E4 of recruiting real talk is down right real. Let it be known right here right now that we have clarified one simple truth about recruiting. You have to put it out on the field, and do what you need to do to show your skills off. This is the first and most important rule of recruiting. If all of your work and exposure show you not performing or having poor body language, recruiting will be very challenging for you. People notice people that perform when the lights are on. This is not to say that all of your hard work behind the scenes go to waste it just means you have to reevaluate the work and consider some changes if playing between the lines, is not translating from playing in practice.
Alright, with that clarity out of the way lets look at the rest of E4. We answered 3 questions from parents in our mailbag section. JC and Trevor can’t wait to get more from our listeners. If you had a question for Christoph Trappe please let us know we will get it to him and share the answer. So how do we connect with you is what you are asking. Simple!
All – recruitingrealtalk at hotfeetsports.com
Trevor – @hotfeetsports – twitter, www.facebook.com/hotfeetsports
JC – @thestrengthu -twitter, www.facebook.com/strengthusports
Christoph – @ctrappe – twitter www.authenticstorytelling.net
The NCAA Eligibility Clearing House has a great twitter feed. @ncaaec
Simply knowing this site exists is a step in the right direction for prospective students and parents.
Lastly be on the lookout for future episodes. We have some great guests that you don’t want to miss including a Volley ball recruiter, NAIA baseball coach, Former Chicago Bear whose son just committed to Air force. and many more. Keep it real, and keep it about recruiting.
For your twitter profile set up here are some tips.
1. make sure either your name or your handle has your actual name in it. It makes it easier for people to find you
2. Location can be city alone, school alone or both
3. Link should be set to your profile that would take a coach directly to you or your film.
4. Make the description fun and add your graduation year.
The USSSA 7U Coach Pitch Baseball field is marked differently than a regular diamond. Several of the lines are for player and coach safety. The other lines are for 7U baseball specific game play. Below you will see a diagram of the field and the line markings. I know as a coach I always needed this diagram to share with other coaches because most everyone coaching 7U have no experience with the game and field. I hope this helps get your team going. Check out the rest of the Hot Feet Sports 7U offerings and follow the link to our Store on Baseball Rampage for the gear you will need to have a successful season.
USSSA 7U Baseball Coach Pitch DIamond Field Layout
The 30′ Safety line is the primary safety measure for players and coaches. No one is allowed inside of the line. I have personally seen line drive hits by 7 year olds that could take a coaches head off. Many of my fellow coaches have been lucky to barely get out of the way in time to avoid being hit.
Game play markings are as follows
The halfway lines show if a runner gets to advance to the next base on a dead ball or if they have to return to the previous base. This is very important as runs can be scored this way.
The 20′ arc is for foul balls. Any ball touched or stopped in this area is considered foul.
10′ pitchers circle requires that the child playing the pitcher defensive spot has one foot inside of the circle before the ball is hit.
I hope this diagram is helpful to all of you coaches out there. Good luck on your seasons.
I received three Inferno’s by Hot Feet Sports in the spring of 2016 and we put them to use immediately with our athletic population. I have seen a massive improvement in the general footwork of all our athletes who have participated in the our strength program, and the addition of the Inferno by Hot Feet Sports has been a major contributor to this process.
The inferno has the ability to be used in multiple manners, while being unique in its own way. When laying flat on the ground the grids can be used as you would an agility ladder. When elevated it can be used much like agility hurdles. These two things together in one is a definite benefit.
We began using these in the winter of 2015/2016, and I could see a rapid improvement in the footwork of our athletes. The 5×5 grid pattern allows you to run 3 athletes through while working on basic linear foot speed and ground contacts. The same can be applied sideways, working with athletes on staying square, taking proper steps and not crossing over.
Once we got the basics of footwork down, we started combining the drills, running one athlete through the grid in a desired pattern. The ability to have athletes move forward, backward, and side to side while maintaining proper footwork has made the Inferno a mainstay in our speed and agility program.
Once we were able to train outdoors we took the Inferno with us. We elevated the Inferno, which then forced the athletes to not only move their feet quickly, but to pick them up and set them down quickly. Not only are we teaching quick feet, we are developing knee drive. This also creates a plyometric effect, teaching the kids the quicker and faster they get their feet moving, the quicker and faster they move through the drills. Another great feature of the Inferno would be the ability level. Drills can be designed for beginner to highly experienced athletes without time loss. I can have a senior in high school and a seventh grader in the same line.
The Inferno also has the ability to teach kids how to move both feet. Most younger athletes are dominant with one foot, and the ability to step forward with the other foot can be very difficult to teach and learn. The Inferno allows us to train opposite foot first training very easily, and repeatedly. As a strength coach this tool is highly valuable to me. It is easy to set up, its highly efficient, and it produces results. We used these in the beginning as a learning tool, but as we began to see results in foot speed and quickness we started using the Inferno for competitive purposes as well. It has aided us as a way to learn to compete.
The Inferno develops foot speed and quickness. Foot speed and quickness are very important tools for an athlete’s success. The ability to train those skills with one piece of equipment saves us a lot of time, and we get the same if not better results. I highly recommend it to any strength coach that needs to develop foot speed and quickness.
We will continue to use the Inferno, it has been a very valuable training tool. I am most excited about starting an offseason and have full use of the Inferno. We will continue to use it once or twice a week, and we can continue to develop new drills. The only limiting factor with drills in the Inferno is your creativeness.
During my entire career I have watched teammates fall victim to poor hydration. They would say things like “Too much water will slow me down”. You know what slowed them down, was the heat illness and cramping. Lets be for real about this. I have seen top tier athletes have to get IV fluid pumped into them because they were not properly prepared for practice and became dehydrated. You walk into the locker room and you see your friend looking like a marshmallow man all puffy and looking sad.
As a coach of youth I take staying hydrated very seriously. I will always have that one kid, when it is mandatory time for water they will walk around like I told them to go drink the kool-ade or something. (I am from Guyana so I am allowed to use the reference.) I will calmly walk over to them and loudly inform them that the water break is not a suggestion it is a REQUIREMENT.
USA Football Hydration chart
So for all of you parents out there who might think I don’t know what I am talking about even though I have given you this very cool back story here is a slide from my USA football training showing that it is important to have your child hydrate “BEFORE, DURING and AFTER” practices, games, walk through, or any other type of activity in the heat.
Happy practicing and playing and one more note. Don’t stay thirsty stay hydrated my friend.
It is August of 2015, just two weeks before the University of Iowa football team opens their season at Kinnick Stadium with a game against The Illinois State Redbirds. So, why is this important? Iowa head football coach Kirk Ferentz has just issued a team wide ban of social media until the conclusion of the season. Why would coach Ferentz do this, to prevent players from getting themselves into trouble, or just to make sure that the players are not reading all of the articles written about them? Either way, coach Ferentz obviously has a method to his madness as his Hawkeyes finished the 2015-16 campaign as Big Ten West Champions, as well as participants in the historic Rose Bowl Game, and his Hawks also set a school record for most victories with 12.
Kirk Ferentz Speaking at a Rose Bowl Presser
This topic is very relevant in today’s day in age. With social media usage being as high as it has ever been, yet still continuing to grow. Almost all athletes whether professional or amateur have some form of social media account. According to Christy Kingan of PIVOT Physical Therapy Blog, “A study done in 2014 by Chris Symeon from CKSyme Media Group measured social media use for Division I and Division II NACAA athletes. On average, only 26% of these athletes has protected Twitter accounts, around 61.5% did not know all of their followers, and 14% had been a victim of online harassment such as unsolicited inappropriate material, account impersonation, angry fans messaging, or cyberbullying.” So, should Kirk Ferentz’ policy become more widely adopted among the college and high school ranks? Could Ferentz’ policy be adopted by professional athletes as well? It is tough to say now, but coach Kirk has some great results to say the least.
What is the impact of social media usage on collegiate, amateur, and professional athletes? It would be very hard to get the input of professional athletes. I would do my research on the University of Iowa Football team and Men’s Basketball team.
One theory that applies to my question is the theory of social influence. Social influence is something that is very common. It is applied to my topic this way. If an athlete has a good game, he may get lots of positive tweets telling him how great he is. The athlete does not necessarily have to believe everything that the people are saying about him but the odds are that he will. The fact of the matter is the more and more people tell somebody something the more the athlete will believe it.
However, this is not always a positive. If an athlete has a poor game, then social media users will let him know. If an athlete has 100 notifications after his game in which he played poorly in, around 90 or so of those notifications are going to be people telling him that he sucks and how he should not even be on scholarship. This can be very damaging to the athletes’ self confidence as well as the athletes’ mental health. It is easy to just tell the person to not believe what everyone else says. Social influence can be very strong especially in situations such as this one, the player may start to believe all of the negative things that people are saying about him. There is one more outcome when it comes to the theory of social influence in this situation. If an athlete sees nothing but negative things posted about him he does not have to believe it. Some of the players that are more mentally strong than others will set out to prove all of his naysayers’ wrong. Meaning, he will work much harder to perform better in his next game and show all of the social media haters that they were wrong about him.
I would do my research on the University of Iowa’s men’s basketball and football teams. My study would go through both of their regular seasons as well as any post season play that either would be involved in. For my research I would give the players one week intervals. One week they would be granted access to social media, the next week they would not. These one week intervals would continue until the season had come to a conclusion. My first way of analyzing my data would be to view the player’s performances on weeks that they did or did not have social media and see if the social media or lack there of made them perform any better or worse.
I would also interview some of the star players on both teams during the weeks that they used social media. I would ask them about their mindset. I would also ask that if the things said about them were negative how they would respond to that. If they would use it as motivation or if they would let it get to them. Based on all the research I would complete, I am almost positive that I would be able to get a solid answer to my question of what the impact of social media is on student athletes.
The two main methods used in my research would be content analysis as well as experimenting. The experiments would be the games. The content analysis would be analyzing the performances of the players during the weeks with and without social media. In the end I would find that none or limited social media use would benefit the athletes more than using social media their normal amount of time.
The student athletes should be able to use social media. However, they should not be able to have access to social media while their sport is in season and going on. There are far too many distractions on social media for athletes, the safe bet would be to ban social media during the season and let the athletes use it all they want in their offseason as long as they are smart with their decisions while using it.
I received three Inferno’s by Hot Feet Sports in the spring of 2016 and we put them to use immediately with our athletic population. I have seen a massive improvement in the general footwork of all our athletes who have participated in the our strength program, and the addition of the Inferno by Hot Feet Sports has been a major contributor to this process.
