Teach Players To Take Risks

Risk is coached out of players to often that times is it frustrating to see what how any player reacts when something doesn’t go exactly to plan. With coaches yelling, parents watching, and others judging it can cloud how a player ultimately handles a situation.

Players are coached out of risks so often that when a new concept is introduced to them it makes it very difficult for them to even try to think of using the new idea. These players are safe with what results they have even if they are marginal. Frankly they know what they are doing “works” and don’t want to fail using a different strategy. This is frustrating to me as a coach because you want players in many situations to be open and honest with not only themselves but with others about how they are doing.

Players can have success early in their careers with a type of activity, but as others catch up to them mentally, and physically they can fall behind. Those strategies which once worked can be very difficult for them continue to use. Players hold on to these for fear of the what if.

Coaches need to instill in players to frankly it is OK to fail. If a player isn’t making the necessary changes that the coach might feel is best for the player it might take other avenues at that point to show why the coach thinks this particular way. But honestly most of the time players need to trust that the coach is looking out for their best interests in mind.

I had a great example of this the other day. A pitcher was throwing in a scrimmage and after speaking with him I realized that he was throwing a knuckle ball and with some success. The difficulty is that a good hitter in this situation will take advantage of the slower pitch once they identify that it is a Knuckle ball being thrown. As pitchers progress it is more difficult for a quality hitter to identify a change up.

Players are often coached out of using a change up for the fact that they are not familiar with it, or will have little success. Which is counter to what it should be. As change ups will ultimately hurt a pitcher in the short term but help in the long term. Which is what a coach wants most for all their players.

What are you going to do today to challenge a player to take risks? What ultimately would be the most important factor to a player making a positive change?