Getting to Know You

Hey coaches, many of you are starting your summerball teams now that school ball is winding down? It can be a challenge getting players to come together and form a team when they've been used to playing for someone else, and with different teammates.

With any softball team, but particularly with teams just starting their season, it's common to have the following issues:

• Players learning to trust each other
• Players working hard at practice to earn playing time
• Players working together to improve as a team
• Learning to accept differences among teammates
• Players accepting new instruction and information
• Players grouping together in clicks isolating themselves from others

One of the areas that we can often overlook when we form a new team is the chemistry or makeup of the team itself. Every team has a chemistry, some team's just have a better one than others. In very few cases when the team chemistry is a very good one is it accidental. More often than not, you're going to find a lot of hard work and effort behind any team that has an excellent team chemistry.

So, that brings up the question – What can you do to create a good chemistry on your team? There are a lot of exercises that you can do with your team to help build and improve their personal makup, or team chemistry. I cover lots of them in my book, A Coaches Guide to Creating Team Chemistry: Tips on Coaching Female Athletes, but I want to highlight two in particular that can really get your team started off on the right foot.

1. 2 Truths and a Lie:
   • Split your team up into groups of 2. Make sure you select the groups and not the players since they'll pick their friends. Also try to mix players together that might not otherwise go together.
   • Then have one group at a time gets up in front of the rest of the team and each one of the two players must say 3 things to the group about themselves; two of them are true and one of them is a lie.
   • Each group of 2 gets together and writes down which statement they think is the lie within 30 seconds.
   • When time's up the player then states the lie and each group that listed it correctly gets a point.
   • Continue this way until every person in every group of 2 has told their 2 Truths and a Lie
   • Be sure that the coaches are also part of this!
   • So, If I was playing this game I would say… "I skydive, I scubadive and I snowboard"… the two truths are that I scubadive and I snowboard. My lie is that I skydive because I'm scared to death of heights. So by saying these three things they all learn a little about me that they wouldn't know otherwise.
2. Who Are We?
   • This exercise involves each player on your team playing against every other player on the team – including coaches.
   • Create a list of 10 to 15 things about the team like the one listed below. This list will help your players learn more about each other and help break the ice of getting to know each other.
   • Make sure every person on your team – coaches included – gets a copy of the blank list and a pen.
   • When you say GO everyone has 5 minutes to go around and answer as many of these questions as possible by listing as many players and coaches that apply under each question.
   • When times up count who has the most players listed and then award a 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize.
   • Here's a sample list of questions:
     1. List everyone with Green eyes
     2. List everyone who wears contact lenses
     3. List everyone born in the same state you were born in
     4. List everyone who has a cat
     5. List everyone who loves Mexican food
     6. List everyone whose favorite color is blue
     7. List everyone who has traveled to another country
     8. List everyone who has ever pitched in a game
     9. List everyone who has a nickname (and what it is)
     10. List everyone who has the same middle name as you

These are fun and simple ways to get your players to interact with each other. And more importantly, to start to learn about the person that's going to be their teammate for the entire season.

Do you need your players to become more Competitive?

Do you need some great tips regarding Motivation?

Are some of your players really hard on themselves and get too Frustrated?

Are your players struggling with their Focus and Concentration?

Solutions to these challenges and more are covered in much greater detail in my Creating Team Chemistry Book including tons of exercises that are fun, simple and effective. This book has all the tools you need to develop a successful team built on solid team chemistry!