Little did I know that the DBHS Softball team was returning six seniors, five had already signed to play in college, and the team was picked to return to the state tournament. The coaches told me that the ladies were very good and had high expectations. As a strength coach, this made me slightly apprehensive. Many of us know that weight room gains do not necessarily translate immediately to on field performance. I knew that the girls were going to get more powerful and stronger, but I didn’t want the work done in the weight room viewed as the linchpin to a great season. I quickly realized that these ladies could definitely play the game and the benefits from the weight room would help.
I had worked at a couple of NCAA Division I programs as an assistant S&C [strength and conditioning] coach, but at DBHS I was stepping into a head job that I had never held in strength and conditioning. I really saw this as an opportunity to prove myself. The greatest challenge was that I had not worked with a female team in the past. I had some misconceptions that were quickly vanquished. The ladies learned fast and worked just as hard, if not harder, than any Division I athlete I had worked with.
Eleven weeks passed from the time I began training the ladies to the start of the season. This posed a challenge to balance weight training and conditioning. In this situation I believed that power/strength gains would carry over more to performance in softball than conditioning. We did condition but not to the level that I would have liked to if I would have had more time before the season. After eleven weeks, the ladies increased their 1 RM’s in power clean by an average of 15%, in push jerk by an average of 27%, and back squat by an average of 31%.
I spoke earlier about the translation of gains to the playing field. Once the ladies began taking batting practice we started to see that improvements were coming on the field. I was not the only one to notice a difference but the coaches as well mentioned how much harder the ladies were hitting the ball. In the first week of hitting off of live pitching, the team hit six homeruns in 3 days. This was against the team’s pitching staff, which is considered the best in the area.
Looking at the season schedule, there were only two days a week we could lift. There is a very fine balance between fatigue and fitness in softball because the team can play up to 17 games in a week, play seven games in a weekend and play four games in a day. The workouts were a constant balancing act based on how many games and innings were played in the previous days and the strength of the opponents in the coming days. Even with these challenges, all of the ladies I have had a chance to test post-season matched testing numbers from preseason.
The season proved to have the outcome that so many had predicted. The team won the Big 8 Conference, the Division I tournament, Region I title, and Sectional title. At one point the team won 27 games in a row and finished the season 50-6. The team played all the way back through the state losers’ bracket to force a second championship game only to fall in that very game. The team set the Tennessee state record for most homeruns in a season (50), the most homeruns hit in a state tournament (7), and finished the season ranked 47 in the ESPN Powerade Fab 50 national rankings. Many of their stats ranked within the top 5 nationally all time.
As a strength and conditioning coach, this internship was perfect. I had a coaching staff that completely supported me and had athletes that completely bought into my program. The coach spent over $1,000 to buy brand new women’s Olympic weight lifting bars and a switch mat. I was allowed to travel to all of the games and I was in the dugout for each game. I was given the opportunity to design a stretching and dynamic warm-up plan prior to each game. Overall, I was treated as another coach on the staff, just like an assistant or pitching coach. The ability to do my job and not be questioned or challenged at every turn by a sport coach was everything I could ask for. The support from the coaches, players, and parents was amazing. The parents need to be highlighted above all else because they are the ones bringing the ladies to the weight room day after day and supported their daughters in what I was promoting in my program.
Special thanks to DBHS AD Danny Good, athletic trainer Craig Moorehouse, Rick Wagner, Bill Wagner, Anna Johnson, 2012 DBHS Softball team, and again all the parents for the support to make this endeavor work.
For more information, read Douglas Fritz’s article from the March 31, 2012 edition of the Johnson City Press. http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/Sports/article.php?id=99360
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