@Francis7 posted:Scrimmage intrasquad game. Player hits a routine fly ball but doesn't hustle and run it out hard and to the coach's expectations.
Coach has the entire team run suicides because of the player's infraction.
Me? I get it. I'm defending the coach to those who are upset over the move. This is how I am explaining it:
This is Coaching 101. It's the oldest play in the book and used by coaches in every sport: Baseball, Basketball and Football.
While these kids are dying running suicides, the kid who caused it is hearing everything from "Thanks a lot Charlie!" to "Charlie, if we ever have to do this again because of you, I will personally rip off your nads and stuff them down your throat."
It's peer pressure to make sure the kid never does it again and it's a warning shot to everyone else that you better run it out or else 39 of your teammates are going to suffer badly and want to kill you.
Others see this as the coach is punishing innocent kids and potentially causing physical injury to those who are already sore and aching and now have to run suicides.
I guess there are other ways to send a message? Maybe the coach could bench the player for the next 3 scrimmages or something more individually focused but also visible to the entire team?
From a coaching, player or other perspective, what's the best way to handle this type of situation?
For the record: Not my kid who hit the fly. But, he is one who is really pissed that he had to run because the other kid didn't hustle.
As someone who has played baseball, coached, and works in sports medicine, I have my own little take on this.
1) I think running is absolutely stupid as a punishment. ~24% of adults in the US meet recommended PA guidelines and this is causing major issues. The last thing I want an athlete to do is associate exercise with punishment.
2) What is the goal of this? To prevent it from happening? So as a coach - which you're teaching your players to be great, responsible upstanding reflections on the institute they're at - I'd rather sit that player down and explain, "I expect to see hustle, not just on ground balls, not in and out of the dugout, but everything - fly balls included. Your other coaches may not have cared, but it is important to me that I see that on my team. If I don't see that out of you, I'll find somebody else who will hustle those out."
Then after the scrimmage I'd recap with everyone the expectations even during a scrimmage.
In terms of running due to someone making a mistake, again I hate that too. As a coach you see a mistake, you address the mistake. You implement measures to have it happen less often. Having people run to prevent mistakes does nothing to address those things.
3) Coaches having the team run during practice or scrimmage for conditioning is also absolutely stupid and a waste of time.