Baseball night in America! Some years ago I attended one of my junior player’s baseball game. It was fun to see this kid compete at a very high level of baseball. One thing I noticed and it bothered me.
Coach of my guy’s team had a pitcher who was very inexperienced with handling pressure. What I mean is you could see that little things annoyed this boy and he was very immature. Having coached football at this age level, it is not that uncommon to have a skilled athlete who is immature. But the pitcher was not the problem in my opinion. It was the coach! My kid’s team went up by five runs in the 3rd or 4th inning. They had this team on the ropes. Very next inning the pitcher becomes erratic. The infielders make two errors, and the guest team hits a few seeing eye singles and the next thing you know, the home team is losing. Not one trip to the mound from the home team coach. Not one! I could not believe it. After being down by 3 runs instead of up by five, the coach finally makes a trip to the mound and changes pitchers. The new pitcher shuts out the other team for two innings. My thought? The coach could have won the game with a few trips to the mound to calm the pitcher and give him some simple cues such as “Just hit the catcher’s glove”. If that did not work, switch pitchers before the game went beyond reach.
What does this have to do with racquetball? I see similar situations in racquetball matches. Use the time outs and stop the bleeding when falling behind or enduring a rally. Too late for this rookie coach, but not too late for those of us who compete!