Lady Bulldogs doing "Up the Hill"
I am a total enthusiasm junkie with a baseball background. As a player, I didn’t shut up in the dugout or in the field. As a baseball coach, I love to encourage a loud, if not raucous dugout. But I have to hand it to the ladies. They’ve got the boys beat. The chants that come from their mouths are infectious, hillarious, and very simply….fun.
The biggest difference between baseball and softball in this matter is simply organization. There’s a freakin’ chant for every situation imaginable. A girl walks, there’s a cheer. A girl hits a double, there’s a cheer. A girl ties her shoes correctly, you’ve got it, there’s a cheer. Not only that, they’ve got moves too. Some cheers have choreography that would make Paula Abdul stand at attention (or at least stare in a haze).
In baseball there aren’t so much cheers, as much as, you might say “individual chatter”. I define “individual chatter” as speaking loudly with enthusiasm, and you really don’t even have to be using actual words. For example, one player at the end of the bench might say “Hum-diddy-hey-come-to-play” and another player might say “Come kid, come kid” and then you might hear a “Yup-Yup!”. But it’s all random. When the whole dugout is going, it’s pretty cool. My favorite is when a player on our team gets plunked, and as the player jogging to 1st base is trying not too show much his ribs feel like the were just hit by a Volkswagen, you hear, “We’ve got ice!”
You may be thinking,”What does cheering have to do with playing & winning?” I believe more than meets the eye. During this past spring, our varsity team was struggling with team unity and enthusiasm. In fact, the group seemed downright selfish at one point. A couple of the veteran players on the team took it upon themselves to dig deeply into their cheer repretoire and the whole vibe of the team became better. Our dugout became a great place to be. Players started to smile again. Petty jealousies related to playing time and etc. were put aside. It carried over into our play on the field. Communication on cuts and pop-ups got louder and better. Offensively, the girls got behind each other. And I’ll tell you one thing, when you jump ahead 5-0 on a team that doesn’t cheer. You can see the other team crumble. They can’t wait to get on the bus and go home.
The best cheering team I’ve seen so far has got to be the Geneseo Maple Leafs from Geneseo, IL. Those young ladies are LOUD!!! And you know what, other people may say that they’re obnoxious. It’s my opinion that they’re into every pitch of the game and having a blast.
My personal favorite is a pre-game cheer that our team does called “Up the Hill”. It’s a modified version of an old football chant. Here are some really cool links to more cheers & chants than you’ll ever need:
Finally, let me know what you think about softball cheers & chants. Check out and vote in my poll in the “Most Recent Posts” section on the right side of your screen or click below:
https://coach5150.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/poll-softball-cheers/
Thanks!!!
This is a follow up post to my previous post on softball cheers and chants. The link to that post is below:
Coach5150's Baseball & Softball Blog 