My dad is the most patient coach you’d ever want to meet. He has a very relaxed and kind way of dealing with alt the kids in the neighborhood, and he is a great teacher of the game because he loves it so much.
Patience is a good place to start when coaching kids in any sport or teaching any skill. Teaching kids is like building a house. You’ve got to start with a solid foundation from the ground up.
Use the foundation we talked about in chapter 1. Some kids will pick up the fundamental swing right away; other kids may struggle at first so be creative: “Hit me a ground ball.” If that’s not working: “See if you can hit me a line drive to the second baseman or the shortstop or the third baseman.” Have your players try different things in order to perfect the straight stride. Another suggestion: If a player is a right-handed hitter, have him hit the ball down the first-base line to keep him from pulling off the pitch and messing up his stride.
Also realize that if you are coaching young kids:
Coaches must understand that a player, especially a young kid of nine or ten, may not have his coordination developed yet to the point where they can evaluate his ability. That player may have more talent than coaches think, as in one year he may grow four inches and improve his coordination and turn the corner to take his game to the next level.
Don’t evaluate a nine-year-old as if he is a teenager, and decide he can’t play. That’s not fair to the kid and it’s a poor way to coach your team. You don’t know what’s going to happen to the kid’s body or when he’s going to mature. And so if you can keep giving him the foundation and make it fun and interesting, then when his body changes he may like playing baseball.
The hope is that he will grow up to love playing the game of baseball. Don’t beat him up mentally over his struggles; try to make it fun and interesting along the way, or he’s going to quit. Otherwise you’ll have burned out a kid at ten who might have had a chance to be pretty good.
Good coaching begins with putting everything into perspective and taking a look down the road to understand that this kid may still have some growing up to do.
Even if he’s a good player, he still needs to learn how to play the game better. He may be doing well now because he’s big and strong for his age, but what if his swing is a wreck?
His success with a bad swing will be short-lived, as when the other kids mature he won’t get away with a flawed swing and bad mechanics. The other kids will run right by him, unless you take the time to work on his swing while he’s developing as a player.
I firmly believe that this slogan means you learn a lot of lessons from playing this game the right way. My goal is to help kids learn how to hit and take pride in what they do. I’m not a child psychologist. I raised my kids to learn from competing to win and competing to have fun.
But you can also learn a lot from failure. It hurts to fail, but it also makes you a stronger person. You have two choices when you fail: You can decide to quit playing because it makes you unhappy, or walk down the positive road to realize: “It’s okay to fail because it makes me work harder to get better. I’m going to get a hit the next time. I’m going to make the play the next time.”
You can learn a lot from failure, but you can also learn a lot from winning. You don’t want to boast about winning, and try to intimidate or mock the other team. Learn to have an understanding and an appreciation for what the kids on the other team are feeling. You’ve been through the pain of the kid hitting the home run off of you, or making the last out of the game and getting taunted by the pitcher who beat you.
What can you learn from failure? Certainly, not to act like that pitcher who made you look bad after you lost. You never want to show up another player and make him feel bad. There’s nothing wrong with being happy about winning a baseball game. Be glad that you got the game-winning hit or recorded the final out. But there’s never any excuse to make it any more painful for the other team than it is already.
There’s a lot to learn from baseball—whether we are winning or losing—from the way we treat other people as we play. That’s true of any type of competition, whether it’s business, school, or sports.
I’ve been blessed with success as a player and as a coach with the New York Yankees. I’ve been able to make a good living from my passion. But I can’t believe it’s any different out there in the “real world.” You compete to get a good job. After you get that job, you must compete to do well and move up the ladder to make more money to support your family and provide them with the decent things they deserve. Even within your own company, you will run up against people who don’t treat you with respect or who are trying to take your job.
It doesn’t matter what the other person does to you. You still have to handle that competitive situation like a decent human being, even if the other guy is handling it the wrong way.
The foundation you’re building in baseball—hard work, perseverance, having fun and a passion for success and achievement—will apply to anything else you want to pursue in your life. The choices are up to you to sort out along the way to your future, whether baseball is a part of that future or not.
