Get the Funk Out of Here
There are many different points in a season for a team. The preseason/tryouts are filled with a lot of excitement and energy. The start of the season comes with a lot of figuring out exactly how the pieces fit and work together. Losses are frustrating, but they also give a coach some homework and the opportunity to tweak things. Then you enter the grind where you're in that routine of practices and games where the excitement has worn off but the end is not imminent. Finally you reach the postseason or the end of the year tournaments where you're both excited and sad to see things come to an end. At the end you expect to be playing your best, roles have been defined, and it's time to see how good your are and how far you've come. However, the one part of the season that you can almost always guarantee is going to come but can never predict when it will arrive is the "funk."
Over the years when coaching basketball, as a coach you can sense the funk coming. The effort level in practice tends to dip or the shots in the games just stop falling. People squeeze the ball a bit tighter and the defensive effort slips when the ball is going through the hoop. There isn't a fail proof method to snap out of the funk, but in basketball there are a lot of different ways of tackling things. Some coaches and fans will talk about how a loss in basketball can be good for a team to get their attention. I've never really bought into that because a good coach always knows how to get their team's attention even when they're winning.
When that funk hits in basketball you can light your guys up in a game or practice. Nothing like some extra running or sprints to get their attention. On the flip side you can sense that your guys are just tired and need a break to get back on track. Sometimes the best way to break out of a funk is a day off or a couple light practices. While these aren't always proven methods, there are a number of approaches you can take when coaching a high energy and contact sport to get your guys to play harder and play better.
Over the years as a coach I have struggled to find the answer or solution for the funk in the baseball season. Baseball is such a unique sport in the fact that it is very much an individual sport in a team environment. The very basic element of the sport is a 1-on-1 matchup between the pitcher and batter. While some amount of yelling or motivation might make a kid find a couple extra MPH or swing just a bit harder, most of the reason for a funk in a baseball season doesn't involve lack of effort.
There is a sports cliche that says defense wins championships. While I don't dismiss that claim, I think it is a generic phrase that people can easily remember and apply so it will forever be a part of the coaching vocabulary. However, at the end of the day your goal as a team is to have more runs or points than the other team. I like the phrase "defense travels" more, because that phrase implies that if you play good defense in any sport you'll always be in the game regardless of the opponent, the environment, or how you may be doing offensively. Yet I believe in all sports, that when the offense isn't going everything looks flat and the defense suffers as well.
Let's face it, when we watch or play sports ourselves, the overwhelming majority of us wanted to do well on offense. If we missed a number of shots or were struggling at the plate our confidence dipped. We start thinking about things and hoping that somebody else can pick up for our mistakes, we focus on ourselves, or we try to force something to happen and we get away from the team aspect. These things cause the defense to break down or the effort to sag. Kids may gamble and get out of position because they're trying too hard to make a play. When the offense struggles in sports you'll see some kids try to do too much instead of staying within the offense, or in baseball you'll see offensive struggles get compounded by defensive mistakes. When you're not hitting as a team, you know that every defensive play is key and you're more on edge. In any sport, when you're not scoring more pressure falls on the defense which can where that aspect down as well. Therefore, I've always believed that the key to doing all things well is to make sure the offense is clicking. When the offense is clicking everyone is more relaxed and staying within themselves. The defensive focus and intensity seems to be right where you want it as well.
Yet baseball is so unique because it is an individual sport. I've never seen how yelling at a kid or a group makes them hit the ball better. If it's out there please let me know because I need to learn. I'd love to be able to grab someone and tell them to hit a linedrive and have them go do it. In basketball or football you can get in a kid's face and challenge them knowing that you're going to get a great burst of energy that is going to impact the game, but in baseball you can do the same thing and it won't change the fact that the pitcher is hitting his spots or the kid is in the box thinking instead of reacting.
In baseball I don't know if more practice or less practice is the answer when you're in an offensive funk. Sometimes you have to tip your cap to the competition, but other times you know your kids should be performing much better than they're showing. Personally I've always believed you work yourself out of a funk by practicing harder and more often. Yet, it's easier in basketball and other sports to see when kids really are tired and need a break. In baseball many times the mind is what is truly tired and in need of a break. I've always believed that a tired mind is much worse and detrimental to a team than a tired body.
This is my 6th year being around travel baseball, and my 4th as a head coach. I can remember every team and the funk that hit every team. As a coach when you're in it you feel like it will last forever. You keep hoping that the one hit or defensive play made by a kid will be what snaps you out of the funk. You do extended warm-ups, short warm-ups, player led warm-ups. Superstitions come out in terms of what you were wearing the last time you played well or who threw batting practice. You start thinking of anything you can do to snap the funk.
The funk in baseball is inevitable. It's why good major league teams still lose 5 or 7 games in a row at some point in a season. You can see a team in a funk expecting bad things to happen. Because you're not scoring it seems like you are almost always behind early in the game, or clinging to a slim lead late. It's what puts the gray hairs on coaches and stresses out moms more than usual.
As I hopefully am entering the twilight of my coaching days, I still do not have the answer for the funk in baseball. I feel like it's been about a 3 week stretch for my current team. There were some really good signs against some elite competition this past weekend, so we'll see what this next weekend brings. I know that I won't be wearing any of the same clothes as I have the past couple of weekends, so I'm doing my part. I've pushed my team hard and we will continue to address the issues I think are holding us back. While I want to scream my lungs out and kick the chain-link with all my might, I have to remember that baseball is a different animal than other sports. As usual I don't know if we'll ever come out of it, but I know the feeling of relief I and every coach feels when it does happen. Until then I will continue to constantly spin my mind and over-analyze every little thing that I could or should be doing to get us out of this funk.
