The clinic turnout wasn't as we had hoped. We had three boys and three girls show up. The positive side of this was it was small, we could individually work with them and we can learn their names easier. The two middle school girls knew a lot more than the rest of them so it was easier to work with them. The one girl was a pitcher so the other assistant worked with her while we worked fundamentals with the three little boys and the one girl.
We handed out fliers to the primary and middle schools, where our targets were, we spoke and handed out our fliers to the youth coaches and they told us that they were going to sign up all of their players, which didn't happen and didn't really surprise us. We found out later that we were also competing with youth basketball which happened to be the same weekend as the clinic.
We definitely had more turn out this year than we did last year...
We also found out that our center fielder and catcher probably won't turn out this season. We're hoping that they change their minds and they won't actually decide until it practice begins.
Practice starts next Monday, March 1. Hope for sunshine.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
A glint of hope?
I had a meeting with the two girls who were on the fence about playing softball or doing track this upcoming season. They told me their concerns and I listened to what they had to say, I told them my views on the softball team and what kinds of things we were going to do differently this season and I had them ask me questions. I think it went really well but they are still not sure what they're going to do come March 1. I hope they choose softball because we'll really miss them.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Bad News Bears
I found out last night that our catcher and possibly our center fielder might turn out for track instead of fastpitch. Our catcher has made up her mind but our center fielder is on the fence about it. I called her to see what kinds of things were swirling around in her head. She told me her pros and cons on both but still wants to meet with me in person next week to help her come to a decision.
The catcher just wants to try something new. I believe it's because of how horrible the season turned out last year. You have to remember though, every season is different. The personnel, the players, the weather, the circumstances, the other teams we play against, it all matters. As coaches, we now know what did and didn't work last year. I guess we'll see if I can get our center fielder back next week.
The catcher just wants to try something new. I believe it's because of how horrible the season turned out last year. You have to remember though, every season is different. The personnel, the players, the weather, the circumstances, the other teams we play against, it all matters. As coaches, we now know what did and didn't work last year. I guess we'll see if I can get our center fielder back next week.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Excuses not reasons.
Remember the pitcher I told you about? The one who isn't any good and her parents egg her on? Our head coach got an email today from her. This is what he wrote back to me and the other assistant coach:
Assistants,
I got an email from the girl this morning informing me that she will not participate in the high school program this year. She feels that in order to achieve a higher level of skill that she must focus her attention on her spring and summer team. She goes on to say that if in the future we can provide a higher standard of new skill teaching and teamwork that she would consider playing for Rainier. Get ready. It's starting.
Head Coach
You have to understand something. We are a small school, we get what we get. We don't hold tryouts, we don't cut people. The talent you see is the talent we get. We give them the tools to perform on the field, once on the field, it's up to them and how they use those tools.
Last year she quit her spring/summer team because she thought she was better than they were and she wasn't being challenged enough. I think it's because she sat on the bench most of the time. On the plus side, we don't have to deal with her or her parents this year.
Assistants,
I got an email from the girl this morning informing me that she will not participate in the high school program this year. She feels that in order to achieve a higher level of skill that she must focus her attention on her spring and summer team. She goes on to say that if in the future we can provide a higher standard of new skill teaching and teamwork that she would consider playing for Rainier. Get ready. It's starting.
Head Coach
You have to understand something. We are a small school, we get what we get. We don't hold tryouts, we don't cut people. The talent you see is the talent we get. We give them the tools to perform on the field, once on the field, it's up to them and how they use those tools.
Last year she quit her spring/summer team because she thought she was better than they were and she wasn't being challenged enough. I think it's because she sat on the bench most of the time. On the plus side, we don't have to deal with her or her parents this year.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Pre-Season Meeting 2010
This morning I went to our pre-season meeting. It was only a half an hour. I was kinda disappointed in the lack of last seasons players showing up. I heard one might do track, which is really upsetting because Mr. Henry takes all of our good athletes and ruins them in track. I also heard that one might not turn out this year because she doesn't want to wear an infield mask. We implemented this idea to cut down on errors because of how dangerous the composite bats are now. If I were playing now I'd so wear the masks.
Last week I found out that one of our players actually put herself in a institution last semester because she thought she was crazy. She got behind in her school work and opted to be home schooled because she would not be able to play softball without being on academic probation. Being home schooled you can do the barest minimum and still get to play in a school sport. I don't really agree with that. If you can't keep the grades up in the first place school or home schooled, you shouldn't get to participate in any activities or sports.
It just keeps getting better and better doesn't it? I wonder what kind of stories I'll have once the season starts up?
Last week I found out that one of our players actually put herself in a institution last semester because she thought she was crazy. She got behind in her school work and opted to be home schooled because she would not be able to play softball without being on academic probation. Being home schooled you can do the barest minimum and still get to play in a school sport. I don't really agree with that. If you can't keep the grades up in the first place school or home schooled, you shouldn't get to participate in any activities or sports.
It just keeps getting better and better doesn't it? I wonder what kind of stories I'll have once the season starts up?
Monday, February 1, 2010
RHS 2009
Choices played a big part of the 2009 RHS Fastpitch season, here are some of the stories:
February 2009-applied for the assistant fastpitch coaching job, had an interview and was hired. Found out another assistant coach was hired, a 70 year old man who was into pitching. The previous three seasons he was a volunteer. I would have to split the money down the middle. I was upset because he was retired and really didn't need the money and I really did. I was used to getting money biweekly instead of monthly, it was hard waiting for that money to come every month.
March 2009-first day of practice was March 2. We practiced from 3:30 to 6. First week was rough because it was cold, rainy and I didn't know any of the girls. I had to memorize their names. Then a batch of new players came. They were in Yakima for the state basketball tournament. I really had a hard time thinking of things to drill them with since I had not really coached softball before. Honestly I would rather be playing. Playing was definitely easier than coaching. The first week of games had to be canceled and rescheduled.
April 2009-was a really busy month when it came to incidents. This is when it really got weird. I got a message from one of the girls asking me if I was straight. As a coach, I figured with something like that the girls would come ask me in person because that was one of the reasons why I was there. I told her yes I was straight. She wondered because of how I dress. I dress comfortably most of the time which might put ideas into their heads. I found out that there were some bisexuals and lesbians on the team, which is no big deal as long as they kept it to themselves. The girl I got the message from got into serious trouble with her parents before a game. Apparently, she was lying to her parents about where she was and who she was with. She had a boyfriend at the time who she was lying to as well. While all this was going on, she was in a "relationship" with another player on the team. Most of the team and the school knew. I had an idea. Before one of our games the head coach and us assistants had a meeting in the classroom to talk about that days events. We had to play without that girl because of her parent's decision. She was one of the main girls in our line-up.
Another girl we had just wanted to mess around and distract everyone else during practices and games. She was constantly in trouble with someone whether it be her family, teachers, friends and coaches. She had her own agenda most of the time. During the game to Montesano, just before we got off the bus, she mooned a couple of middle schoolers from the bus window. We had no idea the next day when we got a phone call from the Montesano principal. He wanted a hand written apology from her. Our principal wanted the same. Our team wanted an oral apology from her. She didn't want to do any of them so she handed in her uniform and quit.
Then there was THIS girl. She was a big problem. Every week I expected the coaches to pull me aside before practice or a game to tell me who couldn't play and the story behind it. She was most of those stories. She was bossy, intimidated the other girls, did not want to be a team player, made sure SHE looked good while the other people suffered, constantly fought with her younger sister and did not respect authority. One day she decided she wasn't going to stay in the classroom and do her work. She wanted to go to the library. Substitute teachers really have no idea what the rules are usually, so the sub let her go to the library hoping that she would get her work done and come back. She was in the library for a bit and then decided to wander around the school to waste time. One of the other teachers caught her and she wanted to argue with him. He wrote her up for missing class, which she basically did. The principal got involved and told her she could not participate in practice that day. She got angry but came to practice and sat on the bench like a teammate should. I spoke to her about her choices. She was aware that her choices weren't always the best ones and that she was trying to do better. I told her she better because they will eventually catch up with her. On another day, she told us that she was missing school and practice to have her 18th birthday party. Based on what I knew about her and who she was, I knew alcohol was going to be involved. But I couldn't prove it. On another occasion, as a team we spend some time up in the weight room to work on our arms, legs and our core, there are signs posted about what the appropriate attire to wear up in the weight room is...tennis shoes!!! She decided to wear just socks to the weight room. We didn't catch it right away because we assumed they would be smart enough to wear shoes up to the weight room right? Wrong. The one time she decided to not wear shoes a weight fell on her foot. Of course her being her, she made a BIG deal out of it. We got her ice, put her in her car and I guess she went to the doctor's office that night. She doesn't take rules seriously. Choices! Later on that year after graduation and summer, she decided to go to a party early September before going to college. It was a keg party and she decided to leave and go to another party. She put the keg in the back seat at around 2 a.m. and left for the other party. She did not make it. She swerved off the road into a telephone pole. The keg hit her in the back of the head and she died instantly. Another statistic, another bad choice.
Her sister was very vocal, kinda bossy but listened to authority. She complained a lot and said "I can't" a lot, which I think she said it enough times to actually believe it. We told her she could. She just had to slow down, take a deep breath and make the play. She did great when she did these things. When she got hurt she thought it was the end of the world. She came up to me with a bruise on her hand and asked me to fix it. I told her I can't fix a bruise and that she would just have to tough it out. During one game she misjudged a ground ball and it hit her square in the face, chipped a tooth and gave her a fat lip. After that she was afraid of ground balls. We gave her an infield mask and told her that the ball will not hurt her and she did fine after that. She was one of the two most improved players we had this season.
During spring break, two of our other players who were sisters, went to Mexico for a week. They did pretty good before they left but once they came back it was like Mexico sucked the enthusiasm out of them. The part of their game that suffered the most was their hitting. I'm not saying that a family trip to Mexico during spring break hurt our season it's just the manner in which they came back from Mexico. We had games scheduled that they had missed. The league needs to change that, no games played during spring break, there are just too many kids gone on trips.
Our starting pitcher really hurt us one game by making a bad choice. Campus has been closed since 2003 because the students were abusing the privilege. She was talked into by another student, who didn't have their license, to drive her car to one of the grocery stores in town. Of course it's high school, things like that are not kept to oneself. The principal was contacted, her parent, us and a decision was made. She was not allowed to play in the Rochester games. Crap, now we had to decide what we were going to do. A team we could have easily swept that day we split with. This player was also a senior and who struggled making the grades all year long.
We struggled with grades all season long with many of our players. Most of the time we had no idea who was going to play because we had to make our line-up minutes before the game started. About ten of our players were on grade checks and most of them were upperclassmen. Some of those girls couldn't play a game or two.
Another thing we had a hard time with was remembering to bring mitts, cleats, uniforms, practice gear and tennis shoes. It was terrible to see how unprepared these kids were. I constantly had to get on them to remember their stuff.
On most days during school, the kids hang out in front of the school with their friends. Majority of the time, they are just messing around, laughing and carrying on. On nice days people are throwing a football or two around. Well, one day someone had a softball and one of our players was in the right place at the wrong time and got hit in the back of the head. She is the type of person to go seek that person out and beat the crap out of them, however this ball hit her hard. She went to the doctor and found out she had a concussion and could not play for about a week and a half. That led to more adjustments to our line-ups.
Three of our players went to a Brittany Spears concert on a day in which we needed them the most. It was a big game and these players were some of our top ones. It was hard to replace them with bench players during a game we should have taken. The schedule comes out two months before the season and they chose not to look ahead to plan the concert better. That was another misfortune and more line-up changes.
May 2009-we had finally reached our final month of the season and did not see districts in our future because we did not win enough games. Another one of our players came to practice with a wrist brace on and padding on her ribs. She told us she got in a quad accident the day before. I thought to myself, couldn't quad riding wait just a couple of weeks, after the season concluded? Come on! She wasn't 100% in our last three games.
I was constantly on our outfield about using two hands when they caught a fly ball. I swear every day I had to remind them. Whoever taught them the basics when they were younger did a lousy job.
I felt really bad about our JV players. They hardly got to play any games. Because of all the classification moving, school levies failing, lack of interest, a lot of schools who were in our league did not have a JV team. We were scraping teams together to play. And sometimes the weather did not cooperate so a lot of them were canceled.
The thing I had the most difficult time with was the parents. Parents are there strictly to be fans and nothing more than fans. I had several parents come up to me to complain to me about the head coach and the other assistant coach. They complained about their child's playing time (probably because their daughter was not telling them the truth), they complained about the weather, they complained about the other parents. I just could not get away from it. Some of the parents were pleasant to be around because they were there to support their daughter.
There was this one family who did just about anything to make their kids look good. They fill their daughter's head up with inflated praise. Anyone who follows sports could notice she just plain sucks at pitching and that's the honest truth. They pay for her to go see a pitching coach and it's been more than a year and I haven't see ANY improvement. To test this theory out of ours, our last game of the season was at Toledo. There was no way we were going to districts so it really didn't matter how it turned out as long as the girls learned something. We started this girl at pitcher. Guess what the score was in the top of the first inning? 15-0. We let her get her three outs and then she sat. Her dad, who must have a word at everything, actually had his pride shattered. I think he realized that moment that his daughter was not varsity pitching material. It felt good to show him that we were right.
I am really curious to see what this season brings to the table. I'm hoping that it did improve since last season. Fingers crossed.
February 2009-applied for the assistant fastpitch coaching job, had an interview and was hired. Found out another assistant coach was hired, a 70 year old man who was into pitching. The previous three seasons he was a volunteer. I would have to split the money down the middle. I was upset because he was retired and really didn't need the money and I really did. I was used to getting money biweekly instead of monthly, it was hard waiting for that money to come every month.
March 2009-first day of practice was March 2. We practiced from 3:30 to 6. First week was rough because it was cold, rainy and I didn't know any of the girls. I had to memorize their names. Then a batch of new players came. They were in Yakima for the state basketball tournament. I really had a hard time thinking of things to drill them with since I had not really coached softball before. Honestly I would rather be playing. Playing was definitely easier than coaching. The first week of games had to be canceled and rescheduled.
April 2009-was a really busy month when it came to incidents. This is when it really got weird. I got a message from one of the girls asking me if I was straight. As a coach, I figured with something like that the girls would come ask me in person because that was one of the reasons why I was there. I told her yes I was straight. She wondered because of how I dress. I dress comfortably most of the time which might put ideas into their heads. I found out that there were some bisexuals and lesbians on the team, which is no big deal as long as they kept it to themselves. The girl I got the message from got into serious trouble with her parents before a game. Apparently, she was lying to her parents about where she was and who she was with. She had a boyfriend at the time who she was lying to as well. While all this was going on, she was in a "relationship" with another player on the team. Most of the team and the school knew. I had an idea. Before one of our games the head coach and us assistants had a meeting in the classroom to talk about that days events. We had to play without that girl because of her parent's decision. She was one of the main girls in our line-up.
Another girl we had just wanted to mess around and distract everyone else during practices and games. She was constantly in trouble with someone whether it be her family, teachers, friends and coaches. She had her own agenda most of the time. During the game to Montesano, just before we got off the bus, she mooned a couple of middle schoolers from the bus window. We had no idea the next day when we got a phone call from the Montesano principal. He wanted a hand written apology from her. Our principal wanted the same. Our team wanted an oral apology from her. She didn't want to do any of them so she handed in her uniform and quit.
Then there was THIS girl. She was a big problem. Every week I expected the coaches to pull me aside before practice or a game to tell me who couldn't play and the story behind it. She was most of those stories. She was bossy, intimidated the other girls, did not want to be a team player, made sure SHE looked good while the other people suffered, constantly fought with her younger sister and did not respect authority. One day she decided she wasn't going to stay in the classroom and do her work. She wanted to go to the library. Substitute teachers really have no idea what the rules are usually, so the sub let her go to the library hoping that she would get her work done and come back. She was in the library for a bit and then decided to wander around the school to waste time. One of the other teachers caught her and she wanted to argue with him. He wrote her up for missing class, which she basically did. The principal got involved and told her she could not participate in practice that day. She got angry but came to practice and sat on the bench like a teammate should. I spoke to her about her choices. She was aware that her choices weren't always the best ones and that she was trying to do better. I told her she better because they will eventually catch up with her. On another day, she told us that she was missing school and practice to have her 18th birthday party. Based on what I knew about her and who she was, I knew alcohol was going to be involved. But I couldn't prove it. On another occasion, as a team we spend some time up in the weight room to work on our arms, legs and our core, there are signs posted about what the appropriate attire to wear up in the weight room is...tennis shoes!!! She decided to wear just socks to the weight room. We didn't catch it right away because we assumed they would be smart enough to wear shoes up to the weight room right? Wrong. The one time she decided to not wear shoes a weight fell on her foot. Of course her being her, she made a BIG deal out of it. We got her ice, put her in her car and I guess she went to the doctor's office that night. She doesn't take rules seriously. Choices! Later on that year after graduation and summer, she decided to go to a party early September before going to college. It was a keg party and she decided to leave and go to another party. She put the keg in the back seat at around 2 a.m. and left for the other party. She did not make it. She swerved off the road into a telephone pole. The keg hit her in the back of the head and she died instantly. Another statistic, another bad choice.
Her sister was very vocal, kinda bossy but listened to authority. She complained a lot and said "I can't" a lot, which I think she said it enough times to actually believe it. We told her she could. She just had to slow down, take a deep breath and make the play. She did great when she did these things. When she got hurt she thought it was the end of the world. She came up to me with a bruise on her hand and asked me to fix it. I told her I can't fix a bruise and that she would just have to tough it out. During one game she misjudged a ground ball and it hit her square in the face, chipped a tooth and gave her a fat lip. After that she was afraid of ground balls. We gave her an infield mask and told her that the ball will not hurt her and she did fine after that. She was one of the two most improved players we had this season.
During spring break, two of our other players who were sisters, went to Mexico for a week. They did pretty good before they left but once they came back it was like Mexico sucked the enthusiasm out of them. The part of their game that suffered the most was their hitting. I'm not saying that a family trip to Mexico during spring break hurt our season it's just the manner in which they came back from Mexico. We had games scheduled that they had missed. The league needs to change that, no games played during spring break, there are just too many kids gone on trips.
Our starting pitcher really hurt us one game by making a bad choice. Campus has been closed since 2003 because the students were abusing the privilege. She was talked into by another student, who didn't have their license, to drive her car to one of the grocery stores in town. Of course it's high school, things like that are not kept to oneself. The principal was contacted, her parent, us and a decision was made. She was not allowed to play in the Rochester games. Crap, now we had to decide what we were going to do. A team we could have easily swept that day we split with. This player was also a senior and who struggled making the grades all year long.
We struggled with grades all season long with many of our players. Most of the time we had no idea who was going to play because we had to make our line-up minutes before the game started. About ten of our players were on grade checks and most of them were upperclassmen. Some of those girls couldn't play a game or two.
Another thing we had a hard time with was remembering to bring mitts, cleats, uniforms, practice gear and tennis shoes. It was terrible to see how unprepared these kids were. I constantly had to get on them to remember their stuff.
On most days during school, the kids hang out in front of the school with their friends. Majority of the time, they are just messing around, laughing and carrying on. On nice days people are throwing a football or two around. Well, one day someone had a softball and one of our players was in the right place at the wrong time and got hit in the back of the head. She is the type of person to go seek that person out and beat the crap out of them, however this ball hit her hard. She went to the doctor and found out she had a concussion and could not play for about a week and a half. That led to more adjustments to our line-ups.
Three of our players went to a Brittany Spears concert on a day in which we needed them the most. It was a big game and these players were some of our top ones. It was hard to replace them with bench players during a game we should have taken. The schedule comes out two months before the season and they chose not to look ahead to plan the concert better. That was another misfortune and more line-up changes.
May 2009-we had finally reached our final month of the season and did not see districts in our future because we did not win enough games. Another one of our players came to practice with a wrist brace on and padding on her ribs. She told us she got in a quad accident the day before. I thought to myself, couldn't quad riding wait just a couple of weeks, after the season concluded? Come on! She wasn't 100% in our last three games.
I was constantly on our outfield about using two hands when they caught a fly ball. I swear every day I had to remind them. Whoever taught them the basics when they were younger did a lousy job.
I felt really bad about our JV players. They hardly got to play any games. Because of all the classification moving, school levies failing, lack of interest, a lot of schools who were in our league did not have a JV team. We were scraping teams together to play. And sometimes the weather did not cooperate so a lot of them were canceled.
The thing I had the most difficult time with was the parents. Parents are there strictly to be fans and nothing more than fans. I had several parents come up to me to complain to me about the head coach and the other assistant coach. They complained about their child's playing time (probably because their daughter was not telling them the truth), they complained about the weather, they complained about the other parents. I just could not get away from it. Some of the parents were pleasant to be around because they were there to support their daughter.
There was this one family who did just about anything to make their kids look good. They fill their daughter's head up with inflated praise. Anyone who follows sports could notice she just plain sucks at pitching and that's the honest truth. They pay for her to go see a pitching coach and it's been more than a year and I haven't see ANY improvement. To test this theory out of ours, our last game of the season was at Toledo. There was no way we were going to districts so it really didn't matter how it turned out as long as the girls learned something. We started this girl at pitcher. Guess what the score was in the top of the first inning? 15-0. We let her get her three outs and then she sat. Her dad, who must have a word at everything, actually had his pride shattered. I think he realized that moment that his daughter was not varsity pitching material. It felt good to show him that we were right.
I am really curious to see what this season brings to the table. I'm hoping that it did improve since last season. Fingers crossed.
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