Positive Coaching to the Max - 365 Days to Better Baseball

Saturday Secrets to Great baseball Coaching

"Kill em" with Positive Coaching

At my first meeting with a baseball team, I gather parents and players together. One of first themes of this meeting is to attest to the enormous difficulty of the game. Additionally, I mention that players should be proud of themselves for trying this challenging sport, or for continuing to play ball another year.

Of course, I am not exaggerating, as the game is difficult and many will not experience great success. The point I am trying to get across is that they should remain positive through the trials and tribulations of the season and that the coaches will too.

For whatever reasons, many parents tend to be hard on their kids. I hear tons of comments that deride their kids' performance. Even though many of these comments are innocuous for the most part, just alluding to things as, he's always waving the bat before they hit or alluding to it being in their head as to why they lack success are negative things that wear on kids.

Positive Coaching Effect

I see kids' eyes light up when I respond with, "I love when batters wave their bat a little when waiting for the pitch or I'm sure it is mechanical and not in their head as to their problems.

The point is, the more parents seem to be negative, the more positive I try to be. It is not false praise as those are things I believe, but I make it a point to be very positive in those situations in the hope that parents begin to look more positively on their child's efforts.

My favorite belief bears repeating "Negativity, rarely, if ever, inspires." Furthermore, I would venture to guess that negative parents lead players to athletic burnout more than players growing tired of playing.

Of course, some kids are very negative themselves so the same coaching philosophy applies. Once again, coaches should try to overwhelm negative people with positive messages because it works, at least that is until they leave the field.