Blog #3: Taking Control of Your Team

      Let’s go back to my high school days. I would first off like to say that no matter what is said about my head coach, he is an upstanding guy with honor and a huge heart and I love him. That being said, he was a big pushover! For example… one day during practice in the dugout, a can of chewing tobacco fell out of a jacket of one of my teammates. It rolled right into the back of the heal of our coach. He turned around and picked it up and snapped, “Kevin, what the hell is this??” He replied, “uhhh…uhh…its back- off. Ya know, the stuff that helps you quite dip.” Coach took one more look at it and then gives it back to him saying, “ whatever Kevin. Don’t let it happen again.” He knew it wasn’t back- off and everyone saw what had happened. This is a perfect example of how the head coach had little control of his team. He let his player get away with breaking the rules in front of half the team, which eventually turned into the whole team. A complete act of insubordination!!! This cannot happen. I could sit here and tell countless stories of this occurring throughout my high school career, which sadly resulted in the loss of control of a very talented team. We had three D1 players, which were all drafted at least once in their careers, and 7 players playing various levels of college ball. We had the talent, but lacked the discipline and structure to continually get better each and every day. Our practice structure wasted a lot of valuable time as our team pretty much did what we wanted during off- season practices. During the off- season of my junior year, I remember most of practice just working on the bullpen with another pitcher. We spent more time that off season making the field nicer than actually practicing. And to boot, there were a lot worse looking fields in our league at the time. I felt our team was more concerned about the quality of our field and uniforms than actually getting better.  As a team, we did minimal conditioning, batting practice was an utter mess, and overall, we did not have a decent practice structure to maximize our time spent on the field getting better each and every day.  The worse part was that our coach allowed this kind of nonsense to occur. However, I will be the first to admit that I had just as much to do with any insubordination as anyone on the team. It wasn’t until after my junior year that my pitching ability gave way to the interest of D1 scouts. Even then, my level of seriousness exponentially rose, but looking back now, it was a joke compared to that of later in my career. But just know this… our coach’s complete loss of control ended in a negative result my junior and senior year, ultimately achieving his demise a few years later.     

      This is easily a good percentage of the way coaches run their team by letting their players control the flow of practice. The other percentage are control freaks and come across to their players as having a power trip and are missing the communication needed for a successful ball club.  There is a fine line between taking complete control of your team and still having a line open for communication between the coach and his players. (This pertains mostly to high school and older, but still pertinent to all ages.) If players feel that their voice cannot be heard, then a piece of them shuts down. A lot of you coaches out there are really tough on their players, which is good. However, if you do not relay to them that the day you stop getting on them is the day they need to worry, they will forever be in constant fear without knowing there is a light at the end of the tunnel. As a coach, the players that you like best and are always on their case are the ones you are pushing to get better. If this player can handle your wrath, then they can pretty much handle any hardship they face throughout the game and throughout life. But if they do not understand that you are pushing them to become better, them I am afraid you will just be pushing them away. Be strict with your players, but at the same time communicate with them. Yelling can easily be taken as being mad. Children need to understand that you aren’t yelling at them because you are angry, even if you are a little angry with them. You are leading your men into battle for however many games played in a season.  They need someone strong and in control.  They need a leader who shows no fear and shows no emotion. Once you as a coach show emotion, your players will soon follow suit. The other team shouldn’t know if your team just won or lost the World Series. And this will eventually strike fear in your opponent.  Just imagine taking a near perfect pregame and you and your players walking off the field as if what you just accomplished was as easy as you made it look. You should act like this is just another day at the ballpark. This scenario, no matter if you think it is crazy talk, is very attainable and should be practiced daily. It is only a matter of time before you attain all of the tools necessary to be able to transform your kids into real ballplayers. Taking control of your team with good communication is the first tool you must master before becoming a complete coach.  

      One last food for thought… I was watching the Fullerton/ Long Beach St. game on ESPNU earlier in May and I learned that our starting center fielder was benched for the Friday night game on national television against our long time conference rival for breaking a team rule. I could find out what he did but that’s not important. It could have been anything from being 5 minutes late to not going to class. But national head coach of the year (’07) David Serrano benched him on a big night with scouts in the stands, because no one, not even their star US National team center fielder, is above the rules. Take control of your team. Set a standard and no one breaks it, not even your own son or star player!!! 

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