The end is only a new beginning

The more years I spend coaching, the more often I am able to remind myself of the many reasons I love coaching.  Way back in the spring of 1979 there was one moment that led me to decide that I wanted to spend my adult life in coaching, but little did I know back then that there were more benefits to coaching than just enjoying the moments on the field or court.

This summer and my experience with the Adrian Post 275 American Legion team provided me more than just fun on the field.  There was more to it than watching these 16-19 year old athletes compete in games for a couple months.  There was more to it than winning games and championships.  There was certainly more to it than telling players to go out there and give a complete effort.  And there was more to it than just being a part of a successful team.

It was a privilege for me to be involved with these young athletes who were eager to improve, who were eager to learn more, and were excited about the achievements of their teammates.  When the season ended on Monday, just a day before the potential flight to North Carolina for the American Legion World Series, there was nobody in that dugout who was ready for the season to end......just as it should be.

These players made gradual improvements all throughout the season.  They understood that they should improve every day, and they did so, not only in their individual baseball skills, but also in their understanding of game situations and in their abilities to play their roles for the benefit of their teammates.

Each guy understood that he was not as big as the team, and that each of his teammates also had the same understanding.  Each guy put the team in front of himself, and thus made the team much better as each week and each tournament passed.

I saw them improve, I saw their passion for playing a boy's game, I saw their love for their teammates, and I felt the joy of victory and the heartbreak of a season's end.  I felt all the things that make coaching such a fabulous way to spend my entire adult life.

Congratulations to the players of Adrian Post 275 American Legion.  Thanks to their parents, to Dave Stanifer and Don Cappelletty for allowing me to be a part of it.  I have gotten back more than I have given.....trust me on that!!

Legion National Regional Tournament

Today I'm sitting in a hotel room in Midland, Michigan, waiting out the rain during the American Legion National Regional Tournament.  Day 1 was yesterday, and we defeated the Moline (IL) Legion team by a score of 4-1 with Andrew Wood on the mound to put us in the winner's bracket and assure that we play at least two more games.

Our M.O. yesterday was similar to what got us through the State Tournament last weekend undefeated.  Offensively, we again got key hits with runners on base.  As a matter of fact, after the Moline left handed pitcher threw a perfect first four innings, we erupted with all four of our runs and all six of our hits in the bottom of the fifth.  I don't know the specific statistics from our last couple of weeks, but it seems like most of our runs have been scored by getting hits with two outs and runners on base.  Credit goes to our hitters, who have obviously been thriving in those situations.

On the mound, Wood did what most of our pitchers have been doing lately.  He gave up only four hits, one of which was a home run.  Due to rainy weather, the tournament committee made adjustments yesterday and decided to use two fields and play 7-inning games rather than 9-inning games.  We ended up playing at Bullock Creek High School, where only the short porch in left field prevented our left fielder Marcell Grayer from having room to catch it.  As was the case last week, again our defense was great!

Andrew threw 84 pitches, which meant he averaged 12 pitches per inning, the exact average he had in game one of the State Tournament last week.  He threw his fastball and changeup for strikes, and only needed about a half dozen breaking balls to basically own the State Champions from Illinois, who came into the game with a 43-6 record.

As for today, I've got no problem with waiting out the weather.  I'm pretty certain that the weather is out of our control, so when the time comes, we can head out to the field and try to win our next game to advance further in the winner's bracket.  The Olympics are on television and I have my Kindle, Galaxy II cell phone, and laptop to chill with.

In the meantime, hopefully the players are relaxing and continuing to visualize being successful on the field.  They have played their best at the most important time of the season.  I can't ask for anything more from them!!!

Walk like a Champion

As I continue to grow in age, it becomes easier for me to be reminded that I am so fortunate to be able to enjoy all the things I do on a daily basis.  This weekend I am so grateful to have been involved in something very special.  As a coach who is lucky to spend my free time with young guys who love playing baseball, I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the 2012 State Championship with the Adrian Post 275 American Legion team.

As hosts of this year's State Tournament, we were able to sweep through the state tournament and beat the Midland Berryhill team twice to earn the championship and an automatic bid to the National Regional in Midland next week.  The Adrian team hasn't won the state title since 2001, and I was present in 2002 when they lost to Midland in the title game in Menominee, Michigan in the Upper Peninsula when my son Eric and his teammates completed a great season.

This weekend's tournament victory was simply a joy to be involved with.  Dave Stanifer and the Tournament Committee, as always, went above and beyond with their preparations and execution of providing a fabulous tournament atmosphere for all of the six teams involved.  There is a tremendous amount of selflessness involved with Dave and his staff in performing so many tasks that often go unnoticed.

What gives me the greatest joy though, is the performance of the players with whom I am fortunate enough to share the dugout.  This team has earned a 29-10 record after beginning the season making about two mental errors per inning (that's roughly how I remember that first weekend) back in June.  As individuals and as a team, these guys have gradually improved from game to game and week to week.

They seem to have bought into the idea that a baseball season should be a gradual climb from point A to point B, with some peaks and valleys that undoubtedly occur during the season.  They are now peaking and playing their best baseball when it really matters the most, in the post-season.

This weekend's play was highlighted by some timely hitting, especially by hitters near the bottom of the batting order.  In addition, they played great defense and had outstanding pitching.  In three nine-inning games, the pitchers averaged 11 pitches per inning.  That is a tough enough task for one guy to accomplish in one well pitched game, but to have a staff of pitchers do so for an entire tournament is indeed a great accomplishment.

As a coach, there were two major highlights to the weekend.  The first one was the performance of Phil Carey, a 2014 Tecumseh High School player, who was almost perfect in throwing a one-hitter against Midland on Friday night.  Phil gave up a ground ball single on the first pitch of the fourth inning, and then allowed only one walk to a hitter with one out in the 9th inning.  It almost seemed to be cheating to watch him carve up the Berryhill hitters.  Phil was named the tournament MVP yesterday!!

The other highlight was to see and feel the sense of happiness, satisfaction, and pride in the fifteen players.  They don't even have to tell anybody.......they are champions, forever!!!

As for me, I am grateful, as always!!

In game dugout lessons

I'm sure coaching is similar to other professions, in that so much of what we learn is through our interaction with others in the same field.  Though I may have heard earlier in my career as either a teacher or a coach, I remember an outstanding coach, Lance Hershberger of Indiana Tech, telling me about trying to get his guys to understand that coaching is a negative business.  In other words, athletes often need to be told about their mistakes so they can work on limiting them in the future.

I think that most good coaches are not only good teachers, but they are also pretty competitive people. Sometimes during competitive situations coaches expect their athletes to understand situations and execute according to what they have been previously instructed.  Unfortunately, especially for younger athletes who are still learning from new experiences, they repeat mistakes enough times that it becomes the mistakes that ultimately teach the lessons.

The fact that athletes can and do learn from their mistakes of understanding and execution does not eliminate the idea that correction from coaches isn't helpful, but as I have to remind myself sometimes, the way that the corrections are made during intensely competitive situations is in control of us coaches.

For coaches as well as athletes then, controlling our emotions......not allowing our emotions to control us, is a constant skill to try to improve!

Unposted from archives?

Eighteen games into the MIAA schedule we are now 17-1, with ten games left to play.  Half of our four game series against Hope College was postponed due to Friday's weather, and those games will be made up on May 10th.  Though I was hoping we would play last Friday, now we will be able to use six different starting pitchers on that last week (Friday, Saturday, Tuesday) and thus have some more of our pitchers prepared for the Regional Tournament.

Though we still can't count our chickens before they hatch and we can't take a Regional appearance for granted, our practice of believing in ourselves gives us the opportunity to visualize the regionals already.  Our closest competitor in the loss column is Kalamazoo College at 9-7, and the next best team in the win column is Calvin College at 12-8.  We play our Kalamazoo series in two weeks, and we have already played Calvin.

Early in the season, or actually in the pre-season, I had the pitchers use visualization while we practiced inside.  For the returning players, I told them to envision being on the mound at Marietta College's field.  That is where the Mideast Regional tournament was last year and again next month that will be the site.  All of the players who played last season in that tournament are able to visualize themselves being successful on Marietta's field, and that can only help us when we get there.

Again though, we still have to take care of business in our last ten games.  Yesterday we swept Hope, throwing another shutout in game #1, which gives our pitching staff eight shutouts in our 18 conference games, and seven shutouts in our last twelve games.  That is an indicator that we are continuing to improve, but we have to keep reminding our guys that no matter how well we have been playing, there are still mistakes made that we can learn from and thus make ourselves a better team.

The luxury that a team has when it is playing well is that in trying to improve on weaknesses, or mistakes, it is easier to pick out those mistakes after games because there aren't as many of them as in a poorly played game.  In providing feedback after a bad game, there are often so many mistakes to try to hash out and then some of them can unfortunately be overlooked.  After well played games, we can look at the mistakes we made and spend some time in dialogue as well as in practice to try to take care of those situ

Causes of flare-up?

I've been procrastinating on this, but I want to put into writing some of my internal questions regarding the possible reasons for my recent flare-up.

I wonder what brought it on, or whether it was a combination of things or just something that was eventually going to happen.  After all, I did go two complete years without a flare-up after my diagnosis and two week hospital stay back in May of 2010.

So, was I drinking too much coffee?  Did I eat too many fresh fruits (blueberries, strawberries, blackberries) this summer?  I had abstained from corn on the cob so far!!

Was it because I drank a few beers and a few shots on Thursday night and then four more beers on Friday night?  I generally drink a few beers perhaps 2-3 times per month.  The flare-up began Monday night, three days after Friday night.  Or how about eating Mexican food on Friday night?

Was it caused by independently decreasing my medication by 33% over the past handful of months.  I'm pretty sure the doctors know their stuff better than I know their stuff.

Or what about the 'protein' shake I drank a couple days prior to the flare-up?  Is something like that too high fiber for my large intestine?  Perhaps it isn't a coincidence that I had been eating sunflower seeds in the dugout this season, for the first time in about ten years or so.

How about taking some occasional Tylenol (Acetaminophen) whenever I had a little headache, although the last time would have been at least 3-4 weeks prior to the flare-up.

Was I eating too many high fiber foods in the past few months?  Things such as wheat breads, granola bars, cereals.

Whatever it was, perhaps we will never find out for sure.  Perhaps future flare-ups will occur regardless of how carefully I stick to the prescribed diet and regimen.  I am glad to be off of the blood thinning drugs now, though.  I am not so afraid of being hit in the head by a bat or ball now, though I'm sure it would still leave a mark......may provide me with more sense, too!!!

American Legion Baseball Post-Season

After having to miss a weekend of Post 275 American Legion baseball I was more than happy to be able to be at the Zone Tournament the past couple days at River Valley High School in Three Oaks, MI.    Since we are hosting next week's State Tournament, we automatically qualify to compete in it, but as a team we want to earn our way there.  The top two teams in this Zone Tournament qualify.

We assured ourselves a spot by winning our first two games on Friday, thus forcing the other teams to battle for the right to play us and also qualify for the state tournament.  Due to the costs of lodging and feeding the team, the tournament committee decided on Friday night that once we were down to two teams, there would be no need to play the 'if necessary' game of the double elimination on Sunday.

I made sure to let the powers-that-be know that I disagreed with that decision.  They called it a 'meaningless' game.  We all have our own interpretation of the word meaningless.  To them, since the two teams had already been determined, there was no point in playing an extra championship game and spending extra money.  But to me, from a coaching perspective, there are numerous reasons to play that final championship game.

First of all, I think we are doing both teams a disservice by not playing, as an extra game of competition can only help both of the Zone's representatives prepare some more for the state tournament.  Players and teams improve by playing.  In addition, in looking at our team specifically, we have a pitcher who will be a 2014 high school graduate who hasn't pitched in two weeks.  He is also a potential college pitcher, and he is now denied an opportunity to pitch, potentially in front of a few college coaches.  And it isn't just the opportunity to see this one kid, but two entire teams of potential college players are denied the opportunity.

We will be playing next week, as will the Berrien Springs team, but both squads were denied an opportunity to not only prepare more for the state tournament, but also to improve in a big game situation.  The same scenario occurred last year in our Zone Tournament.

The American Legion Baseball Administrators have clung to some old-school values, which is a good thing.  But they have also created situations that has caused a drop in the number of teams and quality players who choose to play Legion Baseball in various regions and states across the country.  When I first became a college coach in the late 1980s, most of the top players in our state were playing Legion baseball.  Today, there are only a few geographic areas of the state that attract the best local players to Legion Baseball.

Personally, I think some input from 'baseball' people would do some good for the players and administrators of American Legion Baseball.