Where Do You Find It?

Another Saturday on a ballfield, large and yellow this time.  Our goal today: play our best.  We have met the enemy, and they are us.

We need a boost of confidence.  Maybe we need to relax and have fun.  Maybe we need to focus at a higher level.  Maybe we just need to believe.  Playing scared doesn't get it done.  We think we're good: everyone we are playing knows they are good.  Huge difference.

I don't know what track to take.

I spent yesterday watching the highest level of baseball with my son and friends.  I kept wondering how they overcame the self doubt.  How did they decide they were going to become great ballplayers?  Each and every one is a local legend who kids from their hometowns will whisper their name for generations.  "My dad played Little League with A.J. Ellis.  You know, played for the Dodgers."

I exempt the players from Dominican Republic and Cuba: they went through the adult wringer as kids, knowing it was baseball or poverty.  That's no way to play a game.

Maybe we're too comfortable.  It doesn't mean much to lose sometimes when there's another game tomorrow.  I know we're not hungry enough.  It becomes a matter of playing with enough fear to keep your edge, but not enough to paralyze.  Playing with enough confidence to get the job done without misplacing it totally in yourself.

As a new team, we have girls all over the confidence scale.  A couple have so much misplaced confidence they don't listen to anyone.  A couple have so little confidence they are keeping themselves from succeeding.  Our job as coaches is to build skills and teamwork to the level they can use it to advance as far as they want to go.  Some will have the ability and not want to go all the way: all want to go all the way, but vast majority will not have the ability.

I played a game for a living before I realized you are supposed to learn the lessons to apply elsewhere.  You can't do it forever.

So...am I off base?