Introducing Competition in Practices

[SAWolf]

I have been coaching baseball for about 8 years. I have found that boys and men seem to thrive on competition.

Haul out a stop watch when you’re training base running and all of a sudden you find a team that didn’t feel like running, begging to go again to try to beat their last time or another team member’s time.

Start a race to see which pair can complete a series of ten quick hand throws first and suddenly training seems to take on a new determination and players that had been about to yawn have a spark to their movements.

Now my question is this: I know that girls generally don’t operate or relate to things the way boys do. Obviously! But would introducing a bit of competition lead to the improvement and drive that you see from boys? Do girls trend to crack more under pressure? Do you find that girls often love practices but get so nervous or edgy at games that their performance suffers? Or is that all just that the mental aspect of the game needs more preparation?

 

[JC heir]

I have found that competition brings out the best in girls, just as much as boys

 

[sluggers]

SAWolf--you haven't coached girls enough. (For your benefit, I've got two girls who played in college at a very advanced level. I've coached girls softball, soccer, basketball for years and years and years.)

If you are lacking competition at your practices, the problem is *YOU*. *YOU* are not giving the correct motivation. *YOU* are not allowing them to compete.

Most likely, you don't understand girls--they don't express themselves like boys, and they are more mature than boys.

You are NOT going to see a bunch of girls running around screaming, cursing, and throwing things at the wall if they lose a game. You will NOT see some girl in the corner considering jumping off a bridge because she dropped a pop-up and cost her team the game.

Why? Not because they don't like to compete. It is because THEY ARE MORE MATURE. In other words, -->the girls act like adults when it comes to sports.<--

Newbie coaches interpret this lack of irrational behavior as a lack of "competitiveness" when it is simply that the girls are acting more like mature adults and less like a 2 year old throwing a temper tantrum.

Additionally, girls can see-through a coach much quicker than boys. That is, if the girls can't beat out other girls on the team for positions, then the entire team will QUIT working, and you can't BS your way to get the girls to work.

In other words, if Suzy is your SS and bats 4th, and you always bat Suzy 4th and let her play SS no matter what she does, then your team will not work at practice. Why? The girls have figured out that there is no competition on your team--that working hard doesn't mean anything. So, why work? Why try? Everything has already been decided. They quit.

*YOU* you have to have the b**ls to bench your top players when they make mistakes. *YOU* have to tell them, "Look, I want the XYZ skill done like this. If you don't do it that way, then you won't play."

On the other hand if you do take your best players and bench them when they make mistakes, and you let the rest of the girls on the team know why you benched them and what they can do to get more playing time, you will see very intense competition.

To answer your questions:

]But would introducing a bit of competition lead to the improvement and drive that you see from boys?

Yes, of course.

Do girls trend to crack more under pressure?

Girls crack less under pressure. Girls, by the way, are designed emotionally and physically to birth children. The amount of stress and pain involved in sports is probably .1% of that involved in child birth. So, sports and the pain goes with hard work aren't very intimidating.

Do you find that girls often love practices but get so nervous or edgy at games that their performance suffers?

No. The girls performances suffer if *YOU* aren't benching the girls who don't perform during the game.

 

[Coach JV]

I love to have competition amongst the girls. COMPETITION BREEDS SUCCESS.
A colleague of mine (14U) had a new girl try out for SS, she won the job hands down.
The girl who lost the SS went to coach and asked "where do I play now?" Coach said
'where do you want to play' she says I only play SS, so I quit" She left the team, since she
went away, he found out the majority of the other girls never liked her to begin with.

In this scenario there are 2 things.
#1, we teach every girl multiple positions for a variety of reasons.
#2 competition can bring the bad seed to the surface.

We have open competition at practices on a regular basis as it does build character and
toughens up the girls. Through competition, they can see what skills they need to have for each
position.

 

[druer]

Sawolf - All good questions.

I know that girls generally don’t operate or relate to things the way boys do. Obviously! But would introducing a bit of competition lead to the improvement and drive that you see from boys? -- Girls are not the same as boys in many regards, but yes competition is a good thing for them as well and they do enjoy rising up to the challenge.

Do girls trend to crack more under pressure? -- I can tell you that girls have a bit more of a natural tendency to fear failure and feel bad when they make mistakes. So it isn't so much that Sally Sue cracks under pressure when Bob doesn't, but there is a trend with many teams that after Sally Sue makes an error, others on the team will start worrying "more than normal" that they are next to make an error, and usually 1 error leads to 5 in the same inning. Well coached teams stress the "picking others players up" aspect. It's hard to worry about yourself making the next error if you are lifting up the other player and teams like that usually don't have the 5 error innings.

Do you find that girls often love practices but get so nervous or edgy at games that their performance suffers? I've found yes and no to both parts of the question. I've seen girls that LOVE practice, and I've also seen girls that don't like to practice. I've seen girls get edgy at games, and girls that are calm during games. In my experiences I've seen that the girls that are "perfectionists" and are so afraid of failing, are the ones that get most edgy at game time, and are the most tentative. You can "coach" them and "encourage" them but 14 years of thinking one way that is reinforced by parents, and environment is hard to break out of.

Or is that all just that the mental aspect of the game needs more preparation? I think the mental aspect of preperation is something that every athlete needs help with, and unfortunately one that is seldom taught.

One of the biggest things I think I can recommend to you as you start working with female athletes is to realize that (in general) they need to feel like a time before they can win. While boys more often than not need to win before they will become a team. So the more activities you get your girls involved in off the field where they can really get to know each other, the better they will play on the field.

Best of luck as you make the transition.

 

[amanda_cake]

Let me tell you right now that girls can be the same way. I'm the same way. I want to win and I'm going to do everything possible to win. Turn a drill into a game, and you've got something going for you. With the younger ones, turn picking up balls into seeing who can pick up the most and they'll fly into that bucket. They aren't going to get ugly or cry about it like boys, but they secretly enjoy it more than you'd think.

 

[SAWolf]

Wow! Thanks so much the answers were all excellent and they have given me a whole new perspective on the dynamic in my team that I had not thought of.