Empowering Baseball Team: Strategies And Techniques

Formulating a team culture

Question

Write an Essay on Sport and Exercies.

As a club coach am more fortunate to see the players twice a week for a given period of time, which differs from one club to another. The empowerment of the athlete can be carried through identification of the learning styles, which is the ability to make decision under pressure as well as encourage effective communication through the player and the coach (Montgomery, pg. 3). As a coach, I try to reach goals of making the best out of the athletes. I try to enhance awareness, discipline, courage, persistence as well as balance. As a baseball coach of Feeder team, I will empower on my team using the empowerment strategies I have learnt over the years from other legend coaches in order to help me overcome the weaknesses of the team and help them to perform much better. As a team we have not been doing well we have been down the table being beaten by my other teams. This time I want to empower my team and help them become the best and perhaps aim at getting the title this season (Montgomery, pg. 1). The first thing to note about empowering of the athlete as a coach is that we should formulate a team culture which is very successful than to use the traditional approaches. An empowering approach is the one, which is ideal for the sport teams since it has the ability to give the athletes control as well as the choice that could enable them to make decision as they are competing (Kidman, Thorpe, Jones & Lewis, 2001, pg. 37). Additionally, it has been found to bring fun to the athletes who are participating in a particular sport since they have a much greater internal motivation. I want to empower the players rather than attempting to control them. It is all about the power and who is wielding it. I want these athletes to have more freedom to make decision, which are in their best interest. This will be achieved through equipping the athletes with both the knowledge and the set of skills which are necessary to do so, instead of micromanaging their charge and keeping them dependent. The philosophy of the control is usually doomed as a failure simply because it is impossible for the coach to know as much as about the athlete could learn about themselves. The athletes usually decide on the ultimate outcome since they are the ones who are competing and not the coach. This essay will explore how I will empower the players of my club through various strategies. I have done research from some of the legends coaches such as Wayne Smith who was the All Black coaches Rugby team. As a coach, I will explain on the process of how I intend to empower my players so that we can improve our weaknesses and become one of the top Baseball team in New Zealand.

It will be important for my part to build the character of the team players in order to enable them to take the responsibility for their preparation as well as performance. This is the basis of the of the empowerment approach. Further, every member of a team will have the ability of becoming a leader and they can communicate what they are seeing on the field. Any athlete who has worked under a coach who is great will say that they have been coached to coach themselves. This has been done in order to cultivate an understanding in the method, which fosters the belief in what they are doing and thus become confidence (Kidman, Thorpe, Jones & Lewis, 2001. Pg. 91). The players should believe on the method, which I will use so that they could employ them if they desire to get better. A coach who is truly great would not claim to the victory but rather give the athletes on building their self-confidence.

Building the character of the team players

The Feeder baseball team has been some problems over the last season they were playing. One such problem was that of coordination of the players while they were in playing. Most of the players lack the concentration to implement the moves we had rehearsed during the practice. Additionally, many of them are not motivated when they are playing. Some do not believe in themselves and this has greatly affected us to an extent we cannot beat the team that are not good as us. There has been issues related to the management such as issues of funds, which has made the team not to believe on themselves. I have been able to some extent to encourage them and assure things will become better in the future as the management is working hard with other sponsors to handle on these issues. The thing I want to focus is the strategies that would help my team to become one of the best team again as they used to be just as the past season.

As a coach, I believe that many players have the need especially when it comes to the learnt knowledge or perhaps the skill acquisition. Some time we can look at a player in the group especially if they could acknowledge if they could understand the instruction when I given them and assume the rest of the group could understand. I intend to use the learning style technique, which has been regarded over the years to be less innovative. I will identify the learning style of each off the players in order to utilize on the coaching strategies, which could match the style of the players (https://athleteassessments.com/athlete-learning-styles-must-have-coaching-toolbox/). I will categorize the players into two groups the active and the reflective learners. The active learners would want to drill, and run through a couple of times first then get into it.  They will work as part of training group rather than them being individually. The reflective learners will want to think before the execution and they will require the time to understand. These two group will work together in order to complement on one another to be able to work as a team to bring the best of each other (Montgomery, 2). Adapting of the coaching learning style of the playing group will be very critical. In the event there is discrepancy, which is between the preferred mode of communication and the player mode of receiving this information, the learning of the required concept of the game could become inefficient. To solve the issue I will manage to coach the team on individual level and cater for personal learning style on a regular basis, the learning will become much more efficient and this will help them speak on themselves.

Further, I intend to empower my team through encouraging them to study, to work or perhaps help in the community. It is important for the personal development of these athletes since they like innovation.  I believe on the principle of honesty with the athletes is very important. It is important for the player to act on this principle and not just talk about it. To ensure that am successful to coach these individuals, they should have hungry attitude for accepting of the challenge and set a plan to them. Further, the coach should be in a position to give them the opportunity for them working on their weaknesses. The coaches should always help the athletes to improve from their weaknesses (Kidman, Thorpe, Jones & Lewis, 2001, pg. 90). Additionally I will find the right individuals for the job. Every coach needs the right people who are going in the right direction. These individuals should have a strong vision which every individual is part of formulating. Further, they should ensure that there are best system as well as processes, which have been set up, and the individuals are committed to excellence and they are consistent to the work habits.

Learning style technique

As a coach, I have learnt game sense approach, which I believe, will be very essential towards the success of the team. This approach can encourage the players to both understand as well appreciate the game they are playing (Forrest, Webb & Pearson, 2007 pg. 10). Additionally, it could enable them to make decisions which are informed, take of the ownership for their learning as well as be able to exercise the choice and control over how they could play the game (Kidman, Thorpe, Jones & Lewis, 2001 pg.91). The game sense could help the coaches to develop the non-traditional approach to help the athletes to learn. The game sense can have an influence on the thinking as well as the development of the empowerment approach. The benefit, which will be brought by using this technique, is the ability of increasing of the intrinsic motivation of the players. Learning of the game sense could be part of the empowerment approach, which is like learning other skill (Forrest, Webb & Pearson, 2007, pg. 11). Am much prepared to train it as well as search for other ways in which to continue on the development of this strategy since I believe will be a good way to develop my team.

Empowerment as coach have understood it as the process of the change. In order for the players to take power, they need to gain information in regards to themselves and their environment and they should be willing to identify and work with other players in order to make changes in the team.  The process of empowerment has been regarded as an interactive process to which the players experience personal as well as social change, thus enabling them to take action in order to influence over their team (Duncan & Brummett, 1993, pg. 3). The development process of the players usually include various stages such as the entry point, the advancement, incorporation what they have learnt and the commitment in order to achieve the best result for their teams. The entry point is usually motivated by the fact of their personal experience of some event or perhaps condition which have happened over the past. I believe the input of these players will encourages creative thinking.  The players will need to play the game, to enable the ideas as well as the ways of reading the game to be relevant to the training they had undertaken.

As a coach, I have learnt more and have continued to improve on the way to instill knowledge and skills to the team players. As I develop on the team one of my goals would be to become organize a team environment as well as cultivate on a culture. The technique, which could be used to help a team to succeed, would be the establishment of a vision team as well at attitude through creating of a video, which put together groundbreaking (Kidman, Thorpe, Jones & Lewis, 2001 pg.91). The use of the video would help setting of the scene, which is prior to facilitating of the vision of the team, values as well as the attitudes. When the players see the video one could see the response on how they would react which can be the starting point of some confidence to forge forward towards achievement of success of the team. Additionally, the coaches could use towards the empowerment of the players such initiative could include training in different ways, creation of the team song and team building activities in other ways.

During the period of training as a team, we will go through the game, discuss on some issues such as statistics and agree where to improve most. I will be checking this on a weekly basis in order to ensure there is consistency of the changes we had discussed as well as ensure the new concepts are implemented. This process is important since the Feeder team players will gain the skills. I want these players to grasp the idea where they are performing which will include the tactics and the development of the skills.

Conclusion

As a team, my biggest role is to encourage the players to be self-aware individual as well as improve on their thinking to enable them to be consistent during the training, which will help boost on our team, which has been performing, poorly especially in the last season. The techniques, which I intend to implement, are the learning style and the game sense approach, which have been widely used, and they have been found to be much effective. With my own improvement of these techniques, I believe I can improve on my baseball team.

References

Duncan, M. C., & Brummett, B. (1993). Liberal and radical sources of female empowerment in sport media. Sociology of Sport Journal, 10(1), 57-72. Accessed At: https://www.fitnessforlife.org/AcuCustom/Sitename/Documents/DocumentItem/9719.pdf.

Forrest, G. J., Webb, P., & Pearson, P. (2007). Games for understanding in pre service teacher education: a'game for outcome'approach for enhanced understanding of games. Accessed       At:

https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1657&context=edupapers#page=60

Kidman, L., Thorpe, R., Jones, R. L., & Lewis, C. (2001). Developing decision makers: An empowerment approach to coaching. IPC Print Resources.

Montgomery, S. Empowerment of the player–by understanding the player. Accessed At: https://www.aru.com.au/Portals/23/Empowerment%20of%20the%20Player,%20by%20un derstanding%20the%20Player.pdf

https://athleteassessments.com/athlete-learning-styles-must-have-coaching-toolbox/