Hard work and determination does pay off

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Jun 6, 2016
2,714
113
Chicago
So I'm not a parent, and technically my players aren't my DDs, but also, they're all my DDs, so I'm putting this here. I do not apologize for the length. It's a good story.

Last year was our first year with a varsity team. I've posted quite a bit about the makeup of our school and program, but a quick recap: We intended to have cuts, but tryouts had only two more than what we were going to keep, so we kept everybody. With injuries and other issues, this was the right call.

On the first day of those tryouts, there was one girl who could not do much. She wasn't a great athlete, didn't seem to have a great attitude, and didn't seem to have much aptitude for any softball skills (had never played before). She was an obvious choice for one of our two cuts. She also ended up being the reason I never, ever want to cut a player.

She didn't have much success early on. Had a real hard time throwing, hitting was a mess. Did OK fielding ground balls though. When our starting 2B broke her finger four games into the season, I basically had a mini-tryout four our four bench players. She won it easily.

At the beginning, she was our Flex most games. Not only was she still one of the worst hitters, but I wanted her to focus entirely on playing her position. This worked out well. She made all the routine plays, occasionally surprised us, and her attitude was much improved (I've learned that she gets frustrated with herself easily, and she doesn't hide it well).

In the meantime, we worked on her hitting from the ground up. It was a long, painful process. Keep in mind she was a HS Freshman who had never swung a bat and didn't have a ton of natural ability to fall back on. Project with a capital "P."

During the HS season, she played in 15 games and only had 17 plate appearances. She went 0-9 with 8 walks (we play some terrible teams, but she did quickly develop a sense of the strike zone). She played on my summer team, and since that team was about development, she batted a lot more. She had quite a few more walks, but she went 0-16. No hits. She was improving at the plate, but it wasn't all coming together yet.

But she just worked so hard that I would tell my AC/DW that I wasn't sure what her ceiling was, but I was positive that of all our girls, she'd be the one we could come closest to reaching it.

She kept working on her hitting. She'd work on her own. She'd come to open field. And while doing that, she also joined the basketball team. I won't get into her overall development in that sport, but the big thing is she started to get into much better shape. She worked hard to do that. Her conditioning and agility improved.

Softball starts a couple months ago, and she's penciled in as the starting 2B for the varsity team. Jobs aren't guaranteed, but of course I have an idea ahead of time. Her hitting continued to improve, but that was just tee work and front toss with wiffle balls. But she looked good. Not great. If I posted video of her here, no doubt there'd be a dozen fixes people could come up with. But she looked like a hitter.

I do an anonymous team vote for our captains. After a few days of practice, she came up to me and said she didn't like the vote because she thought players just voted for their friends. I'm sure there's some truth to that, but last year's captains were reasonable choices. She wanted to be a captain, so I told her to earn the votes of her teammates. She doesn't have a ton of friends on the team, and I know a couple girls really don't care for her at all. Despite that, she was voted one of the team captains.

She went hitless in the first game. Two strike outs in two at bats. And then she missed 5 games because she was on a trip to help her grandparents in Puerto Rico who had still been without power after last year's hurricane. When she came back, she looked lost for a couple weeks. She still wasn't hitting, and surprisingly, her defense was slipping. Her backup is another player who doesn't have much of a bat, but that girl was making the plays in the field. I had no problem being patient with her at the plate (she started off 0-6 this year with some walks and a couple HBP), but I was starting to lose confidence in her defense.

So I talked to her and told her she needed to get it together. Explained how her backup did well in her absence, and I was considering giving that girl more playing time.

That brings us to this morning:

We're facing the pitcher she struck out against twice to open the season. First at bat was a hard ground ball to the shortstop for an out. She was due up second in the 4th. Before going out to coach third, I told her she was getting that first hit today.

2-1 count, and she hits a rocket line drive past the 3B down the line. We had a runner on first who had to hold because of the line drive, so it was only a single. But it was a solid single. She started her softball career 0-31, and finally she got that first hit, and it wasn't a cheap one.

She didn't pick up another hit in that game, but we had a second game tonight. Defensively? Ugh. She actually made two first-inning errors, and we went down big. A few girls pretty much packed it in (we played two Friday, one earlier today, and I think they just got a little burned out). After an inning or two, I almost pulled her from the game. She was frustrated, not playing well, etc. But benching her makes her worse, and I also think she was expecting it. So I pulled her aside and told her I was about to sub for her, but I'm not going to. Told her she was going to play the entire game because I know she can make the plays (she did, in fact, make 4-5 plays after that; nothing difficult, but no mistakes either).

But this is about hitting, after all, so back to that: Led off the top of the third with a hard shot up the middle for another single, and in the 5th, she singled again. Three hits in one day after not having a hit for more than a year. We lost big in tonight's game, and the truth is, her errors in the first killed us. But on some level, I don't care. Today was the culmination of more than a year of working with her to turn her into the hitter I know she can be.

In a year she went from being my first choice to be cut to being a team captain, the starting 2B, and she managed to get her first three hits on the same day.

We've had a long journey to get to this point. I wonder if she realizes I now expect her to get hits all the time. :)
 
Last edited:
May 24, 2013
12,461
113
So Cal
Awesome job, CoachJD. Thanks for sharing this story. I'm looking forward to hearing more about her journey.
 

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