What is the ONE MOST IMPORTANT key to a winning program?

good chemistry

Confidence

1a : a feeling or consciousness of one's powers or of reliance on one's circumstances

b : faith or belief that one will act in a right, proper, or effective way

2: the quality or state of being certain

3a : a relation of trust
b : reliance on
c : support

A coach who is willing to take the time and make the effort to prepare their team to play baseball.

a program that starts before 9th grade, coaches that invest in the cities rec anfd select programs, by helping coaches at that age teach fundementals

To quote the movie "The Rookie".....It's never just one thing.

Fundamentals

quote:

Originally posted by coachjo:
...if everyone could only list ONE....ONE key that is A MUST for a winning program...what would it be??

An easy schedule


program structure that commands the best of it’s players every time they touch grass, cage or dugout

Players who have talent and work hard.

No nonsense coaches who are fair and consistent.

IMO talent is the most important thing, but it won't be enough on its own (and development of talent is a big part of this too, and a whole 'nother topic).

Like others have said, it is never just "one thing," but if I had to pick one, the biggest thing in addition to talent that a successful program must have is effort and consistency of effort.

Edit: D'oh! Was writing this just as Will posted, and he beat me to the punch! Great minds think alike, I guess....

Team first

quote:

Originally posted by coachjo:
Let's see how everyone feels on this. Some may simply say "talent". I would like to see if everyone could only list ONE....ONE key that is A MUST for a winning program...what would it be??

If you are limiting it to ONE (not possible) there is no way you can say anything other than talent. While you can't win with talent alone, there is no way you can win without it. It would be someone with a LARGE ego to think they could WIN without talent (Although I think you can be very SUCCESSFUL depending on how you want to define that).

A coach that connects with his team and earns their trust..too many kids shutdown just because of a disconnect with their coach.

quote:

Originally posted by JMW37:

quote:

Originally posted by coachjo:
Let's see how everyone feels on this. Some may simply say "talent". I would like to see if everyone could only list ONE....ONE key that is A MUST for a winning program...what would it be??

If you are limiting it to ONE (not possible) there is no way you can say anything other than talent. While you can't win with talent alone, there is no way you can win without it. It would be someone with a LARGE ego to think they could WIN without talent (Although I think you can be very SUCCESSFUL depending on how you want to define that).

Have to agree with this. You can have success with some combonation of all the other things but talent only can take you places. I've seen many times where talent overcame bad coaching, poor attitudes, no chemistry etc....

Uniforms

A solid infrastructure.

If you have it, it will pay benefits for the life of your program. If you don't, you can still have a few peaks amongst your valleys.

Chemistry.

Best achieved, IMO, when a coach relentlessly demands hard work, while invariably he remains humorous and irrationally positive. Even when the wheels fall off...especially when the wheels fall off.

No hierarchy, no stars, the enlisted men eat before the officers.

Passion! With passion to play comes effort, commitment, desire to work to be the best, and enjoyment of competition. It starts with a passion for the game, without it we are spinning our wheels.

Ability to do the "little things."

Being able to execute the baseball fundamentals

If you're looking for ONE thing, you're not going to find it. This is one of my favorite quotes:

"The best in the world are the best not because they do one thing 100% better, they do everything 10% better."

Focusing the team in the right direction, which is not trying to eat the elephant.

I've done a lot of research lately and will focus the team on the following:

1) Quality at bats
2) Winning innings
3) Minimizing walks and errors

If we focus on these and meet our goals each game statistically winning will take care of itself.

Players who can hit. Your defense can be great, and pitchers, but if you can't put numbers on the board it's all for nothing. If I hear another coach say "keep your head in", or "see the ball hit the bat" I might be sreaming in the stands. These comments do nothing to help a batter. Where are there hands? Are their feet moving correctly? R they hitting across body, etc? These are the things to look for and correct. Coaches should video each player at practice, study film at home, like football coaches do and see what big mistakes your batters have and fix them. They always come with them.They learned things from well meaning youth coaches which are not quite right. You have to dev. your team as Freshman, including pitchers or it will be too late when they are 17 to change them.

Everybody be on the same page at all levels.Freshman JV Varsity.

Pay close attention to the younger players on the Freshman and JV teams. The varsity coach should have good communication with freshman and JV coach. I had the same JV coach for 21 years. The most important thing we did was talk. The best question I asked was did he see this player contributing to the varsity next year or down the road.