How To Be Obsessed With Your Little League
/In 2012 when I was an office manager at a local real estate company, a co-worker asked me to teach his daughter how to pitch. No one on her team could throw a strike so the games were very long and uneventful. A number of parents started asking me to instruct but I saw myself as an executive in the corporate world. Coaching young girls did not fit into my vision, plus, the only kids I ever communicated with were my nieces. What do you even say to a 9-year-old? My nieces were nice to me no matter what, so that was easy. Ultimately, my co-worker was encouraging, and I could use the extra cash, so I said yes.
Now, as a small business owner running a pitching school with over 160 students, I’m often to help little leagues find a way to make the quality of pitching better. If girls can pitch strikes, then the batters can hit, and the fielders can field. I decided to do a little research and ask successful coaches and league organizers how they have developed their players and teams. I also asked what they wished they could have done better and any advice for evolving leagues.
Each of the organizers I talked to have varied levels play within their leagues. Some have been up and running smoothly for years, some have most of the pitchers receiving formal instruction, and some have lower-skill level play but enthusiastic parents. All of them had to learn most of their lessons the hard way. I want to share what I’ve learned so far, to help you learn a few things the easy way.
I know we’d love more options for girls as far as level of play goes. We want a place for those who want to be Olympians, travel ball , or high school ball players. We also want a place for those to have fun with their friends as an 11 year old. Whichever of these are your goals or your players’ goals, we can all agree that it starts with little league.
Every thriving little league begins with a small group of enthusiastic leaders. One league leader I talked to says she stays awake at night thinking of softball. She calls herself “obsessed.” The interesting thing is, though, she isn’t the kind of obsessed I’d normally correlate with the word. She has no aspirations of her daughter playing beyond little league. She simply wants her to have a good experience learning something new and improving. “I love to watch them play” she says. I don’t know about you, but I usually picture the obsessed person as the dad who only cares about winning, favors his own daughter and only studies the x’s and o’s. He makes his travel team play 150 games a year. I found it interesting to meet people obsessed with softball in a different way. I think I can start calling myself obsessed now, too.
Anyway, every thriving little league needs leaders who are obsessed with succeeding. The aforementioned coach put all of her effort into developing the skills of the players. She took ownership to rent out public schools in the winter which she found through her own research, and were inexpensive. She ran open practices where all players in the league could come and the turn-out was excellent! Her friends trusted her with their kids. This she says, was different because it wasn’t an outside company or group coming in as a business. It was simply a neighborhood effort, and people found it appealing. Another parent/organizer from a nearby league said they did the same thing but ran separate practices just for pitchers. They had high school players volunteer to come in and coach and offered other open gym time to practice. The only obstacle this organization found was poor turn-out in December and January. Perhaps their marketing was poor. Perhaps parents simply don’t know that pitching is a year-round effort. Each organization made a huge effort to improve skills in the off-season so the girls would be prepared to play. Practice space in the city is a challenge in the summer. Crowded parks leave little time for little league practice, many times only once per week, and that’s if it doesn’t get rained out. Add pitching practice on top of all that? I don’t think so!
One coach said that his team would get crushed by their rival every game, who simply had good pitching. After figuring out the team hired a professional pitching instructor to train the entire team he did the same. Now they can compete and even sometimes beat their rival. He does not believe a team coach can help pitchers like a professional can. He has watched dozens of lessons his daughter has taken with a professional and still can’t help her he like he wants to. One more coach I interviewed reflected this sentiment. He also says he wishes the kids would have started to learn pitching at an earlier age, at say 7 or 8, going INTO player pitch, not after they already had started playing. The success of a softball team at any age has to do with pitching he now understands. You could say the same with baseball. If you don’t have a pitcher, or a staff of pitchers, you have no chance of winning.
If year-round formal pitching instruction is necessary to be an effective pitcher, why aren’t more players doing it? These reasons stem from ignorance to ego, scheduling to commitment. Most organizers at different stages of experience echoed the same sentiment. Dads that came from baseball fail to recognize that windmill pitching is difficult and different than baseball pitching, and that they need help. Once they realize help is needed, they come upon a new set of struggles.
One mom who has a leadership role in a robust but lower-level league has trouble convincing players to get pitching instruction. There are only one or two places she knows of that give lessons in the area, but they are not close enough. It’s more than a 25 minute drive. Late in the season, they feel rushed to learn when there is not enough time, struggle to find someone inside of their area or have availability. Convincing parents of 8 year olds to pay $80 an hour, who might not be into it is too much of a commitment. Plus, the girls are involved in so many sports and activities, scheduling weekly lessons plus at least an hour of commute time is not a challenge many will take on. So they keep struggling.
Another obsessed mom/organizer recognizes that parents don’t play catch with their kids as much as they did when she was young. Both parents work and are willing to spend money on instruction than give it themselves. The expectation has changed to placing more responsibility on coaches and leagues to do more of the skill development. She has acknowledged and accepted this and decided to take initiative herself.
Besides little league pitching development a few other good points were made and I wanted to include them here. Looking forward, little leagues can start preparing for these aspects of softball.
As the girls become more skilled they start thinking about high school and more competitive travel teams. A high school coach in the near West suburbs told me that if a girl is not fast, he looks at her movement pitches and how they work. With that being the case, he finds fault in the players that say they have multiple pitches that do not actually work.
Also, overhand throwing skills have fallen to the wayside. This might be a result of parents not playing catch with their kids, letting girls throw poorly overhand while finding it unacceptable if boys do, or the size of the ball being difficult to maneuver.
With all this talk about skill development, you’d think softball is about skills! In this great article by John O’Sullivan, he asked thousands of coaches what they think makes a good coach. 80% - 90% of what they wrote had to do with emotional intelligence, as opposed to the rest falling under the description of tactical intelligence. Most of what makes a good coach has nothing to do with the X’s and O’s, as stated by the coaches themselves.
Yet organizations keep teaching just the X’s and O’s!!! Most of coaching is about the development of character. One part of the article gives a list of the responsibilities of coaches. Coaches need to believe in kids more than their parents do. A great coach believes in a player more than he or she believes in herself. Is it not then the league leader’s jobs to believe in her coaches more than they believe in themselves?
Maybe we can all take a lesson from what parents teach our own kids about overcoming obstacles - just do it! We ask daughters to figure it out, get comfortable with being uncomfortable, and keep persevering even in the face of challenges. League leaders have countless obstacles, too - expenses, gym time, rain outs, lack of formal instruction, lack of motivation. The obsessed parents seem to overcome all of these. As O’Sullivan says, “Improvement in any achievement activity does not come without struggle, without times of discomfort and difficulty.” There is no “I” in team; no one does it all by themselves. Parent and coaches in leadership positions inspire others to step up and take charge of their softball organization’s future.