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Saturday – I was fortunate enough to have the entire day to watch a bunch of girls that I love participate in a showcase tournament that started with a very unique format. In the first two games of the day eams exchanged half of their players with each other. While most of the parents were less than thrilled it brought an untold joy to my heart. I began Cross Training as a ministry to reach players and their families through long term relationships. The first team that I coached had many amazing young ladies on it who’m I blessed to still have contact with. Two such young ladies were Sydney O’Neill and Savannah Mills. During my team’s games I met a coach from another local park Curtis Walker. I enjoyed playing his team because he was committed to the same principles of teaching and making it about the girls that I was, and because his daughter Sarah Walker was such a talented and fiery player. Curtis also coached a travel team that Sydney would go on to play with in the next season so it was great to have that continued relationship with both families. Savannah’s family went to a local church with another super family the Burnette’s. John Burnette (who eventually officiated the weddings of both of my daughters) coached a team in Buford (who Sydney hit her first homerun off of) that I began working with. Among many of the phenomenal players on that team were two bubbly young ladies named Lanae Hodnett (3 time State Champion) and Lanier Paul (4 time State Champion) During that spring season I really enjoyed watching those two teams do battle repeatedly because I got to watch players on both sides that I was working with. Last Saturday morning my heart was filled with thanks as I got to watch the Duluth Lynx take the field. A team comprised of many fine young ladies and anchored by Sydney O’Neill, Sarah Walker, Lanae Hodnett and Lanier Paul now all playing together. If I wasn’t afraid of having you tune out on me I would trace the relationships that have resulted in the past 6 years from those people to the fine young ladies on the teams that those Lynx were opposing that day. For others it was a crazy, mixed up format. For me seeing players from the beginning of my ministry play against and with players that I’ve begun working with more recently was drawn up in heaven.

Sunday I began the day with a phenomenal service at my church. The worship was great. The message was great. Fellowship was great. The rest of the day continued in the same tone as I get to spend the entire day tinkering with a new computer and learning things that I’ve wanted to know how to do for years.

Monday I got to start working with a fantastic player for the first time (Lane Simmons). A young lady whom I’ve admired for her competitive spirit, the gifts she has on the field and the sincere desire she has to never stop learning. A yound lady I had already written a post about. As if not enough, immediately after working with her I got to work with one of my favorite players in the world (Meghan Rud), a young lady that I can trace through those first relationships, and encourage her to pick up the phone and make her first telephone calls to prospective coaches. Which she did successfully on Tuesday.

Tuesday I got to start working with two more players for the first time. One of whom is another young lady who’s roots I can trace to those first relationships (Mary Johnson). Another is a colleague at works daughter (Gabi Lopez). A man I barely knew but who asked me about a bright yellow name tag lanyard I had received the day before, which just happened to read “I Love Softball” over and over and over. Yeah that’s how I roll at work. Dress pants, dress shirt and bright yellow lanyards that say “I Love Softball.” During my first lesson I always have the players write down their dreams. When I read that Mary’s dream was to play at Auburn, a school who introduced the term Wintality to me that I love, and Gabi’s was to play for the National Team of Puerto Rico I knew it was going to be a great night. I “LOVE” working with players that are trying to pursue their dreams throgh softball.

While it would seem boring to some, on Wednesday I was blessed with the opportunity finally to just do some simple yardwork. I love the environment that God has placed me and my wife in and love taking care of that beauty. So while it was cold and windy, I just relished that time. Followed up that brisk work outdoors with some simple time sharing the kitchen with my wife as I mixed up the batter for the homemade pumpkin pies (me and my daughter’s favorite) and preparing our 21 pound bird for the 13 hours it was about to spend in the smoker shortly.

Thursday was a family day, like it is for most. A day spent with our daughters, their husbands and our 3 grand children. After all of the food. The laughing. The food. The talking. And some food. Just before being packed up for the trip home our youngest grand daughter Ella decided to take her first steps walking on her own. I ended the day falling asleep on the couch watching a television show called Tanked. Yet another reality show, but this was one about a funny family that builds some of the most amazing aquariums in the world. As a person who has a 120 gallon custom tank just sitting around because I have no time for taking care of it anymore, it was awesome to end my day just reliving the good old days and seeing the amazing things that are possible with some of God’s most beautifully designed and colored pieces of art.

Just the simple fact that I am at the keyboard this Black Friday morning instead of standing in line with a million of my closest friends is in itself a blessing. As my wife and I read the flyers yesterday it became obvious that we already have not only what we need, but most of what we want as well. Our plans for the day … spending time together. No softball lessons. No family. Just time alone together enjoying the simple fact that after 27 1/2 years of marriage we still love being together.

If I could speak to those teams, I would say to them that just like an airport, teams are a “zero sum game.” You can’t see the romantic homecomings at the terminal gates, without also realizing that just beyond that couple there is a heartbreaking scene going as a family is separated. Planes cannot land, if they don’t first take off from somewhere else.

For those of you on new teams my advice is simple, remember the good times you shared but let go of the grip those old teammates have on your heart. Don’t spend your time comparing the players/coaches/parents of the new team to those people. Accept the fact that they are different. Embrace those differences. Look at each one of these teammates and realize that they are now in your life for a purpose and figure that out. Find what it is that you can learn from each of them.

For those of you who have lost great friends and have new teammates now on board. Try to imagine how they must feel, and how heart broken they must be for they are the ones who had to board the plan and depart from another town, another city, another team and they now find themselves smack dab in the middle of your team. Don’t wait for them to make the first move, and don’t just try and meet them half way, be the initiator. The one who opens your heart, is willing to accept the situation and reach out to them first, and reach out often.

Our former friends/teammates will always have a dear place in our heart, nothing can change that. But our new teammates can as well if we just let them. But teams can’t function effectively if players are still playing in their hearts with teammates that are miles away. There is sadness in leaving, but their can be happiness in new beginnings if you allow it.

But this is my post, not a movie and as I approached the cloud covered, frost bitten fields yesterday in Duluth, GA and could see my breath the picture was quite different from a movie I can assure you. In the movies the weather is always perfect, and you know who the heroine will be. In real life the weather is often brutal, and at 8:00 AM you have no idea how the games will unfold. But you see that’s entirely the beauty of it. The fact that the players have to compete against each other under such diverse conditions, and accept and play through whatever situations come there way, and at the end of the day when the sun has set, and the briskness of the autumn air has set back in, the ones that rose above it all, the ones that understand it is a team of heroines and not just one are the ones standing tall. The ones that you just jump out of your seat, with your cold knees, and your stiff back and you throw your glove covered hands around. They are the ones with the tears of joy welling up in their eyes because they are going to bed forever changed by what they did on that day. That single cold, fall day when they were the David facing their Goliath, and they delivered the fatal blow.

The fatal blow in this case being a 7 run, late, inning marked by lots of singles, bunts moving runners and of course the gratuitous fist pumping Grand Slam just for the folks in Hollywood. What I love about this game, and the amazing players I have the privilege of knowing and working with is that those kind of innings never happen at 8:00 AM, they are always at the end of the day. Because comebacks like I witnessed are never marked by a single player, it has to be a team effort. To the 18U Gold Duluth Wildcats I say:

Thank you for the opportunity to watch a team of girls who despise losing fight until the end, never having given up.

Thank you for the opportunity to watch a team of girls who never turned down the throttle on their intensity just because it was cold and late.

Thank you for the opportunity to watch a team of girls who always lifted up and never doubted each other.

Thank you for …. THE PERFECT DAY.

One of the things that I frequently talk about with my players is when you are done, what will your legacy be. Will your name be in the college program for just the 4 years you are there, or will you be in the back of the book for others to use as a target? If you know me, then you know that I get all keyed up attacking the bases. So when this player set a goal to beat the NCAA Division I single season stolen base record I was stoked. Not normal Dalton stoked. I mean like way out there stoked.

When you set a long term goal like that you don’t just wake up one morning accomplishing it. You have to set a roadmap, I call them GPS Based Goals if you have ever been to one of my clinics. You have to define the points along the journey that allow you to measure whether you are heading in the right direction or not. So the first destination on the course, was breaking her high schools stolen base record. Rather than just breaking the school’s single season record, she went ahead and shattered the schools career stolen base record. In just this season. What another had accomplished in 4 years, she broke just this year. And they haven’t even started their playoffs yet where she’ll surely get more.

We celebrated for a few minutes. Ok maybe more than a few minutes, and maybe I did get her a card to tell her how proud I was. But then we moved right on to “Now how do we go about breaking the entire State of Georgia’s single season stolen base record next year.” The first thought of course is “Can you get on base more often so that you have more chances to steal?” While we always strive for perfection the fact is her batting average is almost .500 and her on base pct is almost .600. So while there is room to improve, the odds that she doubles her production next year just by getting on base a few more times is pretty slim. So we had to analyze each time she was on base, and figure out why she didn’t get more this year. The problem was that there were girls in front of her that were in her way. She could ask them to just make outs, but then it would be hard to lead the team in RBI’s. Part of setting goals has to be an acknowledgment that whatever obstacles are in the way, will still be there unless you figure out a way to get around them. Basically we both feel like the strongest possible way to accomplish her individual goal, is to become a leader and somehow help those players become more aggressive as well. If they steal 3′rd, she can steal 2′nd. Or they attack 3′rd when she hits instead of stopping at 2′nd, then she can steal 2′nd. In other words, instead of just focusing on the same skills we have been for the past 3 years: timing, speed, sliding, diving and consistently getting on base she has to become more of a leader and motivator to get these girls on board with helping her achieve her goal. She has to help them “want” to GET DIRTY.

Meghan is determined that the single season stolen base record for the State of GA will be hers and she needs them to move forward, so that she can move forward.  So the exciting thing is that while they don’t know it yet, but by this time next year they will also have broken the schools “former” record.

Yes I’m throwing som props out to Meghan Rud for what she puts into this game, and for the fact that she sees now what she’ll do in 6 years and is willing to work hard to get there every single day of her life. But hopefully as you’ve read this you yourself are realizing that whatever your personal goals may be. The odds are strong that for them to be “record breaking” you will benefit the team by accomplishing them, and you will also need the team to help you accomplish them. But that sounds to cliche I know so I won’t write that.

For instance I see young pitchers start practicing and the first couple of practices are hard. They get blisters on their finger tips. They get winded really easily from having to drive off the mound so much. But as they practice more and more eventually the become pitchers. Not kidding, it seems that it really works.

Same goes for hitters that I work with. At first they hurt my ears by hitting my batting tee over and over. They start complaining about blisters on their hands. But after weeks of hard work they start actually making the swing look easy. Eventually others besides their parents actually call them hitters.

Sometimes those pitchers/hitters do so well as a result of their practicing that they make it look like something that others want to try. Am I crazy or have you noticed that too? Not that you can really answer me, well you could reply or comment but nobody every does for these blogs. It’s not like it’s Facebook or something.

The problem I’ve seen a lot lately, is that all too often players, parents and coaches are practicing the wrong thing. It all starts innocently enough with some excuses that seem legitimate at the time. After that is practiced, then it becomes more of a group event. After it has been rehearsed enough people get really brave and start actually broadcasting it. Loudly.

Are you still with me. I’m talking about quitting. Surely you’ve seen that to. You know where the player/parent doesn’t like having to sit the bench for 5 minutes of a game so they decide that they won’t come back to that league/team/coach, but they feel guilty so they just slip away quietly at the end of the season. But now that they’ve practiced the next time quitting is a little bit easier. This time when the coach doesn’t give her exactly 52.5 innings of pitching time like they promised they would months ago, they justify quitting during the season by saying “we pay to much money for her not to pitch” or “we paid to much money on her new bat and lessons for her to bat 8′th instead of 5′th.” Pretty soon those people don’t just leave at the end of the season, or even leave by just telling off the coach, pretty soon their guilt about quitting is gone completely and they are bold enough to start recruiting others to quit with them. “Aren’t you unhappy too? If you leave with me then we’ll really make a point.” I even heard of a family that comitted to a team, and then literally quit after the very first practice.

For everyone reading this I assure you that you will become really good at whatever it is you are practicing. If you are practicing pitching you will become known as a pitcher. If you are practicing hitting you will become known as a hitter. If you are practicing quitting, then you will become known as a quitter. It gets easier. It’s just how life works.

My best advice to you is to instead practice not quitting. Honoring your comittment. Sticking to your word. You know all of those things that you admire seeing in others, but are afraid to try yourself because it’s hard. Yes it’s hard to honor your comittment when the team is falling apart, but the more you practice it, the better you get at it. Pretty soon you are known as the person that never gives up. You know the one that everyone else admires. The choice is yours, you will eventually be, whatever you are currently practicing to become.

The world is full of situations that aren’t fair and we all recognize that, yet somehow we allow players to get by with the notion that everything in the softball world should be fair. The truth is that situations are neither fair nor unfair, they simply are. Any time spent analyzing the fairness of the situation is time lost that could better be spent adjusting to and dealing with the situation.

You are the best hitter in the world, and yet the coach is “unfair” and bats you dead last. Did you ever stop to think that by batting dead last you get the least respect from the opposing team’s pitchers so you likely get better pitches to hit? Do you really want the fairness of having to handle the exact same pitching focus that is afforded to the #4 hitter on the team, and the expectations of everyone on the team that you will produce big hits every single at bat?

You hit a solid line drive that travels 175 feet on a rope, a rope that ends in the glove of the center fielder. While the player on the opposing team closes her eyes, and dips under the pitch badly. Her ball travels 78 and a 1/2 feet as a popup, one that drops 1/2 foot beyond the arms of your diving second basemen in right field. Is that fair that you killed the ball but didn’t get a hit, while they had a blooper and did get a hit? Or is it simply a matter of odds that as you spray your line drives around sooner or later one will be straight at a player, and the odds that the other player’s consistent bloopers will sooner or later happen to drop right outside the reach of your fielder?

Another player is seemingly gets “special” treatment from their parents, while you seem to be challenged every single time your father looks in your direction. Is that un-fair to you? Or is it really un-fair to the other player who’s parents have given up trying to help them grow and develop because it takes to much work.

One of your friends is on a great team. One where they have several awesome players, and they win every game. The players all get along and bake cookies for each other every weekend. While you are on a team that is struggling to ever win, and players yell at each other on and off the field. Is that really fair to your friend that she takes a back seat while the other players carry the team and lead it to greatness? How is that preparing her for the real world, where she will be on her own, while you get the honor of stepping up and becoming a leader due to necessity, and while you don’t win all of your games you are becoming prepared to win the game of life.

My advice is to stop using the word “fair” in any context other than fair/foul in regards to softball. Adjust to whatever situations you are faced with as they come at you, in a way that best prepares you for the future and allows you to build the kind of character and reputation that you would like to be known for. In other words “deal with it and move on.”

Normally I write about “heady” things that make players/coaches/parents stop and think. Things that allow all of you in the cyber world to use your own application to what I’ve written. Not this time. This article, and “Club 10” are the exact opposite. You see “Club 10” was simply what I wrote on my blackboard when I recently made a shift from subjective evaluation of my batting students to a more objective approach. I simply wanted a way to see if they could actually reproduce their swing 10 times in a row. 10 straight line drives off of the batting tee in their favorite position. No thinking at all. No subjective hypothesis of how good their load, stride, elbow, eye contact was. Simply a statistical measure of whether or not they could take the same swing 10 times in a row. If they hit the tee, hit a popup or a ground ball they had to start back at 0.

I was pretty amazed at how long it took most of players to be able to achieve that number. The ball was on a tee, in their favorite position. Yet the pressure of actually being measured seemed to weigh on them. Instead of just swinging after 5-6 they started thinking too hard. Good thing for them that in games there is no pressure. There is nobody standing there watching them and measuring if they get on or don’t get on. Oh wait! That’s exactly what happens in games.

As with all great clubs, “Club 10” was expanded once it became a hit (pardon the pun.) Girls had to deliver 10 line drives off of soft toss in different locations, including a change up or two. For some it was much easier as they didn’t have to worry about nicking the tee. However, for others it became an even more difficult challenge because they tensed up while waiting for me to toss the ball.

Nearly all of my batters have now achieved entrance into “Club 10” off the tee and soft toss. During the most recent testing I had 7 out of my 40+ students who were able to achieve entrance into Club 25 (25 straight line drives off of soft toss.) That achievement permitted them to apply for the VIP room of Club 10. Which means I took them to a batting cage and gave them a full half of hour by themselves to try and hit 10 straight line drives off of the pitching machine.

The name “Club 10” really isn’t important. What is important is the confidence that I’ve seen developed in my students as they have seen themselves repeating a great swing over and over. They can then take that objective measurement and confidence into their games because they know their swing will be there for them. Not because I say it’s a good looking swing. Or because mom/dad say it’s a good looking swing. They know it’s a great looking swing because they’ve seen the line drives delivered one after another.

So what about you do you want in to “Club 10”? Admission simply involves your ability to repeat a solid line drive swing 10 times in a row. First earn your way in the door by hitting 10 in a row off a batting tee. Then move to 10 in a row from soft toss. Finally try to earn admission to the VIP room by hitting 10 solid line drives in a row off of a pitching machine. Basically what I’m suggesting is to stop thinking, stop talking, stop discussing, stop analyzing and start hitting.