Attitude or Ability ?

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As this summer season of softball comes to a close, I would like to ask a simple question for the coaches that are looking for players next season. ?What do you consider most important from your players: attitude or ability? ?

I think most agree with a player with a bad attitude regardless of ability, is a detriment to the team. ?However, that is not what I am asking, I am asking in regard to attitude toward the game, how dedicated? how much she loves the sport? what is most important for her? ?her commitment? ?Would you rather have a player that lives, breathes and loves the game, even though she may not be as skilled or have the ability another player has, but the other player is only going to commit to tournaments that do not interfere with her boyfriend, her job, her wishes. ?What do you coaches feel is the most important? ?Skill and ability or total commitment and dedication to the team. ?I realize that parents also play a huge part since they too must have the dedication and commitment, but this is based just on the player as you learn about them.

I look forward to reading the responses and learning from thm, ?especially from the 16U and 18U group. ?

Thank you,

 

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At 14U or above, I would not coach a team with players who are not aiming to play college ball and willing to work hard to get there. For me, coaching is only fun when you have the complete attention of the players. If you want to fit the team into your busy schedule, play for someone else. Talent over attitude? BOTH. No talent-- play rec ball. Bad attitude? You'll last less than a minute on my team. Just long enough to collect your gear and get the hell off the field. Just sayin'....

 

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Both are vital to success. I believe a proper attitude towards the game is probably a little more important than the true physical ability of a player. Don't get me wrong, you need to have some ability also, but with a proper mental approach the sky is the limit for a player. Especially at 14u and above. We stressed it somewhat with our 12u team this year and next year they're going to be expected to be even more mentally committed to becoming better and working hard at it. Not that they didn't this year. I'd take, in a heartbeat, a committed "gamer" with a little less talent over a more naturally talented player who can give a crap about it all. In fact give me 11 of those and we'll go play the Slammers. Uh, surely don't mean the Slammers have a bunch of "gamers" with less talent. They have players who are very talented and committed and it shows. So my answer is some ability needed, a proper attitude required.

 

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I think both are very important traits in players. Of course we all want the kid with a great attitude and the ability to back it up. Those players are hard to find If a girl shows potential and is willing to work hard, that's all I need sometimes to make a decision. We all want the kids with go get em attitude, sometimes we have to work harder to bring out the ability. In the end it is worth it if it all comes together.

Mike

 

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I coach both U10 and U 12. Give me 12 girls with a positive attitude and and WILLINGNESS to learn and I will take on any team. You can only get so far on just talent. You have to have desire and be coachable to excel in any aspect of life. Not just the GREAT game of fastpitch softball.

Mark

 

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You can have the best Attutude and Ability but if you do not have desire then they are useless. The one thing a parent or coach cannot give or teach a player is desire.

Elliott.

 

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I think attitude includes desire...I agree with strohbro...give me 9 girls with 70% of the talent who give their all, and anyone can beat the team of 9 girls with all the talent but only give 70%. Every time!

 

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Everybody is tossing around words like attitude and desire. ?While I have in mind what I think they mean---anybody care to list out some of the traits they think are covered by these terms? ?No right or wrong here, just your opinions. ?

 

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Desire =

The player who will put in that extra time to get better at a particular skill.
The player who will practice instead of go to the mall or movies with the girls.
The player who will give that little extra on the field and off the field.
The player who wants to be the best in every category of stats on the team
The player who will without hesitation run over the catcher at home.
The player who will without hesitation run into the fence in the outfield.

Attitude.

Always cheering for her teammates.
Always positive win or loose.
Always respectful of their coach. Agree or disagree.
Always respectful of their teammates. Never says anything negative to another about a teammate.
Always doing extra to help both teammates and coaches.

Ability,

God given and then developed by parents, coaches, and the player. Remember we are talking athletic ability.
Then there is mental ability. Some are sharper tacks than others and learn quicker.
Then there is neurological ability. Some can react faster than others.
Then there is just plain strength. Some are more naturally stronger than others and continue to get stronger as they grow older.

Think its called genetics.

There you go. Your turn KatieJoebobbyjohnboyeliizabethbenmom. ( I couldnt resist. I have been wanting to do that for a year now. )

Elliott.

 

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;D ;D ;D ?Nice post!

 

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I agree!
Nice Post!

 

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I have been around for a while... longer than I care to admit..

This question is a double edged sword... and I have a question to ask... do we sometimes give up on a girl too quickly.

A number of years ago I had a very talented player that had somewhat of a "bad attitude". ?My first inclination after a year with this young lady was to cut my losses - but there was something that nagged at my conscious. ?Do I give up on her? ?She was not a "bad girl", at least in my book. ?She showed some disrespect, she criticized her teammates but not to the point that they disliked her but some were "concerned". ?My assistants wanted her cut after the season... but something made me toss and turn. ?Yes, it would have been easy to cut this girl, as talented as she was.

I chose to confront her and her parents after the season. ?I "laid the law down" and rather harshly. My guideline were not negotiable. ?Any reoccurance of past behavior would result in immediate dismissal from the team. ?Now, after that, I asked the player and parents to discuss among themselves if they would be able to abide by my conditions. ?I gave them until tryouts to give me an answer.

Several days later, the player approached me, with tears in her eyes and asked for a chance to show that she could be the player that I wanted her to be. ?She ended up being a great player, a great teammate and a wonderful person. ?I had absolutely NO problems after that initial year. ?I attended her graduation party and as I gave her the graduation present, she had one for me. ?It was a letter thanking me helping her grow up and to be a better person, as well as a teammate and player. ?She called me her second father.

That was one of my highlights in my career as a coach. ?Yes, it is easy to give up on a player but... sometimes it is worth the effort. ?Sometimes coaching does not take place on the field.

 

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Since I started this discussion, I would like to thank everyone for the great responses. ?I see I am not alone with many of my thougths being stated by many others. ?

However, their are 2 outstanding responses that I think touched me mentally and emotionally and I hope to learn from them and use them. ?

Ifubuildit, I think hit the nail on the head and I appreciate the time he spent doing the post. ?It was great and he basically put my thoughts into words so that I can use them to guide me and learn from them. ?I thought it was a great post, with the facts and to the point. ?

The other post that I also, think was an outstanding post was from Johnnies, and it touched me more on the emotional side, since I can see and understand a great deal from his written words also. ?

All of the posts on this have been great, but these 2 are especially helpful for me, because of the tough mental logic and sound advice from Ifubuildit, but also the the tough emotional decisions that I must make as a coach as in Johnnies circumstances. ? ?

For myself I think if I can use the information from both and then make the right decisions, then I think I could call myself a coach and maybe even a good coach or at least a decent one.

Thanks to everyone for the great responses and please keep it going. ? I ?am sure I will learn a great deal from each of you that responds. ?

 

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ifubuildit....great post and a great guideline to follow. A young player who intends to play collegeball should use this as a checklist about themselves!!

 

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Jonnies,

I have seen more than one coach give up on a player too soon. There are many kids out there that need an opportunity and the right place to "Get it Right". They are often discarded by coaches because they don't want to have to help a player deal with the social aspects of team sports. As the kids get older there are many issues that come up a coach has to deal with on a personal level. Comes with the job. Social interaction with players and parents is a huge part of being a good coach. As I am sure you know.

Those coaches who mentor as well as coach are the ones that you want your daughter to play for and if you find one then its the best of both worlds. Win or lose.

Elliott.

 

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Good post!!

I have found that a good old fashioned work ethic is hard to find these days. We are living in the get it quick as easy as possible age. I try to instill the notion of hard work breeding success in to my players.

There are super talented players everyday that get out worked and in turn out played on game day by lesser talented players. So yes IMO it takes a combination of both.

 

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Jonnies,

I have seen more than one coach give up on a player too soon. There are many kids out there that need an opportunity and the right place to "Get it Right". They are often discarded by coaches because they don't want to have to help a player deal with the social aspects of team sports. As the kids get older there are many issues that come up a coach has to deal with on a personal level. Comes with the job. Social interaction with players and parents is a huge part of being a good coach. As I am sure you know.

Those coaches who mentor as well as coach are the ones that you want your daughter to play for and if you find one then its the best of both worlds. Win or lose.

Elliott.

I had the pleasure of working with Hawks daughter last night for 2.5 hours and was a little surprised by what she did not know because she had not been taught some of the basics in throwing mechanics, weight shift, swing plane etc but she was eager to learn and it was hot and muggy last night and she never stopped.

Once she got out of the level swing mode and could feel the difference in bat speed and power she got that little smile that they all get as if to say OK I got it now....lets go play right now!

They should not be this old and not have been taught at least how to throw properly and dad agreed and he played ball and had not been taught some of the techniques we used last night either.

When I first started working with her I doubted her ability until I understood she had never been taught properly and soon you could see she doubted herself because she had not been taught and then she started asking am I doing it better now and we kept building off that. And she kept throwing harder and harder!

In my opinion some coaches would have given up on her based on the basic skills not being there....someone is going to get a gamer here in the next few weeks in my opinion.

 

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Jonnies,

I have seen more than one coach give up on a player too soon. There are many kids out there that need an opportunity and the right place to "Get it Right". They are often discarded by coaches because they don't want to have to help a player deal with the social aspects of team sports. As the kids get older there are many issues that come up a coach has to deal with on a personal level. Comes with the job. Social interaction with players and parents is a huge part of being a good coach. As I am sure you know.

Those coaches who mentor as well as coach are the ones that you want your daughter to play for and if you find one then its the best of both worlds. Win or lose.

Elliott.

My daughter's first fastpitch coach knew she was new to fastpitch, but saw that she had some potential and that she was coachable, so he offered her a spot. Still, she was very green and lacked confidence. She needed time, attention, and patience but I don't think he had enough of that to give her. She spent a lot of time on the bench.

As she sat, she watched everything! She watched her teammates, the opponents, older teams, everyone's coaches...and she learned. She asked to go to the batting cages often, practiced throwing in the yard, and took catching lessons. While he wasn't looking, she got better.

Now she has a coach who spends as much time working with her as possible. She watches the older girls play and, when he can, he explains what is happening in those games. She even has limited opportunities to practice and play with the older girls. Her coach is experienced, confident, patient, and cares about his girls! Her team has mostly new players and has not been particularly successful this year; but they are learning so much and having fun doing it!

Who knows, with his guidance maybe someday you'll read about my little girl in other areas of OFC.
(Please pardon the Mom bias ?)

 

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Hitter:

Great post, as usual. I envy you because the parents and players who get in to see you have already made a commitment to put the player in your hands unconditionally, as well they should. Earlier this summer I started a thread about problems with getting through to 12 year olds so they will buy into basic but fundamental changes in their throwing and hitting mechanics. Among the responses I got was a strong parental voice saying coaches too often fix what isn't broken, thus actually hindering the player's development. Maybe that actually happened and maybe this particular parent was far more qualified than the coach in question with respect to batting mechanics, but I'm guessing that there are more than a few parents out there who undermine coaching efforts (whether consciously or not) because of distrust of the coach's abilities. Girls who have done extremely well in rec leagues or even in the better mid-week double header leagues understandably may resist major changes in mechanics if the parents are telling them how great they are as-is. At the risk of stating the obvious, when the players move up in age and competitive quality, what worked so well at earlier stages often is now substantially insufficient to create success. I would suggest that if the parents have done their research on the coaches/organizations and have decided to place their daughter with a particular team, they should for the most part give the coach the benefit of any doubt and let the coach have a fair shot at teaching their daughter new techniques. In our case, my husband and I look for and study anything you post (and a frequent topic during our drives to away tournaments is how we can develop a successful strategy to get a few hours of your time ;D), purchase and study materials such as the Kobota dvds on defensive skills, attend as many NFCA courses as our budget and time constraints allow (my goal is to earn my last credits toward the Master Coaching certificate with a significant wedding anniversary (say 35 years) celebrated at that NFCA instruction trailer out in left field at Oklahoma City), follow up with instructors from those courses (one such generous soul at a pretty darned successful Division I program has made available virtually anything he's developed in the way of coaching documents and has even taken many phone calls from my husband) etc. etc. We really want to help our players develop and we hope that our concrete efforts to gain coaching expertise will generate enough parental trust that we can create a united family/coaching front to encourage these young ladies to break out of their comfort zone, especially where that comfort zone simply won't suffice in future years. And we thank you for helping us by posting on public fora such as OFC.

PS: Elliott, you're not half bad either. JK

 

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We actually had to address the very difficult situation this year - and as painful as it was to let this player go for the coaches and the organization as a whole, it was necessary, the negativity this player brought to the team was destroying the moral for a very long time, and the moment she was gone - we have been on a roll - the girls are no longer depressed or defending themselves - if by chance the game goes the wrong way they NOW pick themselves up and push forward and do not fight amoungst eachother any more - i have to say this was the right desicion and one that has never happened before in the history of this organization - the parents and player had gotten worned every single game and every single tournament - and once she was gone the difference was OBVIOUS! i hope this is a once in a lifetime event but i have to absolutely say it was the right choice, at least in this instance.

i also believe whole heartedly that attitude goes hand in hand with ability, positive personality brings positive performance.

i was glad when i saw this posting - it is nice to see that i can show our coaches that it was a good decision.