(This may end up a Coach the Coach article, as the basis of the effort is asking for help, expanding input to a universal issue. The help would be for us, individually or collectively, to devise a coaching strategy to cure the Dink Syndrome, in training young ladies to hit softballs.)

There are four mechanical parts to hitting: 1) The batting stance; 2) the start of the bat swing toward the ball; 3) contact between the bat and ball (hopefully); and 4) the finish of the swing. What we are frustratingly dealing with here (in this article), is part 4, the finish of the swing.

Following is the hair-pulling dilemma:

This year (2011), as a coach, I am primarily dealing with two ladies teams. One team is a High School ladies varsity team in North Carolina (currently 13-1, ranked 3rd in their division in the State). Great kids all, and frankly the greatest group of parents I have ever experienced gathered on one team – not one back-stabbing dissenter in the whole bunch. (I knew it could happen, if I just would coach long enough.) This team is not the issue – they would rather take a beating, than Dink a good pitch. But, it took a whole year to get them that way, which is a whole different story burning to happen in the near future.

This article concerns itself with a different team, 6 states away from the NC team. This team is 11-12 year old young ladies, a travel team, so you may assume all of the players want to practice, work hard / play smart, be on the team and make an effort to improve and contribute. Yes, assume all of that. It is an East Central Illinois team, named The Magic, also with a near perfect parental sideline and assistant coaching militia.

It’s April, and the Magic have been practicing for 4 months, first indoors, then out of doors, since the second weekend in January. Every practice included instruction on the four basic, important parts of hitting – including part 4, “finishing the swing”. This young ladies team of gonna-be’s, has heard the war cry of Finish the _____ Swing, dozens of times collectively and individually, player nose to coach nose, gymnasium echoed, point making. There can be no misunderstanding about the message. None, Nada. Not even a vague question of some side-swipe alternative sub-meaning. We, The Magic, as a Team will want to swing THROUGH THE BALL, not Dinkely TO THE BALL, executing a fully finished, violent swing/attack on softballs.

Furthermore, as a Hitter, you swing through the ball by continuing the bat swing all the way through the hitting zone and beyond until the back end of the swing taps the bat against the back shoulder. “Does everyone understand”, 13 youthful heads nod affirmatively with eye contact to the hopeful instructing Coach.

Fast Forwarding from the indoor workouts to actual outdoor spring work:

(Coach hopes the message penetrates, then hopes the message penetrates 50% of the players, then mentally settles for a 1 in 4 bottom side grasping of the message: “Finish Your Swing”! Coach goes to NC to fuss-up a High School team who is starting to believe they can be a State Champ; then fires South to Florida for a dab of MLB Spring Training injection; then back north for the Magic. Coach can’t wait to see the progress, the strength, the determination to drive softballs through passing trains, through the staunch bricking of the host play ground school – drive balls with a swish of the wind trailing the bat, by FINISHING THE SWINGS.)

Settled back to the smiling, comfy Magic faces, now practicing outside, it becomes time for a live pitch outdoor hitting practice. A moment for blasting pitched balls with finished swings, and the Coach intends to hover over the progress, looking for the slightest coaching tip to help individual batters even more. Practice starts; a pitch – the batter (only slightly in a proper stance), swings “to” the ball, DINK, as the swing stops at the point of contact and a dribbled softball dies in the scratchy dirt from its own lack of momentum. Oh no! The Coach has failed that player. What could have happened (to the Finish the Swing message)?

Batter number 2, scratches dirt, sets a batting stance – Dink! Another momentum lacking untrained swing TO THE BALL. Gracious be goodness Moi! Batter number 3 – Dink. #4 Dink! #’s 5 through some infintisimalick number of batters, DINK, DINK, DINK- pause – DINK, DINK . Not one hitter finished their swing, as the evening practice filled with slow, harmless, lazy rollers up the near middle of the infield dirt, and sloppy, loppsidy-doppsidy Dinked bloops rained from above the dirt infield dropping in an unspent mission.

Not yet surrendering the intent of someone eventually performing hitting part #4, the agonizing Coach yells; F-I-N-I-S-H Y-O-U-R S-W-I-N-G, in a slow grueling trumpet like sound as if from an ancient agonizing beast. The Coach defeated, but not given up yet, let’s his brain pass through time, a space mission of distraction, in a different practice or game, where players would rather spit on their own cupcakes, than DINK.

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HELLLLLLLPPPPPP! I may have an answer as to how this has happened, or maybe two answers, but not really sure of either, and admitting neither made-up, wanta-be answer is really likely to be the bottom line. Something deeper here awaits unlocking.

So what motivates players to want to be on a “travel team” and put up with all of that effort and travel, timeliness, focus and parental sponsoring and support, and not want to simply Finish a Swing correctly? After all, it is the player’s choice, not to finish the swing. It is their own choosing to produce Dink after out-giving Dink to an opponent.

I have had the NC Team for 3 years, now Dinkless for 2 years. Is it just “believing”? And, if so, how do we get a 12 year old to “believe”, asap, instinctively? To believe from the first at-bat of the practice and season, to the last. (This is valuable stuff – if we can figure this one out, maybe we can unlock other human treasures that will prevent war, or even balance a national budget, which seems a vague and fleeting adult illusion.)

(2 + 2 = 4 / Finish the Swing: Make toast in a toaster / Finish the Swing - All equally simple to embrace. So it can’t be the mesmerizing depth of the subject matter.)

Ask your 12 year old to finish their swing, and afterward ask why they did (the coach told me to), or why they didn’t (deer in the headlights time).

Coach Fox (coachfox@gocoachfox.com)