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.