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Why Stress Fundamentals
by Dave
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
If you spend time on any large softball forum, you will see very little discussion about real fundamentals. The subject is just not exciting enough for a good read or heated discussion. Instead what you generally see are these convoluted discussions about sophisticated topics, using words you have never heard, brought up by either real experts, those pretending to be such, or people who have no idea what they are talking about. People would rather use big words and engage in the complex then deal with what really matters, fundamentals.
I want to tell you a story that just happens to be extremely timely at this moment. Once there was a young man who was what you would call naturally gifted athletically. By gifted athletically, I mean he was both fast and quick, had good flexibility and strength, was gifted with good hands and eyes, as well as the coordination of the two; he could convert coaches words and descriptions into action; he could watch others play a sport and copy the good parts of their mechanics without taking on the bad; he was motivated to be good at the sport of his choice and became one of the most renowned prospects within it at a young age. This young man rose through the ranks of his sport rapidly and as he got older, he began to play with and against others who were similarly "gifted" with "natural" ability.
The young man became a professional in his sport and rose up to its highest levels. When grouped with the other top athletes, he still stood out. But as his game began to be scrutinized, he was compared unfavorably to several.
The young man was named Derek Jeter. His sport was obviously baseball. His defensive game was compared unfavorably to everyone from the other local MLB team's SS to others within his league and outside of it, not to mention the gentleman who plays the next position over from him. In fact, at times, minor league SS prospects were compared favorably to Jeter in terms of range and other aspects of the position. Most recently, the negative comparisons have died down quite a bit and the man was recently named American League Gold Glove Shortstop as well as Sports Illustrated Magazine's "sportsman of the year."
Wha happen?
Not for nothin but, if you live anywhere near da Bronx, you know wha happen.
Wha happen were several things. First off, the team replaced their stocky, hard hitting, poor foot speed, lousy fielding first baseman with a certain tall, athletic Gold Glover. That made a huge difference to be sure but there was another basket of changes that made a bigger impact.
A certain coach worked with Jeter, watching his fielding mechanics and various aspects of his defensive game. And you know what? This coach changed some things Jeter was doing. For one thing, he moved him deeper. That changed the path he took to the ball. More importantly, he adjusted or corrected Jeter's ready position.
Let me say that again for effect. One of the biggest improvement Derek Jeter made, the thing he did which moved his status from defensive liability or second rate SS to Gold Glove winner and arguably the most heralded athlete in his game was an adjustment to his ready position.
Are you getting this? I just said that a professional athlete who is assumed to be a member of a small elite club of fellows who are, at least potentially though probably at this point likely, first ballot Hall of Famers had his ready position adjusted and that has made all the difference.
Ready position? Isn't that the first thing anybody teaches? How can a professional get that far without a nearly perfect ready position? The answer is we can all always improve even the most fundamental aspect of our games. Professional athletes, even HOF-destined professional athletes, are no exception. If you want to improve your game, look at the basics, not the sophisticated stuff.
If you examine what professional hitters do when they get into difficult times, you will find that they always go back to the drawing board. They go back to the tee and examine their fundamental mechanics. They do not ask ace pitchers to throw batting practice for them. They do not go into the batting cages and tell the coach to turn the speed up above 100. They do not read books about new and better hitting mechanics. They do not start emulating the swing of somebody who happens to be hot right now. They go to the batting tee and review videotape regarding their hitting fundamentals.
While examining the college recruiting game in softball, I have heard several stories which do not seem to compute in my puny head. Once somebody said, lots of times coaches don't even watch the actual games when they go to showcases. Many like to watch warm-ups because they get a better sense of the kid from that than they do from the games. Players are warned against being nonchalant before and after games, and most especially during warm-ups. I can accept this but, on the other hand, I have watched so many teams warm-up like professionals and then when we got into the game, our band of scraggly goof-offs have kicked their butts. What on Earth can you tell from warm-ups?
There are lots of things you can see from an individual player during warm-ups. &nbsop; You can judge attitude, seriousness, approach to playing the sport, etc. More importantly, you get a really good sense of a kid's fundamentals from warm-ups. It is virtually impossible for a kid with poor fundamentals to pretend to be a really well-schooled player repeatedly while fielding simple grounders. Likewise, it is almost impossible for an extremely well skilled kid to go about her business using bad mechanics during a warm-up. On the other hand, when 3 to 10 balls are hit into play during the course of a game, it is almost impossible to gain a sense of a kid's fundamentals when she fields somewhere between 2 and none of these.
Also, it is very possible that some kid with absolutely fantastic skills will have a tough day because her grandfather died the night before, she was forced to stay up all night to complete a school project, she caught a stomach bug from her little brother, her boyfriend gave her heck because she spends too much time playing softball, the teacher in her otherwise favorite subject gave her heck because she spends too much time playing softball, or for any number of reasons. maybe the pitcher throwing today always misses her marks and the SS finds herself out of position because she was expecting an outside pitch for a ball and a perfect, down the middle strike was thrown. There are so many possibilities for something external to a particular player to cause her to look bad that it defies reason.
There once were two catchers on a team with two pitchers. One pitcher hit the mark all the time. The other missed more than 50% of the time but she was a hard thrower and still found success. The catcher who caught the control pitcher looked like an all-star in almost every game. The catcher for the less accurate pitcher spent way too much time with her back to the field while chasing balls bouncing around the backstop. At some point, folks watching the two drew the conclusion that one catcher was much better than the other. Then, one day, the good catcher caught the wild pitcher and the bad catcher caught the controlled one. Everyone's opinions of the two catchers changed instantaneously.
If you were evaluating catchers, would you feel more confident in your assessment if the catcher were catching somebody who always hit her marks or one who always put the ball in the dirt? If you were evaluating infielders, would you feel better about your assessment if you watched a game in which she fielded two or three easy chances cleanly or you watched her field 20 reps in a row during a practice? If you were evaluating a pitcher, would you feel comfortable watching her mow down a team of batters about whom you knew absolutely nothing? Or would you rather focus on her mechanics, speed, movement, ability to hit spots?
OK, enough of that. My point is recruiting coaches often watch warm-ups because they want to observe fundamentals. It is easier to judge fundamentals in drills with repeated reps than it is to see them on display in a game. They want to watch fundamentals because fundamentals are critical. And why they are critical is what this is really all about.
If you watch some games at various age levels, before long, you should form an understanding of why fundamentals are critical. At 10U or 12U, girls who are the best athletes make all the plays. It does not so much matter if they are fielding balls properly or throwing correctly. They are athletic. They move well enough to the ball and get there because they are fast and/or quick. They pick it up cleanly because A) they are confident in their abilities and B) the balls just are not hit as hard as, or with as much spin as, they will be soon. They make the throws accurately because they have experiences making good throws under little pressure, not because their throwing mechanics are right.
Take the successful athletic kid with poor fielding mechanics and move her gradually up in age group. Her success will begin to falter because her mechanics are bad. I have watched some middle infielders who make all the plays at 10U or 12U but who do not get in good ready positions, don't field with two hands, or otherwise make a travesty out of what are normally viewed as sound mechanics. These girls get rather frustrated when everyone catches up to them athletically or strength wise, when the balls are hit so much harder, when everything seems to have a weird spin on it. They also have difficulty getting outs when the kids' baserunning speeds pick up. They do not field properly to make a quick throw and when the girls start getting under 3, they make a lot of late throws to first. l; Then they start rushing everything to make up for their poor mechanics and the wildness begins.
Throwing mechanics, in particular, hold kids back as they get older. I have watched many otherwise decent outfielders cause major problems because they are side-armers. A couple RFs come to mind immediately. Maybe you have seen this sort of thing? There's a runner on first when a basehit reaches right field, down the line. The RF rushes over taking a good line, picks the ball cleanly and fires a side-armer to third trying to nail the runner from first. The ball sails past the line and out of play, more than 60 feet up the left field line! Ugh!
As girls age, like I already said, balls are hit harder and with more spin, runners are faster, and there just is more and more pressure put on players to do everything right, to do everything extremely fast. Girls who have sound fundamental mechanics seem to rise and those who do not, fall. Give me the super-athletic kid with sound fundamentals every time. But if given the choice between the weaker athlete who has sound mechanics and the superior athlete with poor fundamentals, I'll take the former. At some point, you just cannot help a kid who is completely disinterested in fundamentals or who has atrocious ones. That point is probably sometime between 13 and 14. So work kidsensively on fundamentals from the time they start playing until ... there is no until as Derek Jeter can attest to.
Yesterday I wrote a piece about improving softball by improving rec ball by improving pitching and fundamentals. Today I am not fixated on the lowest levels of the sport, but rather the highest. Ignore fundamentals in favor of what you deem more important aspects if you must but consider what happens when the kid who knows where to go with the ball can no longer pick it. Consider the accuracy of the strong armed girl whose throwing mechanics stink. Consider the success rate of the infielder whose foot position is always is improper. Consider how well your team does when everybody fields with one hand, pulls their gloves to their throwing hand while taking excessive amounts of steps, and then fires a rocket to the base after the baserunner gets there.
Football is perhaps one of the most complex games on the planet. We often hear broadcasters talk about the "skill positions." These broadcasters have never tried to put a block on somebody. If you do not have blockers who are capable of blocking properly, you cannot run the ball and the only thing that will come out of your passing game is a continual line of star quarterbacks sidelined with concussions, or broken bones. Blocking is fundamental. Blocking is boring. Blocking is critical.
If you coach a basketball team on which everybody could teach Coach K a thing or two about sophisticated plays but on which nobody can dribble, set a pick, make a pass, or shoot properly, good luck. It makes no difference how much your kids know about the game if they can't perform the fundamentals well.
So why do we put girls on a softball diamond and then worry that they know where to go with the ball? Why do we put the course in back of the cart? Why do so many of us not spend time on fundamentals because they are boring when those fundamentals are the single most important aspect of the game?Labels: coaching, defense, instruction, parenting, practice, throwing
 
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