Bio Sketch --- Charles A. Maher, PsyD, CC-AASP is Sport and Performance Psychologist and Director of Personal and Organizational Performance for the Cleveland Indians. He has been with the Indians for 20 years and he has been involved in sport and performance psychology for 30 years. He also has served as a sport psychologist during this time for a range of professional teams, beyond the Indians, including the Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Browns, Chicago White Sox, New York Jets, New York Rangers, Minnesota Wild, and San Antonio Spurs as well as with tennis players, boxers, and other elite athletes. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Rutgers University where he serves as a consultant to the Department of Sports Medicine as well as to the Rutgers football and men’s and women’s basketball teams. He is a licensed psychologist and has authored many books and journal articles. His most recent baseball book is The Complete Mental Game: Taking Charge of the Process, On and Off the Field. He has had numerous professional experiences in helping to clarify substantial
throwing problems and resolving these problems with baseball players and other athletes and furthermore, he also has worked over the years with government agencies and private corporations, worldwide. He also has been a high school baseball coach, a high school and college basketball coach, as well as a special education teacher and special services director in public schools.
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Bonus - Interview Excerpt
We also called and spoke with Trevor Ragan. Here is part of that conversation.
John Kessel’s rule of thumb is:
"As soon as the athlete knows what it looks like and feels like and they can show you what it looks like and feels like they are ready to do a more random."
The time spent doing block it less than you think it should be. There is a time and place for block. It’s o.k. to spend 5-10 minutes getting it down so they know what it looks like and feels like. But then after that, we can be creative as far as randomizing the rest and they will get more from that – even if the performance dips a bit.
That doesn’t mean it has to be "full on game" but they are ready for the more randomized practice where they are moving to a different spot or giving them a different pitch every time or whatever it may be. I think one of the big misconceptions with this is that all this is how you only train Olympians - but that’s not the case at all.
John Kessel is the Director of Sports Development for USA Volleyball. His job is to look at the research, look at the science and then they implement it at the Olympic level. But then he travels to other countries and works with youth programs and shows them how to implement it there. I believe USA Volleyball is lightyears ahead of other sports as far as “top-to-down” development is concerned. They are choosing to train all US volleyball coaches with this method and show them how to implement it at the youth level. So this isn’t something they are just using at the top – they are implementing it at every single level.
It must be noted: In the studies, usually the people are learning things they don’t know how to do or have never done before. So regardless of their age they are doing something they have never done before and they are still finding that the random group outperforms the block group. That is an important concept that most don’t pay attention to. That’s telling us that even if working with beginners or athletes the research still applies.
We at The Baseball Observer are pleased that Trevor and Train Ugly are now contributer's to the magazine. We feel the information they provide is invaluable in helping us as coaches.
A Few Things To Keep In Mind
We need to approach practice with a growth mindset. We need to understand that taking the random approach is harder. We will mess up more – we will make more mistakes but it’s better for us. It’s preparing us to perform in a game.
No matter what sport we are playing or what skill we are practicing never do the same thing twice. Make sure you’re reading and planning before every single rep.
Do you want to look good in practice (block practice) or do you want to prepare yourself to perform in a game where it really, really matters (random practice).