Off-the wall, or "bad" sports drills you encountered as a player

[Darrell KSR]

Growing up, I had some great baseball coaches, and some terrible baseball coaches. Same for basketball. Here are a few I remember that were "odd" in one way or another.

• Had a baseball coach hit infield to us. If one player missed a ball, everybody had to drop their gloves behind them. We had to then have infield practice barehanded. That was the year I played 3rd base, and he was thrilled he could hit the ball so hard at a kid that short of a distance away.
  
  and..
  
• Same coach, same year. He was pretty young--maybe 30--in good shape. When he didn't think we were giving our "all" in practice, he'd have us run. There was a track beside the baseball park, so we'd run at the track. He'd chase us while we ran. With his belt. Anybody that couldn't outrun him by more than about six feet got hit. Oh yeah--we were 12-years old at the time. I forgot to mention that above.
  
  and..
  
• Switching to basketball, and not involving me, but involving my daughter, a youth basketball coach who played football at Alabama decided it was a good idea to implement a "pulling guard" kind of play in basketball. He had three players interlock arms and go down one side of the court "blocking" for his daughter, who he thought would shoot a near layup as the three players bowled over anything that got in their way. The drill was run consistently in practice, and I stopped him after practice one day and told him there was an offensive foul rule that likely would be called when they bowled over the defenders. We tried it in a game twice. There were two offensive fouls called.
  
  and..
  
• Back to baseball. Although this has a small limited application, we had a coach one year who decided he would maximize our time best by having each player learn sliding practice by sliding into 2nd base, then sliding into third base, then sliding home, then reversing the directions. Sliding back into 3rd was ok, I guess, same for 2nd and 1st, but I have yet to see an application where learning to slide back into home from the 1st base side really helped. Oh--and we did it simultaneously. As in, one player was running up the 1st base line, sliding into 1st base (there ARE cases when that makes sense), while another player was running from 1st base to home plate, sliding back into home. Yeah, I know--learning "technique" that can apply to retreating back to a bag, and all that. Still, looking today, a pretty big waste of time.
  
  and..
  
• Back to basketball. Now, I've seen some very bad basketball coaches. And while there may be some "defense" of this drill, I'm telling you, not from this coach. He had the players do the three-man weave. Except instead of three men, he had all five women, with no specific instructions other than following underneat the pass. There were so many collisions it was ridiculous....

Do you have any to add? I'll probably think of others when I start to focus a little more on it.

[KentuckyWildcat]

Had a baseball coach hit infield to us. If one player missed a ball, everybody had to drop their gloves behind them. We had to then have infield practice barehanded. That was the year I played 3rd base, and he was thrilled he could hit the ball so hard at a kid that short of a distance away.

Similar. Our coach liked to hit pretty hard at us (10-12 year old). We would line up at SS and we had to catch it or take it off the chest and keep it in front of us. If we did not, we had to run a lap and get back in line before our turn in the line. I didn't like to run and I've never been scared of the ball since. Even in some deadly men's softball tournament later in life.

Same coach in basketball all-stars. We were really really really good (I sucked and was lucky to be on the team). For some reason that day we were struggling with layups. Focus I guess. All we did that day was layups, then run, layups, the run. They claimed we ran 7-8 miles that day....I believe it...it seemed more like 100 miles.

[MickintheHam]

Well, there is the one where if you don't hit your drive past the women's tee.......

HS Cross Country. If we did not meet our time in practice, we were allowed to run it again. The second time was behind the coach's pick up truck.....inside a large hoop made from barbed wire. Very effective at improving performance.

[Darrell KSR]

Well, there is the one where if you don't hit your drive past the women's tee.......

HS Cross Country. If we did not meet our time in practice, we were allowed to run it again. The second time was behind the coach's pick up truck.....inside a large hoop made from barbed wire. Very effective at improving performance.

Ugh. That may "win." Wow.

[PedroDaGr8]

High-school baseball "summer league", that just so happened to have the same coaches as during the school year. How does run sprints in the middle of a KY summer and if you didn't make your times you didn't get to drink water. No way that would fly now (nor should it have then). I for certain got mild heat stroke several times. I remember the heavy tunnel vision, severe confusion, etc.

[Doc]

I had a pee wee football coach... coach Jerry. If we missed a tackle we had to shower with him. I'm not sure what the purpose of that was but we had lots of kids miss tackles

[kingcat]

Well, there is the one where if you don't hit your drive past the women's tee.......

HS Cross Country. If we did not meet our time in practice, we were allowed to run it again. The second time was behind the coach's pick up truck.....inside a large hoop made from barbed wire. Very effective at improving performance.

Good heavens Mick..

I'm sorry man.

[CitizenBBN]

Never played much organized sports, but I have one from debate. Not life threatening like a heat stroke (wow), but funny.

one of my coaches in a summer camp had us work on eye contact with the judge. Way too many in debate at that time just speed read off their briefs and cards, never looked up. Huge mistake, you have to read the judge. So you have to get good at reading, then glancing, putting in the right brief pauses for effect, etc.

We were at Northwestern, and there were lots of athletic camps going on there too. we walked by the tennis courts every morning and he told us for the next week's class to each "borrow" a tennis ball that had made it over the fences and bring it to class (you see where this is going).

We did, showed up with them, he put them in a bucket, and as we did speeches every time we looked away a few seconds too long he'd heave one at our heads.

It was good at getting us to look, but also good at getting your legal pad up near your face to hit the darned things coming at you.

but most of our abuse was emotional and mental, not physical. Seriously, summer institutes (we NEVER called them camps) were notorious for sleep deprivation and a very intense kind of culture that is hard to explain. Nothing horrid, nothing I'd worry about sending my imaginary kids to, but still really intense and frankly just off beat as heck. And exhausting. Not even forced, we're just a very competitive bunch for the most part, and not generally sane or at all well adjusted people.

[badrose]

I took P.E. classes all 4 years in HS. My sophomore year coach had us in the gym doing a 3-man weave with a basketball (no dribbling), no biggy, except when the 3 in front made to the other end of the court, the next group would start. We weren't far into that before I ran smack dab into another guy coming my way. Knocked me out briefly and had a couple of loose teeth which I crammed back into my gum. The dentist said I saved both of them by doing that.

[MickintheHam]

Good heavens Mick..

I'm sorry man.

It was a different time to say the least. It was something all the guys dreaded, but it was accepted by everyone. Supposedly, the coach set the speed to the pace you needed to achieve. But, I suspect he set it lower and used the experience to make everyone train harder. I only remember one injury and that occurred when one guy bailed and gashed his ankle jumping out of the hoop. The guy had a Curt Shilling type sock, but I don't recall any special medical attention.

[KSRBEvans]

Lots of drills to stretch or loosen up were exactly the wrong way to do it. Bouncing around, up/down, etc. while not yet warmed up. But for our youth and natural limberness, the stretching drills probably would've caused strains or tears.

Some of the ideas about hydration were exactly wrong, too. No water during practice in 90 degree-plus temps--take a salt tablet, instead. Or the coach would forget to bring the water to a baseball game in July. Well, too bad--suck it up. Here, have another salt tablet, instead. Why'd they always forget the water but have enough salt tablets for the whole league? Thanks, coach.

Not a drill, but in my 1st year of Little League the coach forgot the catching gear, but still thought it was a fine idea for me, an 8-year old, to catch BP without a mask or any other equipment. Sure enough, I got popped in the mouth with a foul tip. Left a little scar on my upper lip but that was the extent of the damage, thank goodness. In a more litigious era that coach and the league could've had big exposure.

[Darrell KSR]

The stretching one is a good one. There are still some coaches misapplying this even today. Or at least five to ten years ago.