We finished our fall practice season last Wednesday with game three of the Black vs. Blue Fall Classic at Hillsdale College. The three game series was won by the Black team, which won two of the three games. All three games were decided by just a run.
After using our full allotment of 24 practices, we move into the next part of the college baseball cycle, which allows us eight hours per week to spend with the players, no more than two of those hours being devoted to baseball skill work and development. Fall practice has given us a pretty decent view of the talent we have on the field, along with an idea of our strengths and potential weaknesses. This allows us to plan the rest of this semester to prepare for Christmas Break and the start of pre-season practices in January.
For me, as the new member on the coaching staff, I was also able to get to know our players much better on a personal level and to gain some grasp of their work habits, their expectations, the way they think about themselves and the team, etc. This has also been a time for me to learn how to work with the rest of the coaching staff, both on the field and off the field. I can say with complete honesty that the coaches I'm privileged to work with are hard working, knowledgeable baseball guys with great expectations regarding the direction of the Hillsdale Charger baseball program.
There is no doubt that there is enough talent on this team to achieve some goals that have not been reached in recent seasons. Part of achieving goals is setting those goals and making plans on how to achieve them. There are many things necessary in achieving the goals of getting into the GLIAC Tournament, winning it, and advancing to the NCAA DII Regionals, and then some, in 2014. Some of the plans concerning 'how' to achieve those goals are obvious: get repetitions in the cages and defensively, increase arm strength and improve strike throwing, get everyone completely healthy and stay healthy, increase overall strength and conditioning. Those are things that our guys do a great job of working on.
Sometimes there are not so obvious things that need to change or be improved. For some of our guys and for so many college athletes around the world, the way they think, their self-talk, their expectations, their ability to control their emotions during practice and competition.......these are important pieces to the puzzle that influence on-field success just as much, and often more than their athletic abilities and skills do.
Through group dialogue with the pitchers, and group and individual interaction with all of the team members, the thought processes, self-talk, belief, and expectations are important things that we all need to work on and improve between now and the spring in order to give the team a better chance of achieving its goals. Each player needs to practice his mental skills and ability to control his thoughts in order to maintain the optimal emotional levels to compete at the highest levels possible.
Understanding that our thoughts have a huge influence on our emotions can provide motivation to improve our practice of controlling our thoughts. By recognizing any negative thoughts before they adversely effect our emotions and performance, we can eliminate some of the potential for hurting ourselves during a game. As for how to eliminate the negative thinking, we have come up with some terminology to achieve that objective. We need to replace any negative thought with positive ones. This is what we have now named 'Thought Replacement Therapy' (TRT), and it will hopefully be an efficient way for us to improve the way we think during practices and games.
This Thought Replacement Therapy is something that we can use when trying to sweat the small stuff as well as when looking at the big picture of moving the program in the positive direction of becoming a championship program. The guys we have will be able to look back and say that by changing their thoughts, they changed the program. They became champions in their minds, and thus executed on the field and became champions there, too!!
After using our full allotment of 24 practices, we move into the next part of the college baseball cycle, which allows us eight hours per week to spend with the players, no more than two of those hours being devoted to baseball skill work and development. Fall practice has given us a pretty decent view of the talent we have on the field, along with an idea of our strengths and potential weaknesses. This allows us to plan the rest of this semester to prepare for Christmas Break and the start of pre-season practices in January.
For me, as the new member on the coaching staff, I was also able to get to know our players much better on a personal level and to gain some grasp of their work habits, their expectations, the way they think about themselves and the team, etc. This has also been a time for me to learn how to work with the rest of the coaching staff, both on the field and off the field. I can say with complete honesty that the coaches I'm privileged to work with are hard working, knowledgeable baseball guys with great expectations regarding the direction of the Hillsdale Charger baseball program.
There is no doubt that there is enough talent on this team to achieve some goals that have not been reached in recent seasons. Part of achieving goals is setting those goals and making plans on how to achieve them. There are many things necessary in achieving the goals of getting into the GLIAC Tournament, winning it, and advancing to the NCAA DII Regionals, and then some, in 2014. Some of the plans concerning 'how' to achieve those goals are obvious: get repetitions in the cages and defensively, increase arm strength and improve strike throwing, get everyone completely healthy and stay healthy, increase overall strength and conditioning. Those are things that our guys do a great job of working on.
Sometimes there are not so obvious things that need to change or be improved. For some of our guys and for so many college athletes around the world, the way they think, their self-talk, their expectations, their ability to control their emotions during practice and competition.......these are important pieces to the puzzle that influence on-field success just as much, and often more than their athletic abilities and skills do.
Through group dialogue with the pitchers, and group and individual interaction with all of the team members, the thought processes, self-talk, belief, and expectations are important things that we all need to work on and improve between now and the spring in order to give the team a better chance of achieving its goals. Each player needs to practice his mental skills and ability to control his thoughts in order to maintain the optimal emotional levels to compete at the highest levels possible.
Understanding that our thoughts have a huge influence on our emotions can provide motivation to improve our practice of controlling our thoughts. By recognizing any negative thoughts before they adversely effect our emotions and performance, we can eliminate some of the potential for hurting ourselves during a game. As for how to eliminate the negative thinking, we have come up with some terminology to achieve that objective. We need to replace any negative thought with positive ones. This is what we have now named 'Thought Replacement Therapy' (TRT), and it will hopefully be an efficient way for us to improve the way we think during practices and games.
This Thought Replacement Therapy is something that we can use when trying to sweat the small stuff as well as when looking at the big picture of moving the program in the positive direction of becoming a championship program. The guys we have will be able to look back and say that by changing their thoughts, they changed the program. They became champions in their minds, and thus executed on the field and became champions there, too!!
