Dot your eyes and improve your coaching.

Coaching is a complex and demanding undertaking that demands a broad assortment of psychological, motivational, organizational, and physical skills.

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Which of these areas would you say is most important? A tough call, but the mechanics and the old X's and O's certainly would have to be placed close to the top.

Athletes usually compete at every level of the game and then go into coaching, secure in the belief that they know all there is to know about coaching. But, as the wise old manager, Earl Weaver, once out it: "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."

What he meant is that coaches never stop learning. They have to constantly study, up-date, and improve their knowledge of the game and their methods of teaching it.

Let's take a look at some of the avenues open to the seekers of the constant truth:

1. Coaching magazines that feature articles on coaching techniques and skills.

Many of them are written by experienced and successful coaches, others by younger coaches who believe they've come up with a wrinkle worthy of consideration. Even if you don't agree with everything you read, you will think about it. That is part of the learning process.

Many coaches also use magazine articles as bulletin board teaching fodder or as a means of inspiring and motivating their players.

2. College courses in the physical education or kinesiology classes can be invaluable in helping students prepare themselves for coaching.

For example, at Georgia Southern University offers a degree in coaching education that will prepare students to coach at the public school or youth sports levels. In the five years of its existence, it has blossomed into one of the most popular degrees at the university.

3. Books and Videotapes on how to play sports can help anyone improve his knowledge and skills.

Some of these aids are produced by knowledgeable coaches and others by professional athletes who want to cash in on their fame. Young coaches are urged to investigate their legitimacy. They should beware of all those ringing endorsements on the dust jackets. A surprising number of big-name athletes and coaches will endorse anything.

4. Clinics.

America has more coaches than any other country, perhaps more than the rest of the world combined. Nobody else places so much emphasis on sports in its schools and colleges.

"How-to" clinics are standard features all over the U.S. and are available to coaches at modest fees. Though there are always coaches who will refuse to reveal their "secrets," most coaches are delighted and honored to share their knowledge.

5. Bull Sessions.

Coaches love to get together and talk shop, and these discussions produce a lot of invaluable coaching information. Veteran baseball coaches still talk about that memorable day in Los Angeles when both Ted Williams and Harry Walker spoke on hitting at the annual ABCA clinic, then spent an hour in the corner of the hotel lobby arguing about various principles of hitting!

It was priceless, just one of those things that make baseball people sing.

6. Watching games.

It's amazing how much you can learn by watching games, not as a spectator, but from a coaching perspective--focusing entirely on the game and never letting yourself get caught up in the excitement and emotionalism of the crowd.

I once sat in the press box with the supervisor of officials, who was evaluating the crew working the game. Since I had no rooting interest, I just concentrated on the officials, and I never learned more about football officiating than I did that afternoon.

Baseball coaches should use the same approach--watch the game purely as a student. They'll be astonished at how much they can learn about the players' performances and how the coach or manager manipulates the game from a strategical standpoint.

A coach sitting in the stands surrounded by dozens of fans screaming encouragement to their heroes may find it difficult to focus on the niceties of the game. He can easily become a rooter rather than a coach.

That is why major league scouts try to find a spot in the stands away from anything that can impinge upon his objectivity in evaluating the players.

That is also why many would-be coaches believe you can learn more by watching the games on TV rather than in person. For example, instant replay can give you a second and sometimes third look at some detail of execution or strategy.

TV also gives you the gift of an announcer, an analyst, an expert, and a roving reporter. All of them can produce a lot of valuable information. You can listen to the expert explain what happened and why it was successful or not and exactly what the manager or coach was trying to do.

Of course, the bad news is that you may be forced to listen to the media expert keep right on talking when they run out of intelligent things to say or whenever they don't really know what happened.

LOOK, LISTEN AND LEARN

When something happens in a baseball game that may have an impact on the outcome, most people will have a pretty good idea what occurred. If, say, an infielder botches a run-down play between second and third, the vast majority of spectators will know that the infielder messed up the play and maybe cost his team the game.

What most of them don't know is why the play was botched, and this is where the good announcer can earn his keep by explaining (precisely) what went wrong.

There are two or perhaps three pretty standard ways to execute a rundown play and every infielder has to be taught his role in each of them. Whenever he messes up, it will be up to the announcer to explain it, maybe something like this:

"The infielders spent hours in spring training on run-down plays, but probably never practiced it again during the season. It's also possible that Bobby Synott, who came up from the minors during the season, never got a chance to familiarize himself with the play."

There is also such a thing as over-kill. In the 2003 World Series, some of the reporting, especially by the two experts, Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan, went far beyond what was needed.

For example, with a two-run lead late in games 5 and 6, McCarver did a fine job of pointing out the positioning of the first and third basemen in their normal position. They avoided hugging the foul line "to cut down on a double" because the tying run was still in the on-deck circle. With a one-run lead they, guarded the foul line to protect against a double that would put the tying run in scoring position.

McCarver also constantly reminded listeners about the positioning of outfielders according to the score and the situation.

A lot of information such as this can be picked up by paying attention to the game rather than being caught up in the excitement of the moment.

Another factor for coaches watching on TV is the need to understand what the announcers are trying to do. Some announcers who work regularly for a team will avoid criticizing the manager, coaches, or players. They don't want to make anyone "mad" at them and stop talking to them for a month or so--drying up a source of information that they need for their broadcasts.

Network announcers are also concerned about their relations with the players, but since they don't work regularly for a team, they feel less obligated to protect a player. This is one reason why network announcers often appear to be ultra-critical of certain players. Their "unfair criticism" could be simply honest and forthright reporting--to which nobody is accustomed.

One of the delicate problems involved with watching baseball on TV is when to tune out the announcers. How many times have you heard an announcer say: "When players get to the big leagues, they know how to play the game properly."

Is that right? Then why can't you find more than a handful of major league players who can lay down a sacrifice bunt?

Anyone who watches baseball on TV will see some great skills, some ordinary skills, and some poor skills. You have to watch every game with a critical eye to distinguish which is which.

As a coach, you can pass along the right way to play the game and to identify the major league players that you would like your kids to emulate. If you want to teach someone how to play right field, you would certainly point out a Roberto Clemente before a Jose Canseco.

Another delicate piece of nonsense is the cliche shared by players and TV announcers: "It doesn't matter how you do it just as long as you get the job done!"

This implies that the mechanics of the game are unimportant so long as you are successful in what you do. That theory is dangerous for young players and the coaches working with them.

It's true that many major league players have very unusual and perhaps plain poor mechanics, but are still fairly successful and are thus allowed to do their thing their way.

Part of this attitude is due to a reluctance of managers and coaches to change the mechanics of a player who has been successful throughout the minor leagues and is now in the major leagues. "If I change him and he starts to fail, I'll be blamed."

The other problem is the attitude of the player (and perhaps his agent as well): "I have been successful to this point, and now that I'm in the big leagues they want me to change. I'm going to stick with what got me here!"

IT'S NOT UNUSUAL

What coaches have to understand when working with young players is that most of them have ordinary talent and players with ordinary talent have to do things correctly because that is the easiest way for them to be successful.

Somebody (I think it was Hank Aaron) said at a hitting clinic: "Unusual mechanics require unusual talent." If a young player has ordinary talent, he can't be very successful using unusual mechanics. A hitter who uses a stance like Jeff Bagwell's had better have a lot of strength and a lot of talent or he is not going to be able to be even moderately successful as a hitter.

There have been a lot of outstanding hitters who used an unusual style of hitting ... Babe Ruth, Mel Ott, Stan Musial, Ty Cobb, Jimmy Foxx, and Joe DiMaggio, to mention just a few ... but they all had great talent!

Fifty years ago you would see a lot of rookies in the minor leagues using a "Stan Musial stance" at the plate. A month later (if they were still on the team) you would see them using a more standard stance because they had been convinced, "You ain't Stan Musial!"

The message a young coach can send to his players is that many if not most of the players in the major leagues have pretty good (but not great) talent, and they are in the big leagues more because they have worked hard to develop good skills and mechanics rather than "because they were born with great talent."

By learning as much as possible about the techniques and skills needed to play the game, and by then putting the emphasis on working hard to improve their skills, coaches should be able to do a good job of developing their young players into becoming the very best they can be!

A good example of the dilemma of choosing between "good mechanics and let him be" is pitcher Dontrelle Willis of the Florida Marlins. He turns his back completely away from the plate at the start of his delivery and also has an extremely high leg kick, unusual mechanics, but he certainly pitched well as a young rookie last season.

Probably the vast majority of coaches, particularly on the Marlins staff, are aware that his pitching mechanics make it more difficult for him to be consistent in his delivery and it thus affects his control. It will be interesting to see what the Marlins will do with his mechanics (if anything) in Spring Training next year.

Of course, Warren Spahn and Juan Marichal both had that high leg kick (but not the excessive body turn) and they were two of the best pitchers around for a lot of years.

It will also be interesting to see how many teen-age pitchers will start to use Dontrelle's style of pitching next spring, and a lot of coaches are going to have to suffer through the problem of "having a pitcher who looks just like Dontrelle until he releases the ball," and then it ends up somewhere on the backstop screen!

Perhaps this is a good spot to repeat the comment that "Unusual mechanics require unusual talent." A lot of the young pitchers who try to copy Dontrelle Willis will soon learn that they don't have his kind of talent!

It was a disappointment that none of the TV announcers in this year's major league playoffs commented on this dilemma ... perhaps they felt it might embarrass the youngster, but by making the point they could have certainly sent a message to a lot of young kids in the listening audience.

Watching major league games is a lot of fun and it can be a very helpful from the instructional perspective rather than as a fan rooting for a team. By watching the game, listening to the commentators, and learning WHY rather than WHICH team won, both players and coaches can constantly develop their skills and knowledge of the game.

BY JACK STALLINGS

Head Baseball Coach (Retired)

Georgia Southern University