March 2005 – This Month in Coaches Advisor…

In this issue:

Baseball –  The Final Frontier of Hitting – Visual Mechanics

Basketball – The importance of guard play

General – Boston Area High School coach has “double-double”

The Final Frontier of Hitting – Visual Mechanics

See the ball. Hit the Ball. Good Eye! Watch the ball hit the bat! The first part of any baseball or softball swing starts with the eyes and the ability to see
the ball. Recently, Visual Mechanics has become a growing area of research and instruction at both your local indoor training center and even in the Major Leagues.

I recently went to a lecture given by Frozen Ropes baseball founder Tony Abbatine and Harvard Medical School physician Dr Daniel Laby. Abbatine and Laby have teamed up on quite a bit of research and their findings have led them to be hired by the Dodgers and NY Mets for their visual mechanics expertise.

So just what are Visual Mechanics? Before we talk about that, let’s outline the basics premise of Visual Mechanics.

1) The better hitters have visual tracking habits that are different from other hitters.

2) Vision can be improved by addressing Visual Mechanics.

3) Visual Mechanics represent a skills set that can be practiced and improved like any other skill set.

4) Most players and coaches are unaware of this and the fact that there are many simple ways to improve these skills within your current practice routines.

According to Abbatine, it is inefficient to try and track a ball right out of pitchers hand. For a lot of reasons it does not work. But you can track it from
a pitcher’s release point in the following way (Abbatine and Laby describe this a lot better than I do) :

1) Establish a general focus of vision with relaxed eyes, someplace to the left of the pitcher (maybe a general gaze into left center).

2) When your field of vision sees the very first sign that a pitcher is starting his windup, adjust your eyes so that you bring your focus from left to right and stop at the release point area. Move your eyes in a smooth tracking fashion; avoid jumping from spot to spot.

3) This is the point where you focus your vision. Like any other muscle, ocular muscles will fatigue if worked for too long, so a laser like focus on the
pitcher before he has even gone to a wind up will not be useful.

4) The head is still during all of this; movement of the head will decrease your ability to track the ball.

5) The eyes are in “stereo” meaning they are level to the ground and both are facing the pitcher. Head tilt will decrease your visual ability.

Basketball – the importance of guard play

Watch for the guard play during the various high school and NCAA tournaments going on over the next few weeks. Who is winning? The teams with the best guard play or with the most players on the court who have guard like skills. Do these skills remind you of anyone: – Handle the ball under pressure. – Hit the open man in transition. – Face the basket to drive or hit a jump shot – Pressure the perimeter well and challenge the entry pass. – Are adept at running time off the clock and setting up a good shot.

We asked college coach Karel Jelinek of Washington and Jefferson what trends he saw emerging at the high school level:

“In our area I am seeing teams that are playing at a faster pace are starting to win more. The up tempo system can help negate your own lack of interior strength and the pressure tempo can negate another team’s big guy. Guard oriented teams use pressure to stop a big man.”

It makes sense; most coach’s rosters are full of kids under 6’3” and usually empty of players 6’5” and over.

Added Coach Jelinek, “Defense is usually a common factor with teams that move far into playoffs. They all can stop the ball. Everyone says that “defense wins championships” and that is true to a point, but you still have to score to win. I think the key to winning is the ability to make a key shot against a good defense. Often the player who can do that is a guard or small forward type player who can break down someone on the drive or pull up for a jump shot if the drive is taken away.”

Jelinek is not necessarily talking about the Grinnell College style ball we spoke about in the February Coach’s Advisor. The faster paced teams are
committed to defense whereas Grinnell Ball is all about outscoring the opponent, not stopping them.

With the season over for most coaches, it is time to self scout and reflect back on what you have done. Do you have the right system in place for your
personnel? Will you always be beaten by a bigger team if you continue to run the same style? Look at your wins and losses, what was the key factor?

Maybe now is the time to go back to school by attending a clinic or two and look for some material to help you make the changes want in your program. CompuSports offers a lot of good resources for basketball coaches – eBooks on basketball coaching, basketball coaching clinic listings, basketball coaching software tools and web site links to great basketball coaching resources.

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Boston Area High School Coach Has Rare Double-Double – State Championships and Perfect College Record. (excerpts from Boston Sports Review – Feb/March 2005, author Bill Keefe)

Mention the name Jackie O’Brien around basketball circles in Boston and people immediately think of the four consecutive state titles his teams won in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Few people however realize that the man who coaches kids from some of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods of the city also has a 100% success rate of getting his players off to college. In 10 years every single Charlestown Townie has gone to college! Many have gone on scholarships to places like Florida, Marist, Ohio, Robert Morris, and Canisius. Others are more pure scholar at schools like Bowdoin, Bates and Bentley.

Says the coach, “For a lot of our kids, they’re the first in their family to go to school”.