Principles of Coaching #4 - Track statistics, but only numbers that lead to real growth, development and confidence (Bot9 #308)
Everyone in sports desires to succeed. It would be foolish to step into the arena of competition without a desire to succeed! Great coaches will use statistics and goals to guide their team’s progress. We use statistics to measure success between people, teams and generations.
But not all statistics are created equal. The data revolution has given us whole new sets of numbers on top of numbers to evaluate. We’re on information overload in sports today. No matter the amount of statistics we sift through, the following statement will continue to be true: pursuing some statistics leads to life, while pursuing others leads to death.
I remember experiencing this as a player but it took the articulation of a friend who played professional baseball a long time to bring it to light for me. That man was Steve Springer, a man who tried to drill the idea of Quality At Bats into the hearts and minds of players across the country at all levels. He very simply said, “Batting average is the devil.” What did he mean? I can remember calculating my batting average before and after every at bat. And when I did, I would fail far more often than I succeeded. I floundered in failure. It wasn’t until I stopped pursuing batting average that I became a productive hitter.
Since meeting Coach Springer in my coaching days, I have encouraged my players to focus on a QAB approach and the production of our teams has been both steady and strong, year in and year out. Some statistics lead to life (QABs), while others lead to death (BA). Some help your process, while others only measure production. Pursue process goals because they lead to life.
On top of QABs, I’ve been lucky enough to discover STR1KE and BASE2 to guide my teams into process over production. The idea of a process goal, in my simplistic explanation, is “do this and you’ll get the production you want.” They allow you to focus on the day and not worry about tomorrow. One of the quotes I have on my desktop is - “Live in the day, measure by the decade.” It’s so important to help players focus game by game, inning by inning,
Even more important when considering process statistics and production statistics are the habits created by each. Sports and a life lived under statistics can lead people towards works and away from grace. Production statistics and metrics point us to works. It’s easier to keep score with production and works, but it won’t lead you to life. Grace points us to a gift, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Follow Jesus and grow others. Live a life trying to become more Christlike, to follow His ways more closely. That’s the ultimate process goal and we get to live so we can bring dead people to life in Christ.
The amazing thing is that certain baseball goals can point us to these ideas. Track and pursue those ideas to help others experience life!