Just some observations....

[sluggers]

Generally, this is softball not football, not basketball, not baseball, not volleyball. It is a different sport.

Am I missing something? Am I just too niave and green to understand?

The trick in softball is not beating poor teams. There are a few elite teams, and then there is everyone else. The trick is beating those teams, and you can't beat those teams with marginal mechanics.

Softball is a game based entirely on executing physical tasks precisely and as quickly as possible. My favorite example is the routine ground ball to SS...in baseball, the shortstop gets the ball, turns the ball over to get the best grip, double pumps and then throws the runner out by 20 feet. In softball, the shortstop has to get the ball out of her glove as fast as possible. There is no time to do anything other than throw the ball.

The same thing goes for all defensive plays--quickness and precision of execution are paramount. There isn't a whole lot of wiggle room.

So, because "speed of execution" is so critical, there is usually a most efficient way to do an athletic movement.

A kid can often do something poorly at lower levels of softball, but as soon as they hit good competition, poor skills kill them. There was a championship game last year where the 3rd baseman failed to use the correct mechanics in fielding a bunt (she didn't use two hands). A minor mistake...but, the runner was safe by a 1/2 step. The runner scored, and that was the winning run.

Many of the things I see people ridicule on this board are things I ahve seen some succesful D1 coaches teach. Which has really confused me.....lol

Specifically, what?

I know they have them in softball but they sure seem A LOT harder to find [than football] and a lot less frequent. Why is that?

Oh, come on...there is no money in softball. There is a ton of money in football. Of course, people are going to be peddling stuff in football...there is more money to be made.

 

[southwestsoftball]

Great stuff sluggers and thanks for the link to the clinic.

IMO there is this huge perception out there about softball. The perception that its pretty much the same exact sport as baseball.....just for girls. Its pretty crazy how different the game really is. I really love softball and the word respect and admiration would be understatements to describe how I feel about it. I cant wait to continue to keep growing as a coach and put more tools in my toolbox when it comes to softball.

One thing in particular I see most people ridicule is wrist snap drills for pitchers. I personally dont like them for my pitchers because I think the motion is more of a whipping motion than an actual wrist snap( but maybe Im too niave to know the difference). However, I have seen some very succesful coaches at the D1 level who swear by them and have them as vital parts of their pitchers work regimen. One of a few things that come to mind right now. I am sick and have trouble with memory, so when more comes back to mind, Ill re trak and state them.

True about football. TONS of money is made. While softball will NEVER be the moneymaker that football is, I think there is more than enough interest in softball to hold bigger clinics nationwide. If you were to get 7-10 D-1 coaches from across the nation, get 3-4 of the top pitching coaches and 3-4 of the top hitting coaches and held an event in Las Vegas.............I think you could get 1000 plus people to attend that clinic. Or maybe even do a tour. Hold one of them in LA, Vegas, Houston, Chicago and Tampa. That little tour would bring droves of people every single year IMO.

Sluggers and others. So Im thinking maybe this is it. For the most part, coaches in football teach a defensive back how to backpedal a certain way and its pretty universal. However it didnt get to be that way until the last 15-20 years. And that is likley because the advancments in the game have allowed for most people to know that the way most people teach it is generally speaking the most efective way to have it done and to perform. Softball is a much younger sport and so those type of things are stilll coming full circle and clashing with old out dated and ( proven) less effective ways and techniques. Is that a fairly accurate statement in your estimation?

I suppose Im lucky because as a former baseball guy, I came in with great respect for softball and didnt assume anything was the same, so everything I have picked up about the game is the newer and more updated way of doing things. I dont have any pre-conceived notions or old habits of teaching which have since been proven to be less effective( but I latch on to because its what I know).

 

[CoachFP]

Southwest, I know this has been discussed before but you brought up the wrist flip. Dumbest thing in sports. I don't care how many D-1 coaches think it is great, it is still stupid. If you want to warm your wrist up, make circles and stretch it and it will take about 30 seconds. This is the perfect example of things that have cropped up in softball that are not in baseball. Like the girls getting on one knee in warmups and spinning the ball backwards as they loosen up. What's that? Baserunning generally is atrocious in college ball. Watch a ball hit in the gap and the runner between first and second try to pick up the third base coach, loses track of second base and turns a triple into a double. I see it all the time. When the ball is in front of you, you don't need a coach. Baseball and softball are very much alike and other than a few subtleties there shouldn't be two ways of doing things.

 

[starsnuffer]

Most current D1 coaches are just old baseball guys who's success is based 100% on the talent they are able to recruit, specifically by enticing California raised softball players to move to some backwater SEC college town to play ball for them. Luckily, by the time a softball player is good enough to play for a college, they've already had several coaches teaching different things, so when these crazy baseball guys show them ridiculous ways to do things (like the stances SEC players take going up to bat), the kids nod and say "ok coach", adjust their stance, and then look exactly the same at toe touch through extension as any good hitter does, just like they did before these D1 coaches got their paws on the talent.

There are, however, a lot of up and coming coaches who actually played softball. In another 10-20 years this will be the norm rather then the exception. The problem here, is that many of the elite players are trained from a young age to be "good little softball robots", which makes them very poor coaches and leaders. As more and more kids play softball however, we will find more and more exceptions to this and leaders will emerge.

-W

 

[sluggers]

Softball is a much younger sport and so those type of things are stilll coming full circle and clashing with old out dated and ( proven) less effective ways and techniques. Is that a fairly accurate statement in your estimation?

Not quite...so, here is a shorty history of fastpitch:

Fastpitch was played in the 1940s by women. These were "factory" teams. (The All American Girls Baseball League initially played fastpich softball). When the men came home after WWII, the women went home (more or less) and the men took over the fastpitch teams. Fastpitch was extremely popular during the 1950s and early 1960s. Some cities (such as Chicago) even had stadiums built specifically for watching men's fastpitch.

Some time the 1970s, slow pitch softball began to replace fastpitch softball as the game of choice. However, men's fastpitch continued to be played in Chicago, Detroit, California, New England and Memphis. There were still some women's fastpitch teams in New England (e.g., the Raybestos Brakettes)

During the 1970s, progressive colleges started having women's softball. California and Arizona offered the sport at almost all of its colleges. For the rest of the country, there were only a few schools--Michigan, Iowa, SW Louisiana (now Louisiana-Lafayette), Northwestern, and Southern Illinois. Fastpitch softball was not played at any schools in the south east other than South Carolina and Coastal Carolina.

The California teams were light years ahead of the rest of the country as far as softball. They had the benefit of some men's fastpitch teams as well as 12 months a year to play the sport. They developed the best methods for playing the game. The best methods have been known for probably 40 or 50 years.

When softball began to spread, there wasn't a whole lot of information available. There was no internet. Softball games were not televised. People read a few poorly written books or watched a grainy video tape. So, the information was slow to get to the rest of the US. So, people not in California played crappy softball.

(My DD played TB and HS ball in the midwest. She was lucky enough to catch on with a Juco team that played Arizona and California Jucos. This was in the late 1990s. The game was played about 10 levels higher than anything she had seen before. It was incredibly fast.)

Today, the "right way" to play the game is finally being spread around. Anyone who wants to really know how to play the game can find out without much difficult.

I should clarify about baseball a little: Baseball mechanics are like softball. Professional baseball players can execute quickly and accurately. However, they are not required to execute on every play due to the size of the baseball field and the size of the baseball, so you only see their best mechanics a few times during a game. If there is an easy ground ball, pro players take their time (as they should) and get the out.

So, some Joe Six Pack sitting up in the stands begins to think that the 3rd baseman is supposed to crow hop before every throw. Joe overlooks the throws where 3B is pressured and doesn't crow hop. So, Joe, not realizing that against good softball teams 3B is *always* pressured, teaches his 3rd baseman on the softball team to crow hop before every throw because that is what he sees at a baseball game.

Joe's team goes out and wallops a bunch of mediocre to good teams, and Joe thinks he is a genius. He then plays one of the more advanced teams and gets his lunch handed to him, and then he decides that the problem was his talent, not his coaching. So, he decides that he needs a better pitcher/outfielder/catcher/ss.

 

[Coach Stan]

I started playing men's fastpitch in 1969 as a 16 year old. At the same time I was also playing baseball. I was a catcher and played CF. I was recruited during the summer of 1969 to catch for a men's fast pitch team who played at the top level and always qualified for ASA and congress ball. Had fun playing both games. Used baseball techniques while I played fast pitch. As I played more fast pitch I saw some changes in my swing that kinda interfered with baseball swing. I also noticed I had to release the ball sooner due to the shorter base paths when fielding the ball in the OF. But the changes did not affect my over all performance in both baseball or fast pitch.

But in the 40+ years I have been associated with both sports one thing I have learned there are many ways to teach and learn. I do know that if a coach says their way is the only way I would walk away from them because they have closed their mind to advancements in their respective sport. That is why I come on here to read ideas from others and talk with other pitching coaches to ensure I stay fresh and do not get in a rut.

My advise is keep you mind open, ask questions, go watch lessons being performed, and look at as many pitching coaches in your area and then make a decision as to whom will provide your daughter the best coaching for her to reach the highest level of pitching she can obtain.