolutely no talking. We then had a couple of coaches act as baserunner while I hit balls into the field.

The girls didn't like it at all. It was very difficult to know where to make the play and there was a lot of confusion. After about 10 minutes we called them together and talked about it, then sent them back on the field while removing the "no talking" restriction.

It really made the point. We had a lot more talk -- not all of it correct, but most of it -- and they started making more plays successfully.

If a lack of communication is an issue you face, give this one a try. It probably won't be a problem for long.



More...