The Saga of Rebuilding a School Program: A parent-coach's journal

[PJR202]

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Continuing with the preseason tournament...


The tournament host was a MS with two teams. We have V and JV in middle school, but I think they do it differently in Ohio (someone can correct me otherwise). Their coach referred to them as his 7th grade team and his 8th grade team. I presume that meant one was comprised of 6/7th and the other 7/8th graders. I dunno. Some of these coaches are very up front, and some are secretive about whatever their middle school master plan is. Serious business, I suppose--or maybe he just didn't find it significant like I did. I've found that 23 years in a technical support, repair-oriented job has made me involuntarily want to break down conversations to nuts and bolts, and do the same for anyone else who is held hostage by me. This is likely why my posts here in all realms of DFP are rarely brief.

So anyway, both teams were playing in the tournament, and our pool play result had us playing the host 7th grade team. This was a busy tournament and a nice field, and the atmosphere had me pretty excited to play again. Since I've only been a part of ONE, tournaments aren't a grind for me the way they are for travel parents and coaches. I'm sure to most of you, other than getting to watch the Game and make the memories with your kids, tournaments feel more like a job--a job that takes all your money instead of paying you, of course.

Despite my cheery disposition, I was stressing about DD2 getting her first MS pitching experience. She had maybe three innings of LL pitching (which was expectedly a disaster since she was only about four months into lessons), and those innings of fall ball I posted about earlier, which for the most part went pretty well. But this time she wasn't pitching to kids as young as 8 who were just as likely to have been swinging at an insect that at her accidental rise ball. In this tournament it was very likely that everyone she faced would have more playing experience than she, and most of the rest of our team to boot.

I was pretty nervous. I knew she had put in a lot of work outside of lessons, but she had also been putting that work in with ME and I was no pitching coach. I was trying my best to learn from her lessons and apply the right things, so I felt somewhat confident in her, but the realist in me was saying I had failed her and she would eat dirt in front of 100 people. We also had a very real problem.

The cleats on the turf.


After our pool play game as the girls stood by for the postgame coach speech, my gears were grinding. What the heck was I gonna do? I started looking at feet. Most of the girls had already ditched their cleats, so I was hoping to see a few pairs of athletic shoes. And right now, if you've decided to stick with my rambling story written at 2am, you likely already knew what I found.

Crocs. Metric crap-tons of Crocs. Black, white, purple, camo...blinged out with any manner of buttons in the holes, it was like a bag of perforated foam skittles twinkling before my eyes.

I HATE CROCS. They're the ugliest, dumbest piece of footwear other than Sketchers Shape-Ups (and possibly Roo's) to ever grace a human foot. Those of you offended by this statement are saying "but they're SO comfortable." I'm sure they are.

You do you. I'll stick with literally anything else. Meanwhile, I had to look for another solution in the short amount of time we had before an insignificant, yet still the biggest game of her career to date.

Yes, I'm making this more dramatic than it should be, but this is a SAGA--it says so in the title. I gotta reel you in for the next part...

 

[PJR202]

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As I stated a few posts back, DD2's pitching coach teaches new students a style that is essentially two turns. Step out with the plant foot, pivot on the rubber foot, then again on the plant foot while completing the pitch. There is no stride. It looks a little different than what the younger girls start out with a lot of places. It also has a little different release style and location. If I recall correctly, he said he came up with it while playing overseas after they were informed that no crow hopping or stride would be allowed. He's a pure athlete, genetic lottery winner, so I'm sure he practiced it for a couple minutes then went out and slayed.

We had a couple hours between games to go get some food. Cell signal was brutal at the game site, so we decided to follow everyone to BW3, hopefully have better cell signal, and see if there was a walmart or something nearby. It's a pretty small area, and I wasn't sure we would find anything.

Now, I'm not a complete idiot. I know despite it being kinda critical, that kids don't like to feel embarrassed, so on the way over I said "so are you ok with wearing walmart shoes in the game?"

She said "I literally don't care. I'll take anything."

Both my girls are amazing humans and destined for greatness, but they're kinda spoiled vs how my wife and I came up. But despite this fact, they've never given two turds about how much their clothing costs or where it comes from. If they like it, they like it. And I like THAT...well, other than the homecoming dresses they just got. My wife won't even tell me what she spent. All she said was "well...let's just think of it as 'they haven't been to any formals in three years, so we had some dress purchases to make up for.'

I'm like "Uhh...OK...it's your money, honey."

We rolled up to BW3 in an old shopping plaza, and as the rest of the crew headed into the restaurant I did a quick search for shoe stores. Looking at the results, I find there's one that looks like it's right where I am. I flicked my eyes up to the rearview mirror, and the giant letters were staring right back at me. It was one of those Shoe Carnival type places. I was so pumped.

We headed over immediately. We found no turf shoes, but she did come up with this cool little pair of Pumas. They weren't really running shoes. They were athletic of some sort, kinda shaped like soccer shoes, but they weren't nearly flexible enough for that application. The bottoms were more similar to shoes for bowling, aside from having a bit of tread. Honestly though, they looked perfect for pivoting and were kinda stylish. So $75 later, we were back in business.

Game time rolled around, and as stated before, the bracket had us playing the host's 7th grade team. The previous game had gone long so we were hurried into the dugout with only a short time to get going. DD2 got out and pivoted around on the sidelines some, and gave me a thumbs up. I don't think she even threw a warmup pitch. We were the home team for this one.

DD2 headed out to the circle, happy and excited. I watched with a knot in my stomach. I could tell The Wiz was praying for the ball to just be over the plate. She was completely untested, and only throwing around 38mph in lessons at that point...obviously pretty slow, and her accuracy was probably 50% in the zone. I was hoping to get that much out of her, and then some errant swings and bad decision making to help her out. My big fear is that she would have a walk-fest and we would be back in 2021 all over again.

She came out throwing hard (for her at least). It was harder than I'd ever seen in lessons. I'm standing there in complete fear of meltdown, and she goes out and strikes out the first three batters. After the first two, I smacked The Wiz on the shoulder and said "is this really happening??"

Our entire goal for her for the season was to get the ball in the zone and give the defense a chance. She continued to throw well, and when it was all said and done, we were beaten 5 - 3. We played another solid defensive game, but were just still weak in hitting.

Her final pitching stats were 5 hits, 6 strikeouts, and only 1 walk. According to the game changer she threw 67% strikes. I think she did also have one or two HBP. Gotta put a bit of fear in those hitters, though, right?

I know it's not exactly normal to feel ok about a loss, but as a coach I was feeling good. It was the best game we'd ever played and felt like real success after two full years of work. I was beyond proud of how the girls had played. That team could have obliterated our 2021 version.

As a dad though, I was on cloud nine.

 

[PJR202]

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Day 2 of the tournament (Sunday) had us playing a loser's bracket game. It was pretty obvious that the catholic school and a local school from perhaps 15 minutes away were going to be slugging it out in the final. They had already played once, and it was tight but the catholic school won. The local school had a really good little pitcher. She threw very hard with good movement, and I bet she wasn't even 100lbs. It's still shocking at times to see arm strength differences in people of all shapes and sizes. Underhand or overhand, you really just can't predict what that arm will be capable of. Mechanics, body composition, flexibility, etc. So many factors.

Both those teams were very good in the field. I saw a lot of what Wiz refers to as "next play" when our kids get an out on D (or don't) and there's still another runner to deal with. We were still pretty bad at field awareness and had given up a lot of bases in 2021. But these two teams at the tournament never missed a beat. For a guy like me who had never paid attention to such things before getting into coaching, it was impressive to see a well-oiled machine like that.

Anyway, our loser's bracket game was against a school probably an hour from ours. We had seen them playing the host's 8th grade team when we first arrived on Saturday, and it was a tight one. One of their coaches was behind the backstop and I chatted him up a bit when he wasn't doing coach stuff. He said their pitcher had just started taking lessons a couple weeks ago. She was throwing pretty well, so I'm guessing she had been pitching without lessons for at least several months. I think game ended up with them losing something like 11 to 9. We had just had a decent go with the host team's 7th grade team, so if our next opponent had gone toe to toe with the host's 8th grade team, I figured we were in for a battle.

After some review of the loser's bracket, it looked like we could play host 8th grade if we managed to win this one, so it seemed best (at the time) to start DD2 for this one and hold onto our more experienced pitcher for the next game if we got there.

We were the home team for this one. DD2 went out and pitched just as well as Saturday. It was pretty clear right off the bat (pun intended) that our opponent hit just as badly--if not worse--than we did. I don't recall how she did from inning to inning, but the only contact resulting in a base was on a fielding error, she hit a couple batters, and had no walks. Their pitcher struggled from the get-go, and was relieved after one inning. The girl that came in for her was worse, so they brought the original back.

So, DD2 threw a "no-hitter."

That term gets tossed around A LOT in my area. Coaches or parents all bragging about how this kid or that kid threw a no-hitter, or TWO no-hitters. But come on...they're usually doing this against a far inferior opponent. Teams around here are usually good or bad. There's not much in-between, and these no hitters aren't often between two evenly matched teams. DD2 was pumped again, and I was right there with her. Before that game, she didn't even know what a no-hitter was, but she fully understood the caliber of team we had played, sohe didn't dwell on it a bit after that. She's not really the braggy type anyway.

I don't know what happened with our opponent between Saturday and Sunday, but the pitcher wasn't doing much and they couldn't hit. Meanwhile, I think we had four hits and scored 10. They scored 1. Our hitting was still weak, and honestly it was probably a good thing that they didn't give us more to swing at.

Our girls were ecstatic. They got a win before the season even started, and that was huge for us. I really felt for the other team, though. I was chatting with their coach after the game, and he mentioned they had just restarted their little league that year (sound familiar?) and most of his kids hadn't played much. He said he'd be interested in playing us again, but I was never able to get hold of him again.

I did have a very "proud dad moment," though. As I was chatting with the coach, DD2 walked up and asked if she could talk with his pitcher. He got the girl's attention and they met up at the line. Knowing DD2 as I did, I knew she went over to make her feel better. She had certainly eaten dirt a couple times of her own. I grabbed my phone and snapped a quick pic. I asked her later what she said. "I told her she did a good job, and that people don't understand how hard pitching is."

In this age of phenomenal cameras taking thousands of pics and storing them on impossibly large memory banks the size of a dime, swiping through them doesn't have the same meaning as pulling out a photo album from back in the day. Back then, each picture had to be a real effort. Adjust the focus, get the light correct. That kind of thing. So to say the pic from that day is one of my most cherished of the thousands we have of her and DD1, it has to be special. It's just a simple pic of two girls standing alone, laughing about who knows what. Perfectly ordinary, yet the story behind it it really sums up the kind of kid she is. I was more proud of her at that point than for any pitching performance she had put on.

Our HS program plays that school, so maybe they'll cross paths again this year or the next. DD2's giant mass of jet black hair is pretty hard to miss, so it's easy to pick her out of a crowd.

 

[DryHeat]

So, DD2 threw a "no-hitter."

That term gets tossed around A LOT in my area. Coaches or parents all bragging about how this kid or that kid threw a no-hitter, or TWO no-hitters. But come on...they're usually doing this against a far inferior opponent. Teams around here are usually good or bad. There's not much in-between, and these no hitters aren't often between two evenly matched teams. DD2 was pumped again, and I was right there with her. Before that game, she didn't even know what a no-hitter was, but she fully understood the caliber of team we had played, sohe didn't dwell on it a bit after that. She's not really the braggy type anyway.

Yeah, I know what you mean. About two years ago, DD1 threw a "perfect game". And by that I mean we run ruled them in 3 innings of pool play. She pitched to (ta-da!) 9 batters. They had 11 in the lineup, so 2 didn't even get to hit. It was not a strong team.

Good to hear about your proud Dad moment. That's a good one for the best of reasons. Sounds like you have a great kid on your hands, which speaks volumes about your parenting. Good work.

 

[PJR202]

Yeah, I know what you mean. About two years ago, DD1 threw a "perfect game". And by that I mean we run ruled them in 3 innings of pool play. She pitched to (ta-da!) 9 batters. They had 11 in the lineup, so 2 didn't even get to hit. It was not a strong team.

Good to hear about your proud Dad moment. That's a good one for the best of reasons. Sounds like you have a great kid on your hands, which speaks volumes about your parenting. Good work.

She's a great kid. Her sister as well. Straight A students and great friends to their buddies, and DD1 was # in her class last year. I should go talk about them in the shameless brag section. : )

My parenting skills? I dunno. I'm just trying my best to leave the world with a better, yet female, version of myself.

 

[PJR202]

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So, one last tournament post. I know tournaments are old-hat for most players and parents, but this was more significant for our girls because it was their first (aside from pitcher #1), and their first game together as a team. We had several new faces vs 2021's team, and an overall great attitude. The toxicity was gone, and no matter how things went, the girls kept a smile for the most part. This was their maiden voyage, and after three games we were really impressed. We were 1 - 2, but it felt like REAL progress.

And anyone would have lost to the catholic school. They have God on their side and all...but Notre Dame football lost to Marshall a few weeks ago, so...I dunno.

Our next game was against the host's 8th grade team. He referred to them as A and B teams. I caught him just before our game and asked how it was going, and which of his teams was better. He said "I would have told you the A-team was better, but my 7th graders just went out there and put it on 'em."

If you aren't country, 'put it on 'em' is akin to a whipping.

So knowing we had hung in there with his 7th grade, B-team already, I was feeling good about our chances. A win would put us in a semi-final with the winner of his B-team vs the local stud team. I would be happy to take a beating from a team like that. I also had seen their ace pitcher fizzle out in the game against the catholic school, and her replacement was average...and they definitely weren't gonna waste their ace on our team of under-sized, inexperienced, true middle schoolers. A guy can dream, right?

And we knew we were invited there with the expectation that we'd come in 5th or 6th. I didn't care. We were having a great time. The fruits of our labor were halfway decent tasting. Not like those oranges you buy out of season that are just white and flavorless inside, or a half-white strawberry. This was like getting a Gala apple that makes a sound like an African drum when you tap it. If you know, you know...

So, game time arrived and we were fired up and ready to roll. Confidence was high and the glove were popping.

And speaking of gloves popping let me just take yet another stroll off topic and talk about warmup passing...

Is there anything more infuriating than watching kids with semi-competent throw-and-catch out there warming up before a game, half-a$$ing it? Dropped balls, overthrows, lack of effort, and laughing about it? Like, I can't tell you how many times I've preached to practice like you play, and before every game in 2021 I was boiling watching them warm up. I literally told them "you can watch a team in warmup passes and know if they suck or not. If they're sloppy, so is their play. If the effort is low, so is their play. If they just flat-out can't throw and catch, that's exactly what you'll see on the field."

And the thing is, I'm probably a bit too nice. I don't often yell at them like a hardcore coach; I leave that job to Wiz. But I lit them up a couple times in 2021. And to make it about me, it's embarrassing when you know other coaches are watching a team with such crappy discipline. I truly believe that when all is said and done, we're a great coaching staff. It's just hard to watch that kind of thing and keep in mind that it takes time to build discipline and build it with the right kids.

Our 2022 warmups were much better, and I attribute that to two things.

1. Most of them had reasonably competent throw and catch.

2. (and most importantly) The bad apples were out of the barrel. The kids that didn't care were no longer there. That lackadaisical attitude is just as infectious as positivity. Some had moved up, and some had either been filtered out through tryouts or just not showing up for tryouts, and it put the party to an end. We started 2022 with 14 and almost immediately lost one to injury from some weird congenital defect in her foot, so with other temporary injuries, vacations, illness, etc, we really had to get creative to field a functional 9 for a few of our 2022 season games. But in the end, it was worth it. The overall attitude was night and day, and the lumps we took became lessons instead of expectations. And damnit, our warmup passes looked halfway decent.


Our game with host A-team (8th grade) got going. Our #1 pitcher got the start, and was firing away pretty well. The game was tight. As usual, our hitting was weak, but theirs was as well. Defense was keeping both teams afloat. They managed to get ahead 1-0 at some point, but we scored one as well in our next at bat. I believe it was in the 4th inning out of 5, we had a runner on second and the batter was walked. For some reason the opposing catcher decided to throw to 1B. The ball sailed, and our runner took off for second as our 2B runner headed for home. They managed to recover and threw it home but not in time. The catcher THEN decides it's a good idea to throw it to 3B as our original walked batter has managed to get that far. THAT ball sailed, and our original walked batter scored.

Now this is where it gets absurd...

The dust settles (not really, because...you know...it's turf), our kids are cheering, their coach is just standing there doing his thing, and the umpire suddenly yells "DEAD BALL. Runners return to first and second!"

So I'm like "wtf just happened (but I said heck, of course)? That was on a walk."

Wiz takes off running for home, and they have a long discussion where I can see Wiz, who is a trained and certified umpire (not that it was needed in this case), is gesturing in a way that indicates he's very confused and very irritated. Both umps are there with him, and the opposing coach is just standing by watching. Wiz comes back and says...

"Those idiots just told me a walk is a dead ball in Ohio." (I know, this bold font makes it feel more real, right?)

We know that's not true, but for the heck of it I text my cousin, who is an umpire and a college softball coach in Ohio, and he sends back "THAT'S CRAZY. GET THEIR ASSIGNOR'S NAME."

So there we were, bottom of the 4th, and should be ahead 3 - 1 and this is the situation. It didn't deflate us completely, but the wind left the girls' collective sails quite a bit. We still played as solid D as we could, but they came out in the 5th, put a few hits on us to go with a few walks, and scored 4. We couldn't pull anything together in our last at-bat.

One play doesn't make a game, but I really believe the girls were playing at the absolute best they were capable of at that time, which made it hurt a little.

I asked the opposing coach about it. He laughed and said "yeah that's not right, but I wasn't about to say anything." I told him I wouldn't have either. Breaks come in all forms.

But, they didn't dwell on it. Everyone left happy, and the overall experience was very beneficial for us headed into the 2022 season.

And we didn't get the assignor's name. We decided to just let it go and end our time there with a smile. And, the God-Squad won the tournament, as I expected from the moment they stepped out of their vans.

 

[Gags]

I asked the opposing coach about it. He laughed and said "yeah that's not right, but I wasn't about to say anything."

On a blown judgement call (non-scrimmage), I wouldn't say anything either. On something as egregious as thinking a walk = dead ball, my Catholic guilt would be too much to bear, and I'd probably say something in support of the other coach.

You could also look at it as "My C just made two bone-headed mistakes that should have cost us the game if it wasn't for Mr. MSU behind the plate." A learning experience is always more effective when there's some sort of consequence involved.

 

[PJR202]

On a blown judgement call (non-scrimmage), I wouldn't say anything either. On something as egregious as thinking a walk = dead ball, my Catholic guilt would be too much to bear, and I'd probably say something in support of the other coach.

You could also look at it as "My C just made two bone-headed mistakes that should have cost us the game if it wasn't for Mr. MSU behind the plate." A learning experience is always more effective when there's some sort of consequence involved.

I know umps screw up calls here and there, or just flat don't understand the rule (not that I understand half of them either) and I honestly don't get too worked up about that, but this dude screwed up and knew it and his buddy came up and covered for him. I guess I wouldn't know what I would do unless I was on the other side of it, but I didn't have a problem with the other coach not getting involved. When it's all said and done it's the ump's job to run the game. It was pretty critical for us though.

 

[PJR202]

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I just realized I had yet to discuss the high school for 2021.

As I believe I mentioned before, in 2020, the HS program only had nine players coming out to spring workouts. It was gonna be tough to field an entire team without taking 8th and 7th graders from us at the MS. Bad part was, we only had one 8th grader (DD1) and a couple 7th graders, but only one of them (Ed's kid) was competent. The HS team definitely lucked out with a 2020 cancelation.

So for 2021 the HS team got a new coach (previous had stepped away to focus on another sport). The hire was kinda late, and we weren't fully sure that one of us wouldn't have to put in for the job. Likely me. Thankfully it didn't come to that.

The new coach had quite a task on his hands. Of the nine kids from 2020, four graduated, the only pitcher that could consistently hit the zone (11th grade) had moved to the next county (perennial power), and he only had one freshman (DD1) coming up. So here he is in December 2020 with only five players for 2021. How he did it, I don't know, but he managed to come up with...

1 soccer player - no experience (junior)
1 volleyball player - no experience (junior)
1 cheerleader - no experience (sophomore)
1 girl from the golf team - no experience (junior)
A couple girls who had played baseball in little league.
A couple more girls with no sports experience
Plus the 5 returning players.

I believe he had maybe 13, and that number hit 11 by mid season.

So, six girls who needed to learn throw and catch, defense, hitting, base running, etc.

They always went right after school, which was before I was off work, so I only caught a few practices. One was very early in the spring, and it was pretty rough. One thing I noticed right away though, is that HS girls pick the game up more quickly. I think it's less fear of the ball (especially with established athletes), overall strength, and confidence. With the MS team, the majority of the established athletes were still slow to pick up the skills, confidence, and lose the fear of getting hit. I've got old, bad habits of avoiding the ball as well, so I certainly understand. As a coach though, it's tough to watch without getting frustrated.

DD1 is really solid in the infield. Solid arm, super smart and aware, and when it comes to that kind of thing you don't often have to tell her something twice. You give her the program and she executes. For someone who doesn't play travel and doesn't go out of her way to practice on her own, she's very solid in the infield. Having no fear of the ball goes a long way. When she played 6th grade and her 7th grade year on the HS JV team, she was hit by so many pitches that it was just expected. She doesn't move unless it's headed for her head or feet. Her coach told me early-on that he already had her slotted for SS or 3B.

As I said, I didn't get to watch a lot of the practices but they were working hard. With me having a MS schedule to adhere to, I also only made it to a handful of games. My wife dutifully attended almost all of them (some into the deep bowels of the state) with our 7.5lb poodle riding shotgun (he's quite the handful...a tyrant, really), and it really stretched us thin at home. Late nights, nacho and hotdog dinners, and some grumpy mornings for all of us. The end of the season certainly brought some relief and downtime for a few weeks.

As I'm sure you expected, the season was really rough for the HS. Lots of beat-downs. Missed assignments, strikeouts, tons of walked batters, and a dozen or more errors PER GAME. At one point 2B sent a throw to first that sailed over the dugout. Things were rough, but eventually it came time to play a team they had a real shot at beating. They're the perennial doormat, padder of stats, team you throw your weaker pitcher at. That kind of thing. It's kind of a haul to get down there, and the girls rode the bus down with some optimism. Twenty minutes out, HC gets a call from the opposing HC saying they invited another team (far out of district, not a regular opponent) to come play as well.

And we would be playing that team FIRST.

This wasn't one of those "we play you, then we play them kind of deal where everyone gets two games. This was just our HS playing two teams, the second of which being the only one that mattered on the record. HC didn't like that, but he's pretty easygoing and didn't give her any push-back.

I'm easygoing as well, and I'd have told her the choices are we play her team FIRST, or we don't play the other team at all.

Was the invite a malicious attempt to wear our HS girls down to per her team in the best position to win? I believe so. If she had called that other team even a day beforehand she would have notified our HC sooner than 20 minutes before game time. Dirty.

Did her plan work? Yes.

Our starting pitcher had plenty of softball experience and skills, but she had only started pitching FOUR days before their first game. Four days, and she was throwing in the 50's with semi-reasonable accuracy. Fantastic athlete. She's also the new cheerleader player's older sister.

I believe the first game was a 12 - 10 loss, then we took a run-rule drubbing. #2 pitcher struggled badly, and you know how that goes...

The HS program would continue to struggle, but there were positives. The volleyball player batted over .400. The golfer over.350, and the cheerleader hit a grand slam over the fence about halfway into the season, and also batted over .400. Those averages are legit. Our bookkeeper doesn't give any freebies. The cheerleader hit another OTF by season's end.

About three quarters into the 2021 season, it happened. The first win. It was a JV game against a perennial power, but really was more of a varsity game considering the participants and being played straight-up. What I refer to now as the "boyfriends and brothers club," was the catalyst for victory. This bunch of super fans were absolutely relentless that night with their support, and borderline heckling of our opponent. There was no stopping them. The #2 pitcher was throwing the best she'd ever thrown, and getting fortuitous events such as a batter ducking under a wild pitch and leaving her bat up, causing a foul ball...twice in as many pitches. It was in the air...we could feel victory coming.

The celebration was absurd. The boys stormed the field, there were cheers and tears, and the relief that washed over everyone from players to coaches to parents was immense.

Finally.

By the end of the season there was a total of three wins, one of which was against the team that had pulled the invitation stunt. That was an 18 run beat-down and no victory has been sweeter since.

DD1 had a good season in the field, but a weak one at the plate. I've always helped both my girls as much as I can, but I'm no hitting coach, and she missed her opportunity for lessons a few years back. She's developed a couple bad habits, one of which is dipping, and it's been difficult to break. She usually made contact once per game, and most of the time it was weak in the infield.

All in all, though, the fact that they managed to learn the game and scrape together a few wins by season's end made it feel like a success.

 

[PJR202]

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Something happened two days ago, so I need to talk about pitching for a minute...or more.

If you've read even 25% of this saga, you're aware that at both the MS and HS levels, pitching is very much an issue for us. You can't win games at any level of any stick and ball game without solid pitching. You just can't. In any kind of league, the the path from bottom to top rung is pretty much determined by the strength of the pitching. It has eaten at me to my very core from the moment we played our first game in 2021. With us being a slew of new coaches--whether it be new to softball or just new to coaching in-general--teaching a slew of inexperienced players and knowing nothing about fastpitch mechanics, pitching was just always kinda on the backburner. MS pitcher #1 had experience, and a touted 54mph fastball in the 6th grade (it wasn't and still isn't, three years later...at least not with accuracy), and we just planned on riding that out while trying to get defense and hitting up to speed.

Well, things didn't go as planned. And when DD2 told me after the abysmal outing in the 2021 district tournament that she was going to be ready to pitch in 2022, I said to myself "she'll only be competent in a year if you put in a lot of work."

So, we did. While it seems most parents barely work at home, we were doing our weekly lesson and adding 3 - 4 days and few hundred pitches a week in-between. I felt l was pushing her just about to the limit I could get away with while keeping it fun. I know my kid pretty well, but I've learned a ton about her as we've gone on this pitching journey. And as I posted a couple days ago, it paid off this past season. The goal was to get the ball over the plate 50% of the time at any speed. She averaged about 38mph and well over 50% all season. I'm very aware 38mph is slow at 14 years old, but it actually worked out well because most of our opponents weren't used to that speed and took some time to figure her out.

There's more to the story, but the bottom line is she wants to pitch HS varsity next season, and I want her safe. She needs more speed, location, and a change-up. I believe these are all realistic goals.

I study pitching constantly.

I watch video, study mechanics, analyze slow-mo of her pitches, and read about mechanics almost every day for the past 20 months. I have so much concern for her success that I probably come close to obsession. I've watched probably 100 hours of her lessons. I don't sit there on my phone. I watch, I listen, and I ask at least one question at every lesson. This is 100% not about ME or living vicariously through my kid. This is about my concern for her safety and success, the success of her teammates, and my wanting to support our small, economically depressed community. I want her to see the value of hard work, and I want her to understand what being a good parent is all about. I don't push. I suggest, I support, and I try and understand what her limits are. Softball is not her life.

I also want to be able to help kids around here that want to pitch but can't take lessons for whatever reason. I know we can't have success and fun without pitching, and I decided if I had to become a pitching coach, I would.

As I said in the "shoe emergency" post, the style her coach teaches is unorthodox. It's not IR and it's not a full hello elbow. It's a bent arm circle, ball facing backward at 10:00, and push to an almost squared shoulder oriented release that is a few inches in front of a hip that is coming around off a left foot pivot. He teaches it as a forced opening step, but I noticed only the little kids, DD2, and one other kid her age were doing the step. The others are doing a forced opening stride with drag.

You will NOT find his style on youtube.

In fall 2021 he had her start lunging out with the left foot, ending up probably a foot father out in order to add some power. It added a few mph, getting her to that 38-ish average and a top of 41. Then about six weeks before the 2022 season started, I asked about switching to a stride and he was cool with it. I'm sure that was the eventual plan anyway. After a couple weeks of wild pitches, it was clear that we didn't have enough time to get her dialed back in before games started, so we shelved it. In May of this year right after the season ended, we went back to working on stride. It came along fairly quickly and she got back to about the same accuracy she had with the lunge.

Without going into too much detail, I will say that her coach's resume as a pitcher is second to none. Success at the absolute highest levels. But in the pitching coach realm, he's low key. Not a big internet guy, no youtube, etc. Super, super awesome and knowledgeable guy. Does it for the love of the game and his community. Can't say enough good about him. I'm just trying to keep this thing somewhat anonymous because I don't want anyone to get the impression that these posts are anything other than a story about a program, with a positive spin. And I certainly wouldn't want anyone local to think I'm talking negatively about any character mentioned here. Softball and the people I've interacted with has been one of the most significant and positive things I've ever done, and I have every intention of staying involved after my girls are out.

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Since gaining some knowledge from watching DD2's lessons, I've tried to share that with our other kids that have an interest in pitching, and to be honest I had a hard time explaining it and they had a hard time grasping/performing it. I was fine with DD2 continuing her lessons as long as she was getting better, but without resources and examples of her coach's style, I thought it best that I learn using resources that were readily available. So after a lot of research and consideration of the two main styles, I chose internal rotation over Hello Elbow.

I studied on my own quite a bit, and on this site I saw Rick Pauly's program had a good review. So I read up on Rick, and then the Tincher method, and decided to take Rick's course to get the intermediate certification. It was long and tedious, but very interesting and well-presented. I had to pay attention, do some rewinding, outside reading, etc, but over the course of two months I worked my way through it, had a two hour follow-up call with Rick, and felt like I had a decent grasp of the mechanics and was marginally prepared to help our kids. With DD2 moving on to HS, I'm not going to be on the field for the MS team next year, but they don't have any trained pitchers so I'm working with a few to get them going.

TBC...