Confessions of a Travel Softball Coach Part 2:Year One

Make Sure to Read All of My Confessions of a Travel Softball Coach

Part 1: About Me, But Not Really

Part 2: Year 1
Part 3: Early Years
Part 4: Kid Pitch
Part 5: The Valley

Year One

When Aubree was four or five, we signed her up for the local rec league. As she was our only child, we had already spent time with her in the back yard hitting the ball off of the tee. My memory is  fuzzy and it wasn't as easy to catalog things then as they are now, but I recall her having a good eye for the ball. But, not having seen the ability of the other kids, I didn't have anything to compare to and since she was my kid, I firmly believed she was a prodigy. This was around 2010-2011, and about the time I started competitively fishing, which you know happens on Saturdays. I was also fishing multiple times a week and if it was football season, well, we were going to be in front of the TV all day, come hell or high water.

Since I was fishing every Saturday I could, I didn't want to coach because I didn't want to shortchange the kids. My dad was an awesome coach, so my experience was if my dad could do it, so could every other dad in the world. "She would be fine with some other dad, they didn't need me." We all seek the path of least resistance, so handing her off to other parents was easy and painless. My wife couldn't do much because she had just had our second child.

That first year was everything I hoped it would be. Aubree was under the tutelage of Coach Jeff. Coach Jeff was extremely competitive, but in the right way. He believed in player development and fairness, especially at that early age. I don't recall the exact situation, so I am speculating here, but I believe Aubree was added to an existing team from the previous year. This could be because she was a new player or could have been because she tried out and just wasn't good enough to be drafted by the other teams. Coach Jeff had an older daughter who was already playing ball, perhaps even travel ball. More importantly, he had two twin daughters that were easily the best two players in the entire league of 8 or more teams.

Still, Coach Jeff rotated players. I don't recall what practices were like and honestly, at that stage in my life, I was still immature (more so even than now, believe it or not) and I had convinced myself that Aubree didn't need me to coach, which could be because I was selfish and wanted to use that time for me, but also may have been me being naive or may just have been because Jeff was doing a great job. They won games. In fact, they won them all during the regular season and it wasn't even close. By then, a few things were painfully obvious. First, like her parents, she didn't have the physical gifts in terms of height and power. But where I had been a speedy kid that could outrun anything, she had her mom's speed. In other words, a little arm, a little bat, and a lack of speed to make up for any of it. But she paid attention and she always knew what to do, within reason. So instead of practicing extra with her, I decided to wait until the off season.

After the season, Coach Jeff asked if we would like to be a part of the All-Star team and we politely refused because Aubree just wasn't that good and we didn't want to take up a spot for a better player that he might overlook.

This was the first tactical error we truly made, other than me not coaching all along. Before Coach Jeff ever asked if we would let Aubree play, he already had a plan in mind and that included the knowledge of Aubree's talent. Perhaps if I had known his plan, I might have acted differently, but I didn't know better. His plan, like essentially all other serious coaches' plan, was to build a local All-Star team, compete in local All-Star tournaments before turning that team into a travel ball team.

The talent of the players wasn't nearly as important as selecting the right families, those that were dedicated to the sport. These were five and six year old kids and while some were obviously better than others, practice would likely cure any player's woes and make them a competent player and he planned on practicing enough to coach her up. She had the attitude and the parents he wanted and he understood that the development was on him and he accepted that.

I had no experience to draw from because my childhood experience was that there was practices MAYBE twice a week, a season, a county tournament, All-Star tournament, and then you moved on to the next sport. So the whole idea of not playing soccer (the next sport) wasn't considered and so Aubree, who was obviously not ready for bigger ball in our opinion, could keep playing ON SATURDAYS during football season AND practice MULTIPLE times a week wasn't on my agenda. 

In retrospect, I knew deep down inside that I was procrastinating with getting Aubree better. I'd make it up to her before next season. I can say that despite being naive, I did have one belief that experience has taught me was correct and one that I have preached to Aubree during her darkest days on the diamond: Every player's relative skill versus everyone else is a graph and that graph isn't a straight line. It has peaks and valleys. The goal wasn't to be the best at eight, but at eighteen, when it mattered the most. You will read this many more times from me.

Growing up, I had personally seen the best players in the county, year after year, quit grinding because they were the best and they knew it. I played baseball with the same guys every single year from five to fifteen. At different times, different players rose to the top of being the best while I stayed in the middle of the pack. By eight grade, literally zero of those guys....who once won a county championship....even made the high school team. I was the only player from my middle school to even make the high school baseball team, and because of that, I quit baseball forever, which I still consider a grave mistake for me.

And so, the first season was in the books and it was a good one. Everyone likes winning and while I couldn't identify with it, in terms of experience, it was exciting to see Aubree experience it. We moved on to soccer season.

Lesson's Learned:

1. If you are worried about your player's development, it starts and ends with you. That means practice as often as you think of it. If you feel guilty or anxiety about your player, go play ball. 
2. If you worry about having a good coach, go coach.
3. The more games and practices you can have, the better. Play All-Star. Play Travel Ball (at this point, many of you think this is hyperbole, but just bear with me)
4. Sometimes coaches aren't looking for talent. They are looking for coach-ability and attitude, and in both the player AND the parents. 

Confessions of a Travel Softball Coach Part 1: About me, But Not Really

Make Sure to Read All of My Confessions of a Travel Softball Coach

Part 1: About Me, But Not Really

Part 2: Year 1
Part 3: Early Years
Part 4: Kid Pitch
Part 5: The Valley

When asked what he wanted on his tombstone, Bo Jackson famously said: "Here lies a ball player." Since I first heard that quote, I have identified with it more than any other piece of sentiment. Of course, there isn't much that I can identify with perhaps the greatest pure athlete to walk the planet aside from the sentiment of that quote. I can't claim to have been a pro athlete, or Heisman Trophy winner, or even a college player, so I think that I would change that quote slightly to say "Here lies a competitor."

The greatest compliment I was ever given, in terms of sports, was when one of the high school boosters found me after a rivalry game and with tears in his eyes said "I wish every player would play with half of your heart." 

This series of posts isn't about me, but I think putting you the reader in my mind for at least some background information is important.

I played ball my entire life. I play to this day. I can honestly say that I put everything ounce of effort and energy I had into my craft growing up. I played baseball, soccer, basketball, and football. I even wrestled in high-school because a football coach told me it would do wonders for my aggressiveness and tackling technique on the football field.

My dad and mom were extremely supportive of my athletics. As far as I know, my dad coached in some fashion, every single team I ever played on. He never missed a high school game, that I can recall, to the extent of flying home on business on a Friday afternoon, which I remember clearly from my freshman year in football....despite the fact that there was ZERO chance I was playing a snap, since I was the only freshman on the varsity team. If he couldn't coach, he would fund raise. I owe my parents a great debt that I could never repay, and I have in many ways shortchanged my own kids in ways my parents would never have done.

Every time I hear Bob Dylan sing "Old Man," I think of my dad and it brings tears to my eyes.

There weren't travel teams then, nor position coaches or camps....at least that my parents knew about (my mom has reminded me that I did attend Lipscomb's basketball camp two years and also a UAH one day baseball camp. I also did a one week indoor soccer camp). So, I played and practiced how I could. Wall-ball at church. Baseball in PE. Shooting hoops for 30 minutes a day, dribbling a soccer ball around my dog. It didn't matter if it was church camp or an All-Star tournament, I was going 100%.

The only thing I ever won, that ever amounted to anything, was a county championship in baseball when I was in the 3rd grade. As a kid, I was never on a winning team. I've had more winless seasons than winning ones. To this day, I consider myself a perennial loser and I play with a chip on my shoulder that will never come off. I coach with that chip. Being a loser made who I am and I accept that and I accept that if I keep working, I'll eventually win.  It's kept a fire burning in my heart and soul that will never burn out. 

I graduated high school at 5-4 and 135 pounds. I dream about playing sports to this day, at least once a week. I did last night. Following high school, there were no legitimate chances for me to continue to play sports, at least at the level I wanted to play. Not having accomplished something in athletics left a void in me that, to this day, I still have not filled.

I think that's why when I discovered tournament bass fishing, I latched on to the sport with both hands and squeezed as hard as I could. If you read this blog, you know how hard I grind. It is a sport where there are largely no physical limitations and a sharp mind and hard work will take you as far as you let it.

But there has been something else that has crept into my life and has begun to take away from fishing, and it's what I am trying to catalog with these new posts. It's a living document. It has no real purpose, although I have several purposes that I hope it fulfills. First, I write these stories and their lessons down so that I can remember them one day when my mind isn't so sharp. Secondly, I write it so that my daughter, now 13, will see what her mom and dad did for her and why. Last, I write it so that others can see what we did right, but more importantly, what we did wrong.

That last reason really implanted itself in my mind and began to grow because I was being asked for my opinion by friends who were just starting to experience athletics with their child. This would spawn hours of conversation and that the end of the day, my story is at best half over and at worst, I am on the precipice of closing the book on my daughter's career as a ball player and I am armed with the knowledge of what went right and what went wrong.

As I mentioned, I played ball starting when I was five and I still play soccer and softball today and only recently gave up flag football. My wife played softball and volleyball, she too plays softball to this day and is really the only reason I still play. Both of us believe in the power of athletics. I think I can speak for her when I say that team athletics is the cornerstone to building a well-rounded child.

There was no question that Aubree was going to play softball. But, it has been a winding path for her and we still don't know where it leads. What I do know is that the void in me created by my failures as an athlete, which I have despised for so long, weren't really about me at all. I believe it was God's way for preparing me to be the coach my child desperately would need, and not just her, but maybe other players as well. The jury is still out, and likely will be for some time. As you will read over the course of days, weeks, months, and maybe years, my head may not be in the right place, but my heart always was. I've made a ton of mistakes, more than I can count. Sometimes I wonder if Aubree would be better or worse off, but that's why life is so special. All you can do is your best and if your heart is in the right place, then you win regardless. And that, friends, is sports in a nutshell.

By now, many of you are reading this and are thinking that I have put too much emphasis on sports. You may be right, but as I said, my wife and I believe that playing athletics, the right way, is the cornerstone of a well-rounded kid and while you may roll your eyes and say "yeah, for athletes," I believe that if read this, you will see that giving your child everything you can, and doing it the right way in sports has a dramatic and positive effect on every other part of their lives, from dealing with social issue, to working with others, to dealing with adversity and beyond. As parents, it will show you how to deal with a lot more.

Let's talk about our families journey (still incomplete) with travel softball. I am going to break this into several parts because it is a long journey, even with my limited memory. Who knows, maybe one day it will turn into a book.