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NCAA 10 Second Rule
by Dave
Thursday, May 31, 2007
If you're watching the NCAA tournament on ESPN - probably the best softball you'll see this year although it's better live than on TV, you can't have missed the relatively high number of 10 second rule calls. I admit to having never paid attention to this rule before this year. A few weeks ago it came to my attention as I watched it called against Tennessee's Monica Abbott. In the first couple of games I've watched so far, I think I've seen it called 3 times. Once it resulted in a walk. [; I don't actually care much for the rule but I figure I better at least try to gain an understanding.
I may not have heard her correctly but Michele Smith briefly discussed the 10 second rule. She said something about the pitcher having five seconds to throw the pitch. That didn't sound like a "ten second rule" to me. Then Michele Smith's co-announcer referred to it as a "5 second rule." That kind of confused me so I looked the thing up.
The NCAA rulebook is online here: NCAA 2007 Rules and Interpretations so you can read it for yourself. The relevant section is indeed entitled the 10 second rule." The rule reads as follows:
"Time Allowed Between Pitches
Section 18. The pitcher must be on the pitcher's plate and the batter in the batter's box within 10 seconds after the pitcher receives the ball or after the umpire calls, "Play ball." After both the pitcher and batter are in position, the pitcher has five seconds to begin her pitching motion.
Effect - If five seconds have elapsed and the pitcher has not yet pitched, an additional ball shall be awarded to the batter. If two minutes have elapsed and the pitcher has not yet pitched, a forfeited game shall be declared by the umpire crew in favor of the team at bat.
Exception: Intentionally violating the rule in order to walk the batter without pitching shall not result in a ball being awarded to the batter, but each runner shall advance one base without liability to be put out. On the first offense, the umpire shall issue a warning to the offending player. On the second offense, the offending player shall be ejected from the game."
There are rules relating to the batter's part of the obligation to be ready within ten seconds. And there are, of course, penalties. You can check those out for yourself on the NCAA's site.
The rulebook says in its points of emphasis:
"The 10-second pitching rule, which was amended in 2006, was often misunderstood last season so it is included in this point of emphasis even though there is no change for 2007. The amended rule specifies that the pitcher and the batter are both responsible to be in position 10 seconds after the pitcher receives the ball (in the pitching circle) from the catcher. Once all players are in position - whether that is four seconds or seven seconds later, or 10 seconds later - the pitcher have five more seconds to start the pitching motion.
An often-mentioned complaint to the committee was that the pitcher's delivery time was reduced by this change. This is not true. Under the previous rule, the pitcher had 10 seconds from the time pitcher received the ball from the catcher to start her motion. Now she has 10 seconds to be in position after receiving the ball and another five to start the pitching motion. In essence, she has been given more time to deliver the pitch.
Another often-mentioned complaint was that the change was made to placate television interests. This is also not true. The rule was amended primarily because the committee wanted to set a clear, enforceable standard of not only the pitcher's time requirement, but also to establish one for the batter. It was often observed that a pitcher who legally used the entirety of her time to deliver the pitch was hampered by the movement of the batter at the last second. The cat-and-mouse games were undesirable and unnecessary, and this change was also intended to eliminate them. It is the committee's intention to annually review published game times and listen to coaches', student-athletes' and umpires' opinions on the flow of the game to monitor the effect of this change. If you have an opinion or suggestion, please contact a committee member so your thoughts are brought forward at the summer committee meeting."
I can certainly understand the desire to avoid that stupid game where the pitcher waits until the batter is uncomfortably stiff in the box or the batter rerquests time and steps out right before the pitch is thrown. This kind of stuff is fitting for major league baseball where the games take three plus hours and there is more "show" than "big" being fed the fan. But in a sport like ours, I'm glad this kind of bush league stuff is prohibited.
That being said, I do have a problem with the number of times I have seen it called and the effect it has had on several games. In this sport where 1-0 is not unusual - certainly not as unusual as it is in baseball - I think we need to think about the frequency with which penalties are called. The game of professional football has been altered to a point at which it has become as boring as the worst parts of Court TV because the officials feel they have to stop play and recite the rulebook every couple of plays. It's no longer a sport. It is now moments of action between legal lectures.
Softball is a fast moving game which generally is completed in under 2 hours. It is fairly common for a game to be over in an hour and a half. One walk, one hit, one steal, one run can determine the outcome of a contest. I do think sometimes pitchers or batters stall and I would like it to stop. It isn't enough to have a non-specific stalling rule. We do need some sort of finite time limit but I'm not sure 5 seconds is enough.
Also, in the broadcasts I saw, it was noted that several coaches were asked about the rule and replied something like, "I don't understand it, if you do, please explain it to me." I think that may be a little disingenuous but it does speak to the issue of sports governing bodies making absolutely sure that participants at all levels fully understand the rules. usually with something as potentially impactful as this, the overseeing body makes a concerted effort to discuss the change or more aggressive application of the rule during the preseason and then the thing is applied aggressively early on. That way, long before a championship tournament is played, everyone knows about it, fully understands how it will be applied and the thing doesn't have much of an impact. For example, recently the NCAA decided that in basketball, the act of calling timeout when a player was in the air, going out of bounds, had been abused so they changed the rule. There was tons of discussion and officials applied it vigorously during the early part of the season. By the time the tournament came around, no player was ever seen trying to call time out while jumping or falling out of bounds.
In conclusion, I now not only think I understand the "ten second rule" but also I understand the motivation. Coaches should have been aware of this but I suspect more could have been done to educate them and the players. This rule, even if it didn't change this year, was far more vigorously and frequently applied. Unfortunately, vfrom what I have seen, it was applied more late in the season than it was earlier and players continue to fall victim to it even at the highest levels. There's something wrong with that and I hope the situation improves next year. I don't enjoy games dominated by seemingly insignificant rules and the officials employed to enforce them.Labels: rules
Permanent Link: NCAA 10 Second Rule
 
Coach, My Coach
by Dave
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
I remember the first day I encountered a real coach. I had played baseball for a number of years during which friends' fathers did their best to teach us about the game and maybe improve our skills a little. But they weren't coaches. The first time I stood face to face with a real coach, it was on a pee wee football practice field. This animal bore little resemblance to the one with which I had become familiar in baseball. I was completely intimidated. I broke down and cried. I am eternally grateful for the experience.
I was 10 or 11 when I went to my first football practice. There was this guy there who was nobody's parent. His name was "Mr. Sax" and I believed at the time he was a gym teacher for the grammar school at the other end of town. I couldn't be sure. I didn't go there.
This fellow was not wearing the usual lawnwork clothes fathers wore when they coached baseball. He was dressed in workout clothes and had a whistle around his neck. He carried a clipboard. He looked like he meant business. He never approached me to say hello. In the years I knew him as my coach, he never said anything nice or just in passing to me. In fact the only time he ever spoke directly to me was to yell into my face because I had done something wrong.
I remember that first practice from almost forty years ago. The assistant coaches had placed all the stupid looking kids into a defensive formation which is to say I was involved. Then they took all the smart kids and put them into offensive formation. Us dummies were just there for the benefit of the real players who were going to run a play.
The mixed smell of early autumn and male sweat, some covered by the post workday cologne worn by a few of the coaches, filled the air. I didn't know half these kids and the ones I did, I didn't like. But there was one kid there I had complete disdain for. He was, it was rumored amongst us, some hotshot who had moved to our northern New Jersey community during the summer from Texas. The notion was, Texas produced football players and our town did not, so he had to be really good. It was said he was fast and could fake anyone out of their pants. I didn't like the funny way he spoke, his corny haircut or anything else about him.
So we, the dummies stood there in some defensive formation with nothing to do while the coaches worked with the real players and set up whatever it was they wanted to do. I wasn't particularly paying much attention since my experiences in sports practice were largely filled with instances of NOT paying attention. I knew I was in a defensive formation mostly because that's what the coaches had said. At that point I doubt I knew defense from offense. But finally, after lots of nothing, the real players started to do something. Somebody handed this hotshot from Texas the ball and he began weaving in and out between players standing in the defensive formation. He was getting closer and closer to me and then something came over me. Somehow, someway, my brain stopped functioning altogether. As I saw this kid approaching me I told myself I was supposed to just stand there and do nothing like everybody else was doing. But I just couldn't control myself.
I don't even today know what triggered my reaction as this Texas kid ran in front of me. It may have been an instinctual thing. It might have been my complete hatred of the hotshot. It might have been the feeling of having been threatened which came over me when from about 20 feet his eyes met mine. I really do not understand the events which caused me to act but when that kid got close enough to me, I completely unloaded everything on him. I tackled him as hard as I would ever again tackle anyone.
As I got up from on top of the Texas superstar, I could see real fear in his eyes. Not long afterwards, he got the opportunity to see fear in someone else's eyes, mine. He got that opportunity as I had my first one on one introduction to the coach. It was an easy introduction for me. I didn't have to say very much. He asked me my name and then told me something which, for some reason I cannot recall today. It was, I believe, something excessively unkind he had to say and his comments called into question my status as a human being. If I'm not mistaken he questioned my intelligence, actually I think he questioned whether I had ANY intelligence at all. I was then familiarized with something I had never before done or seen done and that was "running laps."
I ran quite a few laps that practice as the coaches were determined to prevent me from disrupting their football practice. My one unfortunate mistake also caused me to be excluded from any serious consideration when it came time to choose a starting lineup for our first scrimmage. I didn't much care since the coaches had stopped making me run laps, at least not more than the rest of the team had to. After that first experience (did I mention I had cried?), I was determined not to ever mess up like that again. I never did anything particular unless I was specifically instructed to do it. I always paid attention and did things right the first time.
During our first scrimmage, in which I did not see any action, I never complained or asked to be put in. I did exactly what I was told, period. At the end of the thing, the other team, unable to execute any offensive plays, ran a double reverse in the dark with the shortest football player I had ever seen carrying the ball. Our outside linebacker was fooled by the play and literally never saw the running back come past him. Mr. Sax was so upset by this failure that, at the next practice he said, "well Tony (the name of the outside linebacker), it looks like we'll have to find another position for you because there's no way you are ever going to play outside linebacker for me again!" They looked around at the practice dummies and called my name to come out and again stand in defensive formation, this time in Tony's spot. They told me about how I should never commit before knowing where the ball was going and numerous other things I would never forget. I also knew precisely what the mistake was the previous outside linebacker had made. I was determined not to repeat it.
Our first game after I was installed as a defensive starter was against the team that had run the double reverse in the dark against us. We won the game something like 42-0. On the first play of the game, they ran the double reverse at my position again with the tiny running back carrying the ball. I believe I broke his collar bone. I know I caught him 8 yards behind the line. After that play, I always started at that position for that coach. later in the game, I began to understand what I was supposed to do by watching the other kids on the team. Our opponent punted the ball late in the third quarter and I had asked the other outside linebacker what I was supposed to do on punts. he told me to "get the kicker" so I did. Fortunately for me, the kicker dropped the ball as he was going to catch it and punt. I broke his ribs. Had he not dropped the ball, I would have been called for a penalty and been relegated to running laps from then until now, I'm quite sure.
I remember one practice before a game in which Mr. Sax lined us up for the dreaded end of practice wind sprints. Man, I hated those things. They were awful. Sometimes I really feared I would pass out from them. We weren't permitted to drink any water back then. You could taste dirt in your mouth and not much else. After wind sprints, you would drink water for the rest of the night because you were that thirsty. But all this stuff was Mr. Sax's way of instilling in us a certain kind of mental toughness. Mr. Sax had some "advanced techniques" for instilling mental toughness which would never fly today. He lines us up and ran us until we were ready to drop. Then he let us stand there while he made some crude comments about our next opponent. He would leave us there only so long as it took for some of us to develop cramps and then he would run us some more. It was very painful but none of us ever forgot the crude comments he made about the ... enemy.
On one such occasion, we were set to play a team called the Bengals. I didn't know a bengal was any sort of tiger but that didn't much matter because Mr. Sax said the team had misspelled their name and the correct spelling was B-A-N-G-L-E-S. He asked us if we knew what bangles were. None of us did so he told us they were little plastic bracelets that little girls wore. He told us we were playing not against little girls but the tiny plastic bracelets little girls wore. This was heady stuff for a 10 year old and besides, I had no idea what he was talking about. There were other comments which can be interpreted as having to do with homosexuality and other less than appropriate subjects. My father had to explain it all to me. Then I sort of got it but what stuck was Mr. Sax had complete disdain for this other team. They weren't as good as we were and we were going to kill them. We did. &nbdsp; It was pretty ugly stuff. We finished that season undefeated. I believe only one team ever scored on us.
I've gone a long way to describe something I experienced a very long time ago. I hope you enjoyed the story but perhaps now you're wondering what the point was. My point has to do with the coaches who work with our kids. We do not nearly cut them as much slack as we once did. I'm not sure if that is ultimately a good or bad thing but I wonder if something isn't being lost.
Recently I saw an article in which a player caused some grief for a varsity coach. The coach admitted using "salty language" around his team of high school basketball players after he was accused of verbal and emotional abuse, bullying and intimidation, particularly of one kid who had been relegated to the junior varsity squad. The coach ended a successful career voluntarily instead of having his techniques subjected to thorough examination. Another coach, this time in baseball, was fired by a school after he allegedly told a player, "You suck."
Now, I'm not an ethicist. I'm probably not qualified as anything other than a parent or ex-athlete to judge the appropriateness of what these coaches did. But what shocks me is the comparison of these coaches with the real coaches I had experience with. Salty language? The language is either profane or it is not. A coach is either allowed to use profanity or he/she is not. Since when does a kid who doesn't make varsity get the benefit of the doubt over the coach who decides exactly who makes varsity and has done so for more than a decade without incident?
Exactly what sort of language is supposed to be offensive or intimidating to a kid playing high school varsity basketball? Do we prohibit the players from using that language on each other? I've heard saltier language than this coach was accused of using spewed forth from sixth grade basketball players, (in might I add, good neighborhoods) competing on playgrounds. What exactly would be the reason for firing a coach who said "You Suck" to a kid. I'm aware of the profane connotations which one might ascribe to such a term but I suggest to you that they say more about the one doing the interpretation than they do about the coach.
Long after I began my pee wee football career, I got involved in swimming. I was on a team which had kids aged 6 - 18 on it. It was a fairly competitive YMCA team. The coach of the team told us at least once a practice "you think your $#!^ doesn't stink but I'm here to tell you it does stink. Nobody else on this planet will ever tell you your $#!^ don't stink except your momma. But boys, your momma ain't here. I won't let her come in here because I don't want to hear her tell you your $#!^ don't stink cause it does."
Now that was a little salty. We older kids had some trouble explaining the meaning to the 6 and 7 year olds on the team. I'm sure some parents were a little alarmed when their 6 or 7 year olds recycled the term in polite company. But nobody ever actually complained about this. As I said, times were different. But the boys on that team were made far more mentally tough by the exposure to this salty coach. I doubt anyone was ever able to intimidate one of these kids later in life by using foul language or talking in a derogatory fashion.
You want to talk about intimidation? When I was in high school, I experienced my third concussion in two years. If my mother happens to be reading this, which she sometimes does, I did have three concussions. I forgot to mention to you about the one I experienced at camp where I was unable to identify the number of fingers in front of my face. Sorry. Anyways, sometime after the season was over, all football players were supposed to come to a meeting about the following year. We were supposed to prove (however against the official rules this might be) that we would be involved with some sport in the off season or told what our workout regimen was supposed to be. I didn't go. I was done with football. But for a few days after that meeting, every time I walked out of a classroom, the head varsity football coach greeted me in the hallways and walked behind me to my next class. He asked why I had missed the meeting and then had a few choice words for me after I told him I wasn't playing football anymore. I was a fifteen year old sophomore and the guy I most feared in the world (this guy was scarier than Mr. Sax) would meet me after every class for a couple days to "talk to me" about my decision. How about that for intimidation?
Today a coach tells a player that the idiot maneuver he just made in the field was a bad play and the coach is brought up on assault charges. What does that do for building mental toughness? Where does that take the world of sports? I can tell you because I've recently seen the result of this kind of thing.
On our high school baseball team, there is a kid with a good arm. He's not a great pitcher but he throws well enough to have earned a partial scholarship to a Division One program which competes with the top programs in the country. His high scholl experience is pretty interesting. He actually only pitched in games his senior year. His work totalled out at about 12 innings. That's for the year. He allowed something like 10 runs in those 12 innings. The head coach of the team allows the players to do whatever they want in practice and in games. During games, this kid seldom wears an official uniform. He most often can be seen outside the dugout conversing with his lady friends. He has been used in some big games but because the coach allows all his pitchers to tell him when they can no longer throw, he's never gotten to two full completed innings. This coach is excellent at walking on eggshells. You could almost say he has made a career of it.
One wonders what will happen when this kid fulfills his collegiate athletic scholarship responsibilities. The coach he's going to play for has a reputation of, shall we say, not being so lenient. The college coach is given a little more leeway than his high school counterparts. That's because he has produced many championship teams and several major league players. Kids would kill for a spot on his roster. If someone ever complains about the coach, nobody in their right mind will ever back up the player. I had a conversation with one guy who played for the college coach and he told me how one day he was asked by the coach for another of the college's sports teams to drive him for an errand. The player ended up arriving at practice a few minutes after it was supposed to begin. The baseball coach familiarized the player with the concept of running laps for his tardiness. The coach he had driven for the errand is a man who regularly appears as an expert broadcaster on ESPN. he's not a nobody. The baseball coach didnt particularly care. Nor did he particularly care that the player he made run about 2 miles that day was his best player, a fellow who went pretty high in the draft.
Well, there I went again giving you much ado about, perhaps, nothing. But there's a point in here someplace. And YES, it does have to do with softball. Softball is about mental toughness as much as it is about anything else including mechanics. If you want to learn about mental toughness, you can buy all sorts of videos and books on the subject. You'll spend all sorts of money trying to understand what it is and how you instill it in a player. Then you can take your kid to a hypnotist and perhaps a sports psychologist. That will cost you a bit more. An alternative to this is to find your daughter a foul (maybe just salty) mouthed coach who abuses her mentally. That might break her down emotionally and cause her to quit the game since she has been exposed to "nice" coaches for years and years. I don't know exactly what the answer is but I do know that if you don't find a way to instill mental toughness into the ballplayer, you are eventually going to see what the limits of good mechanical technique are. Without mental toughness, a ballplayer is just like some person jogging along the road, doing 15 minute miles, and never entering a race of any sort. Hours spent working on throwing mechanics do not help the third baseman, who just fielded the slap hit, make a hard accurate throw to first in the last inning on a tied championship ball game with a runner approaching home from third and two outs.
It occurs to me that perhaps it is too late for the current generation of ballplayers. We've already collectively trained the available coaching stock into abject submission to the wills of our darling daughters. Maybe it is the next generation of coaches with whom we should begin working now. We need to establish some parameters for them. We need to let them know that we understand that coaching is tough and that we assume they have our daughters' (collectively) best interests at heart when they build mental toughness. We need to stop worrying about innocuous comments like "you suck" and keep the real concerns alive for things like legitimate sexual harrassment and intimidation which crosses the line. As it is, we are currently setting the stage for coaches to either not give a darn or leave the profession altogether. If this last option rules the roost, we are going to be very disappointed in the quality of the replacement coaches who take over. They aren't going to know anything about the sports they coach. They are going to be mere babbysitters for our 15-18 year olds. They are also going to convince our kids that, in the real world, everyone uses polite language, is always positive and nice, never intimidates anyone else, and if you encounter anything or person who doesn't quite fit this model, all you have to do is complain and somebody will resolve the issue for you. The last time I checked, that wasn't true.Labels: parenting
Permanent Link: Coach, My Coach
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