Train Like It’s Tee Ball, Expect Big League Performance? That’s the Problem.

A young child stands at the plate, bat in hand, staring down a baseball resting motionless on a tee.

It's pure. It's simple. It's the very beginning of learning how to play the game.

Now imagine expecting that child to step into a Major League batter’s box tomorrow — against 98 mph fastballs, elite pitchers, and tens of thousands of eyes watching — and perform flawlessly.

We expect officers to perform like seasoned professionals in life-or-death situations—without ever giving them professional-level preparation.

The Foundation Is Basic — By Design

Police academies are called “basic training” for a reason — they’re designed to lay the groundwork, meeting the state minimums that cover legal concepts, defensive tactics, firearms qualification, and the basics of policing.

They pour the foundation of the house. But that’s it.

The real development begins with the Field Training Officer (FTO) process. That’s where the framing goes up — taking those basic concepts and putting them into real-world context through supervised street work.

Then comes experience — the roof. Time, repetition, pressure, and reflection finish the structure. That’s when instincts sharpen and judgment deepens.

But too often, we expect our people to perform like their house is fully built — when all they have is a concrete slab and a few 2x4s.

That gap between foundation and finished product? That’s where real training and development must live. And we’re not investing nearly enough in it.

The Big Leagues: The Street

The job doesn’t slow down to accommodate inexperience. It throws mental health crises, combative individuals, and complex threats at officers — fast and without warning.

And while many agencies claim to offer “advanced training,” what does that actually look like?

Too often, it’s an officer sitting in front of a computer screen. They click through some slides, pass a quiz, and move on. Box checked. Nothing gained.

It’s still tee ball.

The Bigger Problem: A System That Doesn’t Support Growth

This isn’t just about effort. It’s about infrastructure.

Real training takes time and people. If one officer is training, someone else has to fill the gap. That costs money — either in overtime or by running short.

So what happens? Agencies choose the least disruptive option, even if it’s also the least effective.

This isn’t good enough — for officers, for departments, or for the communities they serve.

A Path Forward: Ohio as a Case Study

In Ohio, we’ve made progress. For calendar year 2025, every peace officer must complete a minimum of 24 hours of Continuing Professional Training (CPT), including 8 hours in core areas such as Use of Force, Ethics, Legal Updates, and Search and Seizure.

The state also provides agencies with access to VR-based simulators that travel throughout Ohio, offering immersive, scenario-based training. On the surface, this looks innovative — and certainly improves upon zero in-person training.

But here’s the question: Does a day in VR goggles, or 24 hours spread across a year, actually build the muscle memory our officers need?

There’s a Difference Between Perception and Reality

• The perception: We’re making great strides. Officers log their 24 hours, experience a VR scenario, and we tell ourselves they’re better trained.
• The reality: One day in a simulator, one annual exposure — it isn’t enough.

Research across various fields, including firearms, fitness, and self-defense training, consistently shows that developing reliable muscle memory for a single motor skill typically requires 3,000 to 5,000 repetitions. Early neurological adaptation may begin after a few hundred reps, but true automaticity — especially under stress — only forms after thousands of high-quality, consistent repetitions (Force Science Institute, Winning Mind Training, US Concealed Carry).

In other words, even if an officer completes 24 hours of annual training — including a session in a VR simulator — that exposure alone falls dramatically short of what’s required to create instinctive, pressure-tested responses.

Exposure Isn’t Enough

If we expect officers to act decisively under stress, we need more than exposure—we need repetition, realism, and readiness.

Without that repetition, muscle memory doesn’t form. And when real pressure hits, the gap between perception and preparedness becomes painfully clear.

To be clear: Ohio’s investment in training is commendable. But if we stop at exposure-based solutions like annual hours or single-day simulators, we’re not building readiness — we’re just creating the appearance of it.

If we expect officers to make life-or-death decisions under pressure, we must move toward repetition. Toward stress inoculation. Toward the kind of hands-on training that’s not only checked off a form — but wired into their muscle memory.

The infrastructure exists. The funding exists. The next step is courage — to demand more than minimums, and to lead with the expectation that real training means real commitment.

The Standard Has Changed — But Training Hasn’t Kept Up

Today’s officers are being judged by a standard that didn’t exist a generation ago.

They are being terminated, charged, sued, and vilified — not just based on outcomes, but on how they performed in moments of extreme stress.

And increasingly, those judgments are being made by people who watched the incident unfold calmly and slowly — on a screen, in hindsight — without any of the real-time fear, urgency, or uncertainty the officer faced.

Let’s be very clear: this isn’t an argument for lowering standards. It’s not about defending poor decisions or unethical conduct.

It’s about acknowledging a fundamental truth: The job has changed — and our training models haven’t kept up.

Body-worn cameras have brought greater transparency — and with it, greater scrutiny. And that’s not a bad thing—accountability matters.

But if we’re going to hold officers accountable at the level we do today — where a single frame of hesitation, a poorly chosen word, or a momentary misjudgment could end a career or result in criminal charges — then we must also match those expectations with modern, realistic, high-repetition training.

We are judging officers by standards we never trained them to meet. That’s not accountability—it’s a setup.

The Bottom Line

We’d never expect a tee-ball player to hit in the majors without years of development.

But in this profession, we do it all the time.

We hand out a badge after a few months in a classroom and hope that field training and experience will close the gap — even as the challenges facing law enforcement become more complex, more public, and more dangerous.

And while some officers go above and beyond to train themselves — often on their own time and their own dime — that shouldn’t be the exception.

It should be the standard — supported by policy, investment, and leadership.

If we want officers to perform like professionals, we have to train them like professionals.

And that starts with recognizing that the job we’re asking them to do is anything but tee ball. 

~ Chief Scott Hughes