Growing Up

#1

The age group of 14 -19 can experience a violable roller coaster of success and less so. If you fall into this age group, try and understand what’s going on within you and how this ever changing equipment below your chin is effecting your work.

Growth and development is nothing to take lightly. You as an individual are just that - an individual. You will have peaks and valleys with respect to energy, mode swings, assumptions and perceptions that can change from week to week, and a host of other things that makes life … well, just miserable.

Now I know this doesn’t come as any comfort to someone that’s trying to break through a certain velocity wall, nor is it any consolation when not making varsity. You will, however, come around to your level of athletic ability and all the other stuff that falls in line with it. You must have patience.

And as if growing up wasn’t difficult as it is - coming down on yourself for not performing athletically is just not fair to you. It’s not fair to the expectations that you have, it’s not fair to who you are as a person, and above all - it’s not fair to how your look at yourself in comparison to others.

There is no one on this planet - has been or ever will be, like you. Your unique, a one of a kind. You’ll make your mark in this world, and along the way … who knows, you’ll touch the life a some people … and because of you… you’ll leave a little goodness behind with your name on it.

Baseball is a great character maker, a potter’s wheel just waiting for a piece of clay to be transformed into something special. But like everything special, it takes a willing pair of hands, guided by desire and trust to form … by trial and error… that finished product. And then we start all over again. Kind-a like you, along the way during your growing years, your one finished product for that space in time, then you start again. Just give yourself the time that you deserve to let the clay dry properly, before spinning a new project. It’s only fair. You will get there - one masterpiece at a time.

Coach B.

#2

Thanks, I needed my daily dose of Coach B. inspiration.

#3

Thanks, Coach. I will ask my Freshman son to read this. I try to remind my son that his poise and approach to pitching is as important as anything else. A friend of mine has a son who is a Senior in High School. He was being recruited very hard by a particular DIII school with an outstanding academic reputation. My friend said, “funny thing about that particular coach is that when he saw my son pitch, he walked the park and got hit very hard”. The coach told my son that he liked his mechanics and, most importantly, liked how he handled his “rough outing”. He took the baseball with the same attitude and approach whether he threw a ball or a strike and whether he walked someone or struck them out. The kid is a class act and will be rewarded with an opportunity at a school that might, otherwise, be a bit out of his league.