It began with a feeling. I witnessed a number of coach-player interactions that just didn’t feel right.  They were attempts at humor using sarcasm.  Maybe it is because I am not naturally funny and humor is not part of my coaching personality.  Honestly, when I try to be funny, it never goes well.  Nobody laughs or someone takes my comment the wrong way.  I am especially inept at using sarcasm even around my friends.  Maybe that is why the use of sarcasm to communicate with an athlete just didn't feel right to me.

Intuitively, I knew that sarcasm in a coaching environment could be detrimental, after all, by it’s very nature the speaker is saying something that is not true. What does that do to the trust that a player has for a coach?  I think most would agree that communication is FOUNDATIONAL to coaching and to building trust in the coach-player relationship. Making false statements to get a reaction could not possibly build this relationship. Here is the definition of sarcasm from an online dictionary:

During my research on sarcasm, I found multiple references to the complexity of this form of communication.  It’s complicated…It’s complex…It’s problematic.  Sarcasm is all of these things.  When we think about the foundational nature of communication in building the coach-player relationship, there is no question that highly complex and intricate forms of speech can complicate things.
 
I was also really surprised to see some strong labels in the research around sarcasm.  Sarcastic language is described as "verbal aggression" and the person receiving the sarcastic comment is termed a “victim”. As coaches we would never want our players to be the victim of any aggression, much less the communication method that we willingly choose.

I think there are 4 main reasons to avoid using sarcastic language as a coach:
1. Loss of Trust
2. Indirect Form of Criticism
3. Too Much Room for Misinterpretation
4. Team Members Become Guarded

1. Loss of Trust
By definition sarcasm uses the opposite of the truth to elicit a dramatic reaction.  This can make it very difficult for players to know when you are actually praising them.  Every time you provide feedback they have to ask themselves if you are being sincere or whether you are being sarcastic in order to be funny or get a reaction.

2. Indirect Form of Criticism
Sarcasm in relationships is often described as “passive-aggressive” communication or a more polite way to criticize someone.  With our athletes, clear, direct communication is critical for understanding and sarcasm does not promote that clarity when we are providing feedback.  It is also important to remember that the indirect nature of sarcasm also means that it is incredibly inefficient.  When receiving a sarcastic comment, the listener, or victim, begins to engage in a fairly complex process:
1. Hear the literal meaning (the actual words that are spoken)
2. Realize that the comment unexpectedly contradicts with the facts (the words they hear don't make sense based on the performance/outcome)
3.Replace the literal meaning of the comment with a non-literal meaning (target of sarcasm must use the opposite of the words that were spoken to understand what the intended feedback was)

3. Too Much Room for Misinterpretation
Based on the process described in #2 above, there are multiple areas where sarcastic feedback could be misinterpreted.  What if the player only hears the literal meaning and doesn’t realize you are being sarcastic?  Or what if they don’t have enough time before the next repetition to analyze your feedback and realize that the comment was meant to be sarcastic?  What if the athlete replaces the literal meaning with a non-literal meaning that is different than what the coach intended?  Just reading a description of that process is probably confusing, so imagine what it does to a player who is expecting clear, concise performance feedback! Coach-player communication should be rapid, clear, and efficiency.  Sarcasm is the opposite: slow and vague.

4. Team Members Become Guarded
We have talked about the use of sarcasm as a method for feedback, but the last reason to avoid sarcastic language extends to other forms of athlete communication.  Even at team dinners or off-field interactions of any kind, the use of sarcasm can cause team members to become guarded so they are not the next target or victim of the next sarcastic comment. When players become guarded and do whatever they can to avoid being vulnerable to a verbal attack it is extremely problematic.  This is especially true when viewed through the lens of building a strong culture.  In Daniel Coyle’s book “The Culture Code”, the author asserts that “group performance depends on behavior that communicates one powerful, overarching idea – we are safe and connected.”  The feeling of safety quickly evaporates in environments that use sarcasm, when there is a victim of sarcastic language, and coaches use targeted comments that cut down players with potentially painful humor.

Communication is a foundational principle in coaching. I hope this article will help you be more aware of the dangers of using sarcasm in a coaching environment and also allow you to recognize when coaches around you are using this toxic form of humor or feedback. Let’s choose a different communication method and create a better learning environment for our players.

Recently a few players have reached out to me as we finished up our off-season training and asked about being nervous when they were at the plate or on the mound.  They were concerned that it wasn't normal  or that it somehow meant they didn't belong in that situation.  One of the players was also concerned because it was happening during training, not just in games.  Here is what I told them:

First, your nervous energy is COMPLETELY NORMAL!  Don't think that it is unusual at all.  I remember very vividly having those same feelings as a high school player.  After getting to college I would feel much the same way if I was struggling at the plate and I would get nervous about another strike out.  Because I knew I was fighting for playing time everyday, I started feeling nervous during BP as well.  I believe that this happens to everyone at some point if they play the game long enough.  There is no question that controlling these feelings can be challenging, so I will only give you three relatively simple things to try at the start:

1. Focus on a deep breath before getting into the batter's box or toeing the rubber.  Breathing is important because it can slow the heart rate and relax tense muscles, but it also get a play back to what is happening right now.  People don't spend time thinking about their last breath (in the past) or worrying about their next breath (in the future).  They focus on their current breath - in the present...and that is KEY for controlling nervous energy.

2. Have a cue word or very short phrase that gets your mind back to a simple part of your swing that you know helps your movement pattern.  "Back hip"..."Stay over the rubber"..."Explosive!"  These short phrases will get you focused on what you need to do to be successful rather than worrying about the outcome if you are not successful.

3. Reframe the feelings as positives.  The butterflies that some people get before games are actually a natural feeling as blood gets diverted to the working muscles and away from the digestive system as the body prepares for competition.  Reframe these feelings to be a great sign that your body is preparing for game time!

Off-season training or a practice situation is a GREAT place to try out some of these simple techniques and start to implement them as part of your hitting or pitching routine.

With the pre-season about to get started, players should be thinking more about the upcoming season.  This probably includes some goal setting, so here are 5 mistakes to avoid when setting your goals for this season.

Goal Setting Mistake #1 - Setting Only Baseball Goals
Players often set goals because it is a team exercise and that means that all of the goals focus on baseball. What about academics? What about family goals or goals for other relationships? As Michael Hyatt notes on one of his previous podcasts, all parts of our lives are interrelated and one area of our life will always effect the others. Think of the last time you couldn't go to practice because you had school work to catch up on or when your parents made you skip a game because report cards came out and they were less than impressed.
Before setting goals, try to clarify your priorities so you know what areas are most important in your life right now and set goals in all those areas.

Goal Setting Mistake #2 - Creating too Many Goals
Your list of goals should not be a bucket list of everything you want to accomplish in your baseball career. This can create confusion around what is really important and what your next step should be. I suggest 7 to 10 goals to address the major areas of your life, but any more and they will start competing for your attention and nothing will get done. In addition, it is best to focus on 2-3 goals during each part of the year. For your baseball goals, this will mean you will focus on 1-2 items during the early off-season. After achieving those goals move on to a new focus for the late off-season and have another focus (or two) for spring training, the summer season, and fall ball.

Goal Setting Mistake #3 - Goal is Not in Writing
Most people who set goals know that they should write their goals down, but it is amazing how many people skip right over this step. Writing your goals in black and white is critical because:
1. Goals need to be reviewed regularly and writing them out makes the review process easier.
2. Your goals should be in a highly visible place as a reminder of where you are going. Visible in your mind's eye doesn't count...they need to be visible to your eyes and this means they need to be on paper. 
3. Writing goals down makes them more real. Everyone has dreams that they think about and talk about, but when you write a dream down it starts to become a goal.
4. There is a process you go through when goals are written. This process requires additional thought and clarity as you take a dream and put it on paper. Your dream becomes more specific in written form, you think about how you will measure it, and the dream becomes a goal.
The bottom line is that if your goals are not written, you will never come back to them. 

Goal Setting Mistake #4 - Goal is Not Specific
Specificity in goal setting is critical for determining your action steps (see Mistake #9 in part 2 of this post). You need to know exactly what you want to achieve before you can determine how you are going to get there. 
"I want to be a better hitter". What part of your offensive game do you want to improve? Ability to make contact? Power? Hitting with 2-strikes? Hitting off-speed pitches? Plate discipline? Your action steps will be very different if you want to improve your power compared to a player that is trying to improve plate discipline.
"I want to lower my ERA". Think about what area of pitching will most impact the number of runs you give up. Does your change-up need to be better? Do you need to throw your breaking ball more consistently for strikes? Do you need to work on holding runners? There are dozens of areas that could reduce the number of runs you give up and increasing specificity will force you to think about the areas where you are strong and the areas that need work.

Goal Setting Mistake #5 - The Goal is not Measurable
You need to have a way of measuring your progress toward a goal as well as know when you have reached your goal. Be very careful of which metrics you choose for your baseball goals . I warn all of my players to give a lot of thought to how they will measure their goals and steer players away from setting goals based on batting average or opponents' average. There are far too many variables that are outside of a players control when determining batting average. A hitter might do everything right, hit the ball hard 4 times, and go 0-for-4 that day because he hit the ball right at a defender each at bat. It is best to measure a goal with a metric that a player as complete control over.  This concept led me to the development of the Quality AB Tracker which I encourage players to use as a metric in place of batting average.
Players should note that it is normal to feel some anxiety towards putting a metric on your goals.  Specificity and measurability can scare people because more detailed goals lead people to think they can't achieve them. In addition, when you have a way to measure your goals the goal setter and others will know when you have fallen short of your goal.  Ambiguity provides somewhat of a safety net for people's pride, but the goals are less concrete. Having a specific way to measure your goals will you allow you to see progress and provide you with motivation along the way.  It will also ensure that you know when you get to the finish line so you can pat yourself on the back and move on to your next goal.

​As much as we think we have all the answers, coaches need to realize that we don't always know. In fact, we may not know anything for absolute certain. With the rapid changes in technology this is even more true than it was 5 years ago and "cutting edge" teaching is changing more rapidly than ever. Coaches need to have a set of beliefs that they teach from, but they should save the absolutes for their team rules (such as...always ​respect the officials). In the end, each player will be so vastly different that it will be impossible for one coach to have all the answers for all of their players.
So if we have don't have the answers how do we teach? Maybe ​Isaac Asimov said it best:

We need to trust our players as partners in the learning process and work together to develop their knowledge and skill. As coaches we can provide them with enough information that they are able to develop a filter with which they can choose the best, most helpful information themselves. With this approach players will become their own best coach and we as coaches can then empower our players to take responsibility for their own development. They will develop a continual process of gathering information, assessing its utility in relation to their skill set and physical characteristics, and determining what works best for them.

​I do much of my teaching in an Academy environment where my players come from a variety of teams and go back to their club teams each spring. I am convinced that self-education is the best way for our players to learn, but I also believe that self-education is absolutely imperative when my players will learn different information from a variety of coaches through the season.  With self-education players realize that different information from different coaches is actually an advantage and simply provides more perspective on developing their skill set.  In addition, this approach ensures that one coach doesn't have to be right and one coach wrong. The player can take in all the information from both sources, engage in valuable conversation about developing that skill, and implement the most useful information gained from both coaches.  Engaging in conversation with coaches around skill development is a talent that players need to develop in order to be respectful of coaches and ensure that their coach knows they are listening and continuing to learning.  Alan Jaeger calls this "standing your ground" and does an excellent job describing this process on the ABCA Calls to the Clubhouse Podcast.  You can listen to that clip here (starting at 46:07).