Wednesday, March 10, 2010

It's been awhile...but we're 4-0!!

So I've neglected my blogging duties here for awhile. I get so busy with my other classes and coaching that I keep forgetting to put some posts up! Hopefully I'll get another up here this week.

So the team I coach is now 4-0!! YAY! Three of our games were won due to a run rule or mercy rule. For those of you who are not familiar with softball, in high school after 5 innings of play if one team is ahead by at least 10 runs or more then the game is over. Normally softball games at all levels are played in 7 innings. We have a really solid team this year. I think I've said before that I feel comfortable starting any one of the 18-19 players that we have. Everyone can hit and play defense. Three of our girls have a 1.000 batting average on the season with somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 at bats. The only team that gave us any potential threat was a school from out in Gilbert. Through the 5th inning our team was down 4-0. The team was patient, persistent and kept their spirits high and we were able to come back and win 9-5 in the last 2 innings. It was by far the most fun game I've coached in a long time. Normally when a team gets down by 4 runs in a game it's difficult to keep a strong morale. However, this group of girls astonished me when they kept cheering for their team with smiles on their faces. They didn't let themselves get down and that game showed their true character. When facing adversity, you can either let it beat you or you can rise above and show how strong you are as an individual and as a team. The one thing I'm afraid of happening now that our team has shown what we're capable of is that they will let their egos get the best of them. I've started to see some laziness from some of our better players on team. We're lacking some discipline and we need to be more conditioned. This is an area I've struggled with the other coach for every year I've worked with him. Since I'm in school right now, my class schedule doesn't allow me to get to practice at the start on Tuesdays and Thursdays. How the girls start practice sets the tone for the rest of the time they are on the field. The way I see it, we're good, but we're not that good! We could be so much better than we are right now if I could get the team to be more disciplined. I'm trying to figure out now how I can accomplish this with the other coach. Our personalities are so incredibly different, he admits that he is more removed from the game than I am. As a coach I bring the intensity to the field and he's the happy-go-lucky fun coach. I guess it's kind of like a good cop/bad cop situation. It's not something I'm fond of being as a coach but I'm not there to make friends. I'm there to help the team achieve goals and that can only come from hard work. I'm not sure how it will turn out, but I have a feeling the results of this predicament will be the same as it has been in previous years. It's quite frustrating and I would love to find a way to convince our other JV coach that our team needs to be more disciplined. Our job as coaches on the JV team is to get the kids ready to play for the Varsity team. As of now we are not accomplishing that goal if we stay on the same path. Since I'm not the head coach of this team it's difficult to put my ideas into action when the head coach doesn't see eye-to-eye with me on these issues. More on this later...for now, I need to get to practice!