THINGS GETTING A LITLE TENSE?

Anybody ever felt a little tense or nervous when a BIG game is coming up? Or start to get anxious in a big game when time is running out and you're behind? Or sat there in the dugout and watched one (or more) of your players have a complete meltdown on defense? Well of course you have, we all have, but the key is how do we handle it. There are some simple things we can do to calm ourselves down so our athletes don't see how tense we are and start to panic themselves.

Recently I've had a chance to do some NCAA playoff games for ESPN and watch some of the best players and coaches in some very pressurized situations. I've also been around a lot of youth teams recently, as they head into some big games in their local areas. I'm absolutely amazed at what both situations have in common, the group that was by far the most nervous, in both instances, was the coaches.

It was obvious to the players as well as the bystanders that the coaches were extremely nervous because they totally changed their behavior. Happy-go-lucky coaches start yelling at players like they've never done before, talkative coaches become mute, and aggressive coaches suddenly can't pull the trigger. In fact, in one instance the players (who were 11 year old kids) actually joked about how nervous their coach was as if they were the adults and they were talking about a young child. I found this really wild and it made me realize that while players know that a certain game is "BIG" they don't feel like they have to change anything about what they're doing.

Players know it's a big game, or a big inning, but they know that all games are big so pretty much approach them all the same. Which is really what we want, isn't it? We want our players to play hard in every inning and every game and not just get "up" for the really big ones.

Why then do we change our behavior? Well, I'm sure that some us don't think we do. We think we're all cool, calm and collected and not letting anything get to us, when in fact, we haven't taken a breath in two innings or haven't yelled like this since our favorite team lost in the Super Bowl. Oh, and PS - those players that weren't nervous before are watching us totally change our behavior so they figure, "wow" things must be really bad, look at how coach is acting. That only makes things worse and pretty soon we all have something "real" to start worrying about. Sound familiar?

So what can we do about it? Here's a few ideas that you can try the next time you start to feel that familiar anxiety creep up your chest and into your throat:

Hang Loose - Create a team hand signal that players can give each other, coaches can give players, AND players can give coaches whenever they see someone is getting a little tense. The "shaka" sign is great for this because it's easy and can quickly remind us to take a few deep breaths and chill out. It consists of extending the thumb and pinky finger while keeping the three middle fingers curled, and sometimes the hand is rotated back and forth to emphasize the sign. The shaka, orginated by Hawaiian boarders, is roughly transalted as "hang loose." It is also used to convey what locals in Hawai'i call the "Aloha Spirit," a gesture of friendship and understanding between the various ethnic cultures that reside within Hawai'i. Turn the shaka, or something like it, into your teams own "gesture of understanding" and use it to signal a "chill out", "calm down", "were good!"

Buddy System - We had it in school and it works just as well on the softball field. We can assign each player a buddy and each buddy is in charge of making sure the other one isn't getting too tense. Catcher's often are the pitcher's buddy and can help them calm down whenever they sense they're getting a little too wound up. This also works great with coaches, as long as you both don't get tense at the same time, since it's hard to calm someone else down if you're too wound up to notice…

Your Magic Image - I'll tell you what works for me - when I'm doing these TV games I still get VERY nervous whenever we're getting ready to do the on-camera part that happens before and usually right after the game. We're down on the field, right in front of one of the team's dugouts, there's a big camera in your face and usually lots of fans crammed along the fence watching as well. What I've started doing is finding that one kid in the crowd that is just so excited to be watching someone on TV (as if we're movie stars) that they're just hanging over the fence hoping we'll look at them. Well, I've started smiling at that kid and when I do they come back with the BIGGEST smile I've ever seen which immediately relaxes me. I think imagine that same kid is the TV camera and it's really helped me a ton.

Find that one thing that triggers an immediate smile from you and then lock it into your brain. Whenever you feel yourself getting even slightly tense or nervous - take 5 DEEP breaths and imagine your magic image - you'll be amazed at how quickly you relax and come back down to planet earth. Which is just where your players need you to be, and where you need you to be in order to make the best possible choices when those heat of the moment decisions come up!

If you're looking for more information on how to deal with pressurized situations check out either one of my books: The Ultimate Softball Practice Guide and A Coaches Guide to Creating Team Chemistry