Creating a Competitive Cauldron
“Players tend to be more forgiving of their faults if it’s in a nebulous fog of subjective criticism."
Anson Dorrance has a very impressive resume.
He has led the University of North Carolina’s women’s soccer team to 21 National Championships in 29 years, oversaw the United States’ first Women’s World Cup victory in 1991, and has been named the NCAA’s Soccer Coach of the Year for both men’s and women’s teams.
In order to create one of the most celebrated NCAA dynasties, Dorrance introduced his UNC program to what he calls a “competitive cauldron”.
Dorrance had the good fortune to share a campus with Dean Smith’s basketball program and jumped at the opportunity to watch how Smith ran his UNC basketball practices.
Smith ran an unbelievably tight and precise practice schedule. The legendary basketball coach had his sessions outlined down to the minute. Schedules were printed out in advanced and followed to the letter.
Smith had team managers collecting data on everything -- shots, passes, defense, everything. At the end of practice, based on that assembled data, Smith’s managers would present the coach with individual report cards. Players with passing grades hit the showers and went home. Those who did not earn sufficient marks would run sprints.
It made practices as competitive, if not more than, their games.
Dorrance loved how the Tar Heel players performed during those practices. He also loved how they performed in games, too. So he brought that concept to his soccer program.
From Tim Crothers’ The Man Watching: Anson Dorrance and the University of North Carolina Women’s Soccer Dynasty:
Following the example of Smith’s practice, Dorrance decided that every single time a player touched a soccer ball, she could be graded in some way, and from those evaluations he could build a report card for the season. He could regularly post the rankings on a bulletin board for everyone to see, and players would be more likely to hold themselves accountable.
“Players tend to be more forgiving of their faults if it’s in a nebulous fog of subjective criticism,” Dorrance says. “We wanted to make it very clear with numbers.”
Dorrance and the Tar Heels’ success shows that this type of mentality can easily transfer from sport-to-sport.
There are numerous ways of introducing similar concepts to baseball and softball practices.
If you are fortunate enough to have access to technologies like Rapsodo or Trackman, you can easily compile practice data on exit velocities, strikes thrown, pitch velocity, strikes swung at, and so on. These can be formatted into leaderboards and posted in the dugout.
The key is to not only show the data but also educate the players on why those metrics are beneficial to their performance. Over-communicating is better than under-communicating.
If you don’t have the latest technology, simple charting of balls and strikes, swinging strikes, hard hit balls, batted ball types, or plays made by fielders can suffice. This can be done in scrimmage, live AB or drill situations. Whatever skill needs to be improved for in-game performance, can be emphasize in practice in a competitive setting.
Don’t neglect the defense: Some college programs video all batting practice and fielding sessions and chart in-zone plays with plays made. Those with additional resources, such as team managers, break down defensive drills, such as tracking plays by infielders made with a backhand, forehand, or straight on.
By presenting data and grades, the players can see what areas of their game needs improvement. As Dorrance said, while coaches can tell a player they need to work on something, it makes more of an impact to see the cold hard numbers.
Collecting this information is vital, sharing it with the players is even more important. If players know what they are being graded on, their personal accountability should activate.
That is how you can create your own competitive cauldron.