Anyone reading this knows by now that Spring Training doesn’t believe in yelling at players. Not because we aren’t competitive and not because we don’t want to push our players to succeed, but simply because yelling doesn’t work.

I don’t know anyone who enjoys getting yelled at, and after a lifetime spent in competitive sports at literally all levels of the game, I have yet to see the athlete who responds positively to being screamed at. Athletes are motived by all sorts of things (personal pride, money, fame, the desire to win, etc) but one constant that I’ve seen over the years is that screaming, yelling, insulting, shaming, and embarrassing players simply does not work as a means of motivation.

Dave Baad, my high school baseball coach at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., was intense, extremely serious, and had an unbelievable desire to win (he won the league championship in 12 of his 17 years as head coach and retired with a career winning percentage of over .700). Coach Baad was always demanding and he made very clear his expectation that every member of the team give maximum effort at all times. He was not a yeller. He motivated his players by teaching us to work hard and get the most out of every minute of practice. Many of us would make fun of his daily practice schedules that were literally scheduled to the minute, (3 – 3:16pm, pitcher’s fielding practice. 3:16 – 3:26pm, bunt defenses. 3:26 – 3:29, water break. Etc, etc), but his attention to detail and intensity at practice prepared us to win ballgames. We worked hard because he worked hard. We played games with relaxed confidence because we knew we were prepared. Coach Baad is the best coach I ever had – in any sport, at any level.

College baseball was a totally different story for me. Our Head Coach at Brown, Marek Drabinski, was a yeller. He yelled at his players. He yelled at his assistant coaches. He yelled at umpires. He yelled at opposing coaches and players. He yelled all the time during games. Besides the fact that his on-field antics were embarrassing to himself and to the program, his belief that screaming and yelling was what “intense coaches do to win” actually guaranteed that he got the least out of his players.

Without a doubt, the Brown baseball teams during my 4 years in Providence were, overall, the most talented squads in the Ivy League. We also were a textbook case in underachieving. Most players on my team played scared, for fear of getting screamed at (and I don’t just mean he would talk loudly – he would SCREAM insults at us, call us names, question our manhood, etc). Others with tougher skin like myself, found it difficult to want to win for a coach who treated us so poorly and simply adopted a policy of completely ignoring him. Because most times he opened his mouth during games it was to insult us, the majority of the team (who hadn’t quit already) was forced to either play scared or ignore him – not exactly a recipe for winning. And guess what, we didn’t win. Zero league championships in his first 10 years as head coach at Brown.

The thing that puzzles me to this day about Drabinski’s personality on the field is that it is nothing like his personality off the field. Coach is a really nice guy. He is extremely easy to talk to, has a great family, cracks jokes, and is very pleasant to be around – as long as he’s not coaching. I believe it was this side of him that makes him a tremendous recruiter and made all of us want to play for him. Unfortunately, his coaching style does not work and as a result, our extremely talented Brown team failed to even win our half of the Ivy League in my 4 years on the team.

The reason I wrote this post is that I was recently forwarded an article about how Coach Drabinski has “seen the light” and understands now that yelling doesn’t work. You can read the article here: http://www.projo.com/brown/content/Reynolds_Drabinski_Brown_basebal_04-28-11_FSN_v2.aa7c80.html

I don’t think it’s any surprise that soon after the epiphany you read about in the article (for the record, that 2-1 loss to Harvard is the absolute low-light of my athletic career), Brown won it’s first Ivy League title a few years ago. I’m excited for the program and thrilled to hear that Coach has a new philosophy on how to motivate his players.

So, as we enter the final rounds of the playoffs and beginning of All-Stars, remember that yelling doesn’t work. It doesn’t work on high school aged kids, it doesn’t work on college athletes, it doesn’t work on professional athletes, and it definitely doesn’t work on little leaguers.

Play hard and have fun!