Re-inspired

I am not able to play in the games yet at dome ball but I can hit during warm-ups. By coaching in the dome league I am able to take advantage of using the cages along with my team. In order not to take reps away from the other girls I arrive early to get my work done. By the time I am done hitting most of the team is there and ready to get started. We progress through warm ups and get ready to move to the field as game time approaches. As we are walking over one of my players walks up to me, "Hey V, I saw you hitting in the cage. After about 30 seconds I turned to my dad and told him that I wanted to hit like that. So will you help me with my swing?" Tons of different emotions flow through me at one time but I tell her of course. We will work together after the games are over. At this point I am feeling so many things. First pride, someone watched me and decided that they wanted to try and be like me. I did the same thing with the elite players that I wanted to be like. Second humbleness. This girl and her father both thought that I was a good enough coach to instruct and help his daughter instead of asking an actual hitting coach. Finally excitement, here is a player that wants to get better. She wants to work hard and to learn. Her hunger for information reminded me of myself when I decided that I wanted to be great. Her small action of simply asking me for help re-inspired me. There are people that look up to me and what I do. This is the reason that I continue to work to be as good as I can be.

After the game we meet back at the cage to go to work. Her father and her explain that they saw how I can hit and hope that with my help she may be able to do the same. The hitting instruction that she has gotten up until now has been next to none. In order to begin we had change her whole entire hitting style. She was still purely a rotational hitter. To be successful I believe that you need to combine linear and rotational movement. It takes a long time to get used to this weight shift while you are hitting but she was totally open to try all of the different drills that I suggested. I could tell each of them were absorbing everything that I said. After working through normal swings, one handed, and two part drills we went over the keys to focus on. We came up with drills that she was going to do during the week and we will work again next week. I am very excited to see what she has changed and how much she has improved. Even though she plays for a rival school I am willing to help anyone that has that amount of drive and motivation to get better. She sparks the drive in me to work harder just by working hard herself. She will never know it, but by asking for my help she made my whole day and encouraged me to get better along with her.

Coaching Dome Ball

Usually during this time of year I spend every Sunday in a dome preparing for the upcoming season. My recovery is coming along but I still can not play, so instead of being a player I now get the chance to help coach.

Coaching is so much different than playing in many ways. Of course there are the obvious reasons like not being able to actually participate in playing the game or being able to employ physical skills in order to help your team. The biggest differences are things you would not really notice as an outsider. As a player you are used to just focusing on yourself and what you need to do. As a coach you need to have a broad perspective and constantly be checking on everyone. Before each pitch when I am playing defense I will run through what I need to do with the ball in certain situations. You will occasionally say the outs out loud but most of your thinking is internal. While coaching you have to voice all of these thoughts. Not only do you have to say them, but you need to explain them in a way that will get the players to understand and do what you want. The biggest challenge is getting them to understand what you are saying. I may say to widen out their lead. In return I get a puzzled look. In their head the fastest route from second to third is a straight line, why would you widen out? Bowing out at second base allows a runner to cut the turn at third base and score faster. After telling them they say that it makes sense, but they never would have thought to do that themselves. The problem is many of the girls have not been taught so many of the minor details from a young age. Even without being physically better than someone, being mentally more advanced allows you to take advantage of situations and have greater success. Little things that seem like second nature to me, other players would never think about. Seeing this gap of instruction encourages me to want to help them as much as possible in the time that I have to coach them. I have found that there is so much information and different things that I want to tell each player but there simply is not enough time to share all of it.

Coaching a softball game is like being able to control organized chaos. As I said before when you play you only have to worry about your job. Now as a coach, everyone is looking to you for what to do. Being the third base coach really opened my eyes to this. First you are helping to instruct the batter on what their plan of attack should be in the box. Next you change focus to any runners that are on base. You tell them to check the gaps and the fielders around them to know what balls are going to drop in order to score if the ball is put in play. While all of this is going on you are trying to read the other coach, steal signs, and pick up what the pitcher may be planning to do next. When I am playing the game seems to move very slow. I am able to pick up on many different things that most people would not because I have played so much. Coaching, the game feels like it is moving 100 mph. I am not used to having to do so many things for so many other people while still trying to pick up on the little things like pitching tendencies. The more that I coach the easier it becomes. but sometimes it still feels like the game is moving way too fast.

After coaching myself I am able to reflect on all of the amazing coaches that I have had. They have a very tough job to control all of the chaos and do it without any problems. These men also have been some of the most influential people in my life. How they coached me as a player and treated me as person shaped who I am. Not only have they taught me so much about softball, but also about life.  I owe so much of what I am to how good of coaches they were. I only hope that I can impact someone else's life by coaching like they impacted mine.

Overall I think that coaching is a blast. If I can't actually be playing I would definitely want to be coaching rather than just sitting on the side and watching. The thing that I love most about coaching is seeing things click for a player. They may have been struggling on hitting an outside pitch. You help them make some adjustments and soon they are crushing that pitch. Their big smile and the reward of seeing them succeed and have fun is better than any thank you they could ever give you. Coaching allows me to share what I know about the game and hopefully help other players get better. After my playing days are complete I definitely want to be a coach and continue to share my knowledge of the game I love.

I Believe

In one of my English classes we were asked to write about a topic or idea that we believed very strongly in. At first I had no idea what I was going to write about and then I thought of one of my biggest values, working hard. I thought it was a great assignment to get you to think about what you really believe in. Here is something that I believe in with all of my heart.

Hard Work

I believe in hard work. I've come to the point in my athletic career where I have many people watching everything I do, how I practice, the way that I train, and the amount of work that I put in. Many people have questioned why I put in so much extra time?  Or ask why do I work so hard, don't I just want to have fun? My answer is always to achieve my dreams. I have the most fun when I am working my hardest to get better, not when I am goofing around. I may have been blessed with an aptitude for sports but I believe natural talent can only take you so far. One of the major things that makes you who you are your habits. Working hard is one of my habits. It comes into play in every area of my life but is most evident during sports.

When most people generally think of hard work, they think of it as a difficult task that they were able to accomplish.  They are happy to complete the task and be done with it. But working hard is not something you just do once, especially if you have dreams and goals as big as mine. I chose to start working hard to get something that I wanted. Over the countless hours of training it has become who I am, what I pride myself on, and who I want to be.

Being from a small town no one had ever done what I wanted to do, or the way that I wanted to get there. Almost every high school coach will tell you that to make it big you have to go and spend thousands of dollars to play on the premier teams that travel all around the country and practice together almost every day. I played on a few of those teams and they were not for me. I disagree with how they are shaping these athletes as people. Instead I played for the Rochester Royals and it changed my life forever.

As a younger athlete I was also told that playing softball at that level was a good dream to have, but not many people become Division 1 athletes. There are only so many schools and there are hundreds of thousands of softball players in the country. So I set out to prove them wrong.

During my freshman year I started working harder than I ever had before. Early morning batting practice, late night workouts, and daily practices added up to hundreds of hours spent at the Rochester Athletic Club and city softball fields.  All of the blisters, aching muscles, and bruises were well worth it the day I was offered my dream. I am going to attend North Dakota State University and have the opportunity to play softball there. So that means that all the hard work is over right? It is actually the exact opposite. I work harder now than I did even when I was trying to get recruited. I have my chance, now I get to show everyone how good I can be. Working hard is what I do now and how I will continue to work for the rest of my life.

I believe if you are willing to work hard and fully immerse yourself in your goals you can achieve anything. I was told I would never be good enough, yet through hard work I am on my way to achieving my dreams. Do not let anyone tell you what you can and cannot do, you are the only one who can determine that.

Waiting

Waiting is not something that I do very well. My mom always tells me, "Vanessa, patience is a virtue." Well I must not have very many virtues if I have to wait to receive them. I had to wait exactly two weeks from the day that I got hurt to have surgery. At the time, it was the longest two weeks of my life. I was not able to do anything that I used to do. Normally, I am one of the most active people around and I rarely am sitting still. Now all I am supposed to do is sit on my butt with my foot in a bucket of ice.

Being on crutches and in a boot before surgery allowed me to do some stuff that made life easier. I got hurt right before the Fourth of July. Typically my team plays in the Ringneck tournament in South Dakota this weekend. Knowing what was to come, mentally I could not go and watch all of those games at this time. My emotions were still too raw, I would get worked up anytime I thought about how much softball I was going to have to miss. Instead my parents decided to take us to Duluth where all of my family lives. We did tons of fun things that took my mind away from what had happened. One of the days we went to Gooseberry Falls, I do not recommend the 1.5 mile hike on crutches. Luckily I have an amazing Dad who carried me some of the way. After all of that hiking we were SUPER hungry so we went to the best place on the North Shore, Betty's Pies. In the past we had always talked about doing the eating challenge that they have. It is called the Pig's Trough, 3 pieces of pie, 5 scoops of ice cream, a banana, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce. My dad, brother, my sister and I all decided to take it on while my mom and grandparents stared at us with wide eyes. We had 20 minutes to eat all of that dessert. If you know me well you know that I can eat a lot of food. Needless to say my dad and I were the only ones that finished, Vance and Dreez did not have a chance. That night we watched fireworks over the oar docks in Two Harbors. It was a great trip and a great reminder of all of the people that I had supporting me as I went into surgery.

The days before I went in seemed to drag by. I had nothing to do besides for lay outside on the picnic table and tan or watch my brother swim at the pool. I was not supposed to do any strenuous activity or leave the house that much. Boredom during the days stunk but nothing was worse than the nights. After I got hurt there were few times I slept all the way through the night. I was constantly reliving the collision, but there was always a different twist at the end. All of them had me waking up in a cold sweat. The worst had to be the dream that occurred the most, the doctors telling me I would never play sports again. Without distractions of the people around you, your mind is free to roam wherever it wants. Alone, it was very hard to deal with all of the negative thoughts. There was nothing to convince yourself that these dreams weren't real. The more you thought about it the more helpless you felt. The night before surgery I barely slept like usual, I was so nervous for the next day. I knew that this was the path I had to take to get better but that didn't mean I was any less scared.

Crutching into Mayo on Friday morning everything finally felt real. Up until this point there was still a part of me that did not believe that all of this was happening to me. I was going to be fine and playing next week, not next year. As the doctors circled around me, attaching monitors, injecting medication, and setting up my IV I closed my eyes and thought of why I was going through all of this, to do what I love again. It is all going to be worth it when I am able to play again. After hugging my mom and telling her I loved her my wait was finally up.

Post Surgery

The thing I remember most about coming out of surgery was being SO HUNGRY! You have to fast starting the night before surgery and when I woke up it was about 3 p.m. I had not eaten in over 15 hours! In order to leave I had to eat two granola bars and a bowl of soup which I did no problem. As we are going to the car I asked my mom to stop at Chipotle, I still was starving! Once we were home I mowed through the burrito and took a three hour nap on the couch. I slept the most in my life the three to four days after surgery as my body was trying to heal. I now had three screws and a plate in my left foot to try and fix all of the damage that I had done.

I was not really used to a sedentary lifestyle.  During the summer it is VERY unusual that I watch TV at all much less during the day. After surgery I was put on house arrest for 10 days. I dont think I have ever watched that many movies or tanned for that long. I never knew how much I took for granted just being able to leave home for a little bit! Luckily I have amazing friends that came to visit and spend time with me so it wasnt so bad. At about day 5 my dad snuck me out of the house and took me to dinner because he knew I was going crazy. That weekend I talked him into letting me go to watch the Danes play. I still had many conflicting feelings but it was great to see my teammates and wish them luck before heading to nationals. It killed me not to be traveling with them but it would be even worse being there and having to sit out after making my parents drive thousands of miles.  It would not be fair to ask that of them.

After the 10 days I went in to get my soft cast cut off and a hard cast put on. I wore that for 4 weeks during the summer. Yes, THE SUMMER! So that meant no swimming, nothing like that. Without inventing new ways to do the things I love I would have gone crazy. I found a way to go swimming in the kiddie pool so I could be in the water a little bit.

Getting my cast off was one of the best feelings in the world. When I looked down at my foot it did not look human. I am a huge fan if The Walking Dead and my brother and I agreed it looked like a zombie foot. After getting the cast cut off I had to take x-rays. Simply standing on that foot felt foreign. It was as if I had forgotten how the stand normally on two feet. It felt like I had a bunch of tiny rocks in the bottoms of my feet. It was the craziest feeling and is so hard to explain, but it was from all of the blood pooling and the lack of use. I was so happy to finally be getting out of the cast but I felt far from normal. I would spend the next 4 weeks on crutches and in a boot. After that I slowly began to ween off the crutches and into a boot and finally a shoe! It was about a 9 week process to get there. In the beginning I walked with a nice limp because I was so used to the different height of the boot. I got plenty of crap from my friends and family about it but I was just so happy to be walking on my own. Just over 3 months after I got hurt I was finally walking on my own. Most of the waiting was finally over and now I could focus on working to get better.

Results

On Monday after the tournament my Dad wanted to go into the doctor just to make sure nothing serious had happened. My foot was starting to feel better and I was walking on it in small amounts around the house so I was not worried at all. I went in to get x-rays and then have a meeting with a sports medicine doctor at Mayo. The doctor tested my foot and determined that she thought it was just a sprain, they did not have to take x-rays, and I would start doing physical therapy. I told her that we had actually already taken x-rays so she pulled them up on the screen. Her eyes got big and then she turned to look at me. I had several broken bones and needed to come back for an MRI. This was crushing news because it meant that summer softball for me was most likely over.

Later in the week I had my MRI. If you have never had an MRI it is a very unique experience. You are in a tight, confined space and have to stay very still. It is super loud so they either give you earplugs or headphones to block out the noise. None of these things bother me and I have fallen asleep every time that I have had to have one. The longest part of this process was waiting for the doctor to call me back about the results. When we got the call I was sitting in the kitchen with my mom. I can remember watching the blood drain from her face as she frantically wrote things down on the notepad in front of her. It was much worse than anyone had expected. On the top of my foot I had a severe Liz Franc ligament tear. Evidence on the MRI showed that my navicular bone was dented and I had shattered off pieces of other smaller bones. She was referring me to a surgeon to determine whether or I not I needed to have it fixed. 

Waiting to meet with the surgeon was one of the most nerve racking days of my life. Before this I had never broken a bone, much less had to have major reconstructive surgery. Sitting on the hospital bed I was faced with two options. The first, I simply wait for it to heal on its own. There is a major risk that it will not heal properly and that I will have to have surgery anyways. The second option crushed me, it was to have surgery and go through a 6-12 month recovery process. The decision was up to me but the doctors we recommending heavily that I have the surgery. They gave my family two days to go home and think about it. I was able to keep it together until I got in the car and looked at my mom. Tears started streaming down my face and I could not make them stop. I had so many emotions flowing and did not know how to take in this information. I was completely silent the whole ride and when we finally got home I went straight to my room. Hundreds of things were swirling around inside my head and I felt like the world was crashing down on me. I just did not understand. Why did I get hurt? Why does it have to happen now, in the middle of my summer? What is going to happen to me? What if I can never play again? I laid on my bed thinking about all of these things and came to the final conclusion, so what? Yes I have to have surgery. Yes I am going to lose the rest of my summer, fall, and most likely basketball season. Does that make me happy? No, but is this going to stop me from achieving my dreams? I am going to work as hard as possible during PT to come back and when I do I will be an even better player than before. 

I knew that I had to have the surgery. I could not risk waiting six months and then still having to under go surgery anyways. I did not accept the fact that all of this was real until I was crutching into Mayo on July 11th, the day I had to have three screws and a plate put into my foot. 

Getting Hurt

On June 28th my whole entire world was flipped upside down. This day changed life as I knew it and sent me into the world of the unknown. Friday started out just like any other summer day. I had lifting in the morning with a bunch of my friends and teammates. After that I went to lunch with one of my friends and hung out before having to head the fields. I was so excited because this weekend the tournament was in Rochester. Many of my friends and family were going to come and watch me play because we rarely get the chance to play this close to home during the summer.

The Danes typically do not start until after Father's Day weekend so I had the opportunity to play with the Royals in a few early season tournaments.  Several of my former teammates still played for them so I wanted to watch them play this weekend if I got the chance. I headed over to McQuillan Fields because the Royals were playing before I had to warm-up. Even though I was not playing with them I still went in the dugout to hang out with the kids on the bench. I love bantering back and forth with the girls I have played with forever. Soon I had to go to a different field to start warming up for our game. I was feeling amazing during warm-ups. The past couple weeks I had been seeing the ball very well. In the previous tournament in the Quad Cities I hit five homeruns in five games. On the season I was averaging one homerun per every three at-bats. You could say that I was on a hot streak that I really wanted to continue.

The rest of pre-game was the same. We ran through all of the same drills and were ready to play. People from this area have always questioned why I chose to play for the Danes instead of a large program like the Sting. Playing this close to home I wanted to show them how good we were and why I love playing for the Danes. Finally getting this chance I was so excited to get out on the field. I was the lead-off hitter in the top of the first. I was walked on five pitches so I jogged down to my spot at first. On the fourth pitch of Abby Klopp's at-bat I was given the steal sign. When I slide, I slide hard, especially if there is someone blocking the bag. When I saw the shortstop coming across the front side of the bag I slid into her hard just like I had done so many times before. There was a big collision and she went flying backwards. I popped up to see where the ball went because I saw it sail over my head as I slid in. The throw had not even been close and the ball ended up in short right center field. Then I look down and see the shortstop still laying on the ground. The umpires call time for the game and the tournament trainer comes out to help her off the field. During this I jog over to my coach and notice that my foot does not feel right. When I made contact with the other girl the ball of my foot was jammed backwards towards my shin. It was pretty much numb and tingling but didn't hurt excessively. Based on my pain I thought that I had just sprained an

ankle like I had so many times in basketball so I tried to just jog it off. I returned to second and on the next pitch Abby hit a double to left center. Sprinting home my foot did not feel right so when I went into the dugout I asked for it to be taped. After being taped I tried to go out and play defense but it hurt a lot to plant on it after throwing. My coach decided to just sit me for the rest of the game, it was only Friday night and the most important day is Sunday. Once I took my shoe off to ice my foot inflated like a balloon. My teammate helped me out of the dugout and onto one of the picnic tables so that the trainer could look at my foot. Based on my pain they said that it was only a bad sprain, I may want to go in just in case to get it looked at but they did not think anything was seriously wrong.

I woke up the next morning and in between my toes was black and blue. On the inside arch of my foot there was a dark red line with bruising. It still killed to walk on so I borrowed a pair of crutches from my grandpa. After not being able to walk in the morning I decided to sit out the rest of the tournament. At the time it was frustrating but playing in the end of the season and nationals was much more important to me than just one normal tournament. Sitting out the rest of the weekend was torture. I don't like having to sit out for an inning or two to begin with, much less eight games because I am hurt. We made it to the Championship game after playing six games on Sunday. I was so proud of my team but I still wished that I could have been out on the field with them. Next weekend I told myself. I will be back and everything will be normal. Little did I know this is not how things were going to end up.