A message to coaches from a pitching instructor.

[CoachCeetar]

So if a player should want HC to defer instruction to pitching coach, the head coach respect that?

In general, yeah. If the players says she knows what she's doing, believe her. That said, if the HC suggests something, or is voicing legitimate issues and the player just blows it off, that's not great either.

 

[PJR202]

We have discussed that (my DD and I). She's asked that we hold off a bit and see if she can correct it with the "nod and say yes while changing nothing" method of jedi mind control.

Just tell her to locate a fastball high. 90% of riseballs I see in HS are just a high FB and most people have no idea.

 

[PJR202]

That said, when in doubt, the pitcher is the one that is _doing it_. There are absolutely pitchers out there that can take a brief instruction from the coach on how to throw a new pitch, what it should do, etc, and then just..do it, without a 4-session intensive training session from their PC.

I'm sorry, but no pitcher anywhere is learning a new pitch and commanding it the same day. And regardless, if I'm the pitching instructor and a coach is adding pitches or making changes that contradict what I'm teaching at lessons, that coach either stops what he/she is doing or I drop the student. Otherwise, the pitcher will regress.

If any of the team kids I work with locally are in lessons, I specifically tell the parents that I'm not gonna contradict anything that instructor is doing (even if I disagree). Only the student suffers. I'll usually ask the parent what the PC is focusing on, then I'll do my best to keep any eye on it.

 

[CoachCeetar]

I'm sorry, but no pitcher anywhere is learning a new pitch and commanding it the same day. And regardless, if I'm the pitching instructor and a coach is adding pitches or making changes that contradict what I'm teaching at lessons, that coach either stops what he/she is doing or I drop the student. Otherwise, the pitcher will regress.

Sure, absolutely. I didn't mean instantly. I mean "you throw a curveball with _this_ grip, and the idea is to adjust your followthrough like _this_" and then the player throws a few a pitches and by the end of it you'd say "yeah, that's kind of a curve" without having to do like 40 arm snaps with the new grip into a glove, and then progress up to doing drills to practice the spin motion with your hands, etc.

None of that is likely to be as good a an intensive session with a pitching expert, but some players can hear advice/direction, understand what it's supposed to do, and incorporate that and DO it. They've been learning about pitching for years, they shouldn't need to filter every piece of advice through one person.

I'm sure they're hearing this stuff from more than the coach too, and have since they started pitching. Filtering what tidbits of instruction and suggestion are useful and you can incorporate into growing as a player and which ones are just rote nonsense or uninformed garbage is part of being an athlete.

 

[RADcatcher]

If any of the team kids I work with locally are in lessons, I specifically tell the parents that I'm not gonna contradict anything that instructor is doing (even if I disagree). Only the student suffers. I'll usually ask the parent what the PC is focusing on, then I'll do my best to keep any eye on it.

Last weekend met a dad who was proudly saying his daughter has three different pitching instructors. 13u.

He went on to comment that one pitching instructor will point out something that the other instructor didnt. Implementing a change. Then that will happen at the next lesson and so on.
I asked him did you ever consider that they are pulling your daughter in three different directions.??

He responded they are pointing out different things she needs to do. I asked him did you ever consider if those different things are in alignment with one functional set of pitching mechanics?
He looked surprised and baffled.

I then spoke about hitting mechanics and said do you know about hitting he said yes. He teaches his daughter hitting himself.
I asked do you take her to a couple other hitting instructors? He said why would I need to do that I already know how to teach her.
I said okay but what if those other hitting instructors had other things to tell her to do? Or do you think possibly if you took her to other hitting instructors it could potentially screw up what you are trying to teach her to do?
That's when he got it.

Constantly changing things may not be making for functional mechanics.
Learning new things is good. But learning if the mechanics are functional is better.

 

[daywalkerdad]

In general, yeah. If the players says she knows what she's doing, believe her. That said, if the HC suggests something, or is voicing legitimate issues and the player just blows it off, that's not great either.

The player should listen to both. It confuses the player when they get differing advice from people they should be listening to.
One coach handled it really well, he said talk to your pitching coach about this on a new pitch. I thought that was excellent, much better than one coach who would say do this, often times being wrong or out of order of development.
I feel multiple voices in a pitchers/hitters head is almost a bad idea.

 

[torpedo #8]

I'm sorry, but no pitcher anywhere is learning a new pitch and commanding it the same day. And regardless, if I'm the pitching instructor and a coach is adding pitches or making changes that contradict what I'm teaching at lessons, that coach either stops what he/she is doing or I drop the student. Otherwise, the pitcher will regress.

If any of the team kids I work with locally are in lessons, I specifically tell the parents that I'm not gonna contradict anything that instructor is doing (even if I disagree). Only the student suffers. I'll usually ask the parent what the PC is focusing on, then I'll do my best to keep any eye on it.

I totally agree with this. Ask the parents or the pitcher what they are working on and what is her best pitch. Because when she starts to struggle during the game and she will, who does she turn to?

 

[uncdrew]

Just tell her to locate a fastball high. 90% of riseballs I see in HS are just a high FB and most people have no idea.

No, we'll just have her throw her riseball.

 

[uncdrew]

With all due respect, the vast majority of these types of threads make the assumption that the HS coach doesn't know anything. I often wonder how many parents actually know the coaches accomplishments and resume.

I'll leave this thread after a couple of statements. First, if you don't like what the school coach is doing, take your child off of the team. I have never understood people complaining that the school coach doesn't know anything and then allowing their child to play for that coach. Secondly, for those who have their child nod and continue to do whatever it is that the coach does not like, accept that moment when your child falls out of favor with the coaching staff.

Well that's not quite fair. Kids want to play for their high school. They want to play with their friends. There's a huge social aspect to it.

And thus they won't walk just because the coach is the History teacher who just learned drop third strike last week.

 

[GunnerShotgun]

Well that's not quite fair. Kids want to play for their high school. They want to play with their friends. There's a huge social aspect to it.

And thus they won't walk just because the coach is the History teacher who just learned drop third strike last week.

But you knew the History teacher was the coach before you tried out for the team right?