The Importance of Being Well Rounded
I Ain't Never Been Nothin' But a Loser
I Ain't Never Been Nothin' But a Loser
It was just after game three of the day and I was standing just outside the tent city that our team would call home for 21 hours. I can't recall if we had a team talk as we usually do after games. The hotter and later it gets in the day, the more we typically just let the girls decompress before we reassemble for the next challenge. It was hot and it was late, not in terms of the time, but because of losses that were piling up.
I felt the losses piling up on my shoulders like the weight of the world. Through three games, we had been outscored 16-1, 2-0, and 6-5. It was essentially the mirror image of the week before and the week before that. Can't hit. Can't score runs. Can't win.
I sensed doubt in the players. I sensed doubt in the parents. That could be real or imaginary. I had doubts in myself and that was very, very real. I was worried that our players had lost faith in us and the parents wouldn't be far behind. It happens all the time and you can't blame parents for wanting what's best for their players.
Doubts. Regrets. Questions.
I'm not saying I know much about hitting. It's not like I went to a hitting coach school and I never played fast pitch softball. I was never a great baseball hitter. As these thoughts piled up, I reached the conclusion that maybe it was time to seek help or accept reality that I had overstepped my bounds and ability.
In these dark moments, you analyze everything. What are we missing? What's the X-factor? How can we motivate them? How can they grow as a team?
Over the last month or so, we've identified and addressed team chemistry a lot. They weren't fighting for each other or pushing themselves past their preconceived ideas of their abilities because they weren't seeing their teammates doing the same. "Getting along" has been the focus because we thought that being a family off the field would make them a family on the field, which would likely fix a lot of what we were seeing. They are a group of really good players playing well below their ability.
All they needed was that galvanizing tournament. They needed that moment when it wasn't just difficult but hard to seemingly even impossible to win. They needed to hold not only their teammates accountable, but more importantly themselves and they decided that 11 girls would push together in the same direction. It's so easy to point fingers and fracture that trust and push each other apart.
Game four is an elimination game at 6PM. In all honesty, I fully expected to lose and go home. I didn't see a team that wanted to fight through the night and all the way through the losers bracket. They are smart girls. They know how schedules work. I wasn't going to be shocked if they lost and we were home by 9PM. I wasn't going to be shocked if parents and players alike started looking elsewhere. Who could blame them?
In the pregame we take a different approach. I went right at them. I told them up front that this was the same shtick they've heard from a dozen different coaches a dozen different times but I wanted eyes on me. All of them. And I better have their attention until I was done talking.
"Do you want to be here? Do you believe in us? Do you believe in each other? If any answer to those questions is no, then let's call it and go home. Don't get there and decide it's not worth it. Accept the challenge or let's walk away. Decide now if you want to fight through the night together and win it all, or let's go home now."
And then I did the hard part for a grown man. I had to be emotional.
"We love each and every one of you more than you know. You have to love each other and us, not in the personal sense but how we coach and believe in you. This is never going to work if you can't love each other and us. If you doubt, you are on the wrong team."
Instead of trying to be the home team at the coin flip and worrying about that first inning, we decided that we would be the visitor and we would take it to the opposing team.
And then we went to work.
8-3 win and we never trailed, but more importantly, when the team scored, AO1 dropped a six run last inning on them and buried the team from North Georgia. Ball after ball is barreled. Three doubles and one triple on the six total hits.
Then it was the team that beat us 16-1 with first pitch at 9:45 PM. The team from Cobb County Georgia punched A01 right in the mouth in the first inning, dropping four runs after A01 put up 3 in the top of the inning.
Here is that moment. This has been the situation that has demoralized this team game after game, week after week. Couple that with the knowledge that if they win, it's three more games back-to-back-to-back. In the way lies a one-run deficit to a team that blasted them earlier in the day.
AO1 scores one run in the second to tie it and hold the team hitless. Something is different with the team. Coach Alyse is yelling at Emma, the pitcher, to keep giving 100% every pitch. It's a reminder for her, but also for the defense behind her to give their own 100% and have her back. Emma pushes harder than I've seen in the years I've known her. Alex has the defense and pitch calling down. The defense is pushing behind Emma. Both teams are hitless and scoreless in the third.
It's 4-4 in the fourth so we go to International Tie Breaker. Now we have to hit. Now we see if they've responded to me as a hitting coach. AO1 drops a five run fourth inning on them and backs it up with another flawless inning to win the game. Nine hits. Nine runs. Emma throws four innings of hitless ball and has pushed herself passed what she thinks she's capable of. More importantly, it sets the bar for the rest of the team, but most for the next pitcher, Deanna whom I refer to as "Smoke".
It's 11:45 PM for the next game against another Georgia team. The bats are still white hot and swinging with confidence. AO1 is up 6-0 in the bottom half of the last inning when the team scores two meaningless runs. "Smoke" throws 60 total pitching in the game, 35 for strikes while piling up six Ks and allowing just one walk and two hits. Smoke has always had the capability, but we've never seen her push like that before. It's inspired pitching in front of a defense she knows will have her back.
It's now 1:10 AM on Father's Day and we are on to the first Championship game against another team that beat us earlier in the day.
Alex asks the girls do they want to be home or hit? It's unanimous.
"HIT!"
AO1 throws three runs on the board in the first. Smoke shuts them out in the first. Nothing for us in the second. Smoke gives up a homer with one out. Promptly walks the next hitter. Then the next. Then a triple. It's a tie game.
Here we go. This is when the wheels come off. This is when the defense fails the pitcher and the pitcher fails the defense and the hitting fails all while the blame game spins in the background.
But Smoke is angry. Weak groundout for out two. Three straight strikes to end the inning. Nothing for either team in the third, so again we go to ITB. AO1 throws up two runs, which would have been an impossibility before now.
Leadoff reaches on an error and now there's runners on first and second with no outs. It's Gut check time. A past ball puts the tying run in scoring position. Ball hit to second. Aubree goes to Emily at first with it. Emily goes home to Key. Double play at the plate. Next batter ends the contest on a dribbler to Smoke.
It's 3:07 AM and we start with a Shoot Out game, which is essentially ITB rules for one inning. First two hitters strike out and things aren't looking so hot but Hay is up and she's not only our best over-all hitter, she's been on fire the last four games. First pitch she sees, she destroys. If not for the humidity in the early morning air, she'd have a homer. A01 is up one.
Other team scores one and we are headed for another inning before the umpires inform us they've had enough softball. We are forced to call the "if necessary" game a draw and split the championship. No fancy talks. No trophy presentations. Just one little girl in the car with me having an absolute meltdown about how hard her team pushed and how far they came and had nothing to show for it.
I feel for her but I'm smiling at 5AM while driving into the sunrise.
Nothing to show for it? Not true.
Not when you fight through the night together.
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