I played most sports you can think of as a kid, but only one was organized - baseball. I was a sports generalist - easily better than average at most, but far from being one of the best at anything. At recess or neighborhood games of basketball, kickball or whiffle ball I would be picked early as opposed to late, but never first at anything. Tennis became the first sport that I was really confident in and that didn't start until around 7th grade. I played SS on the company softball team in the early 90's but I haven't played in pickup sports since about 2003 when I was the QB for our neighborhood flag football games on Sunday morning. The opposing QB was a Div III college QB from LaFayette. Fun times. I've played winter tennis and was part of an indoor basketball league but those were both 8-10 years ago. Anyway, my point is that I played my fair share of sports, but I wasn't good enough to specialize in anything. I'm not sure I had the drive to as it wasn't that important to me at that age. Still A Dad can attest as he coached me one year in baseball - I couldn't hit to save my life. I had one good year at the plate and that was my last year in the minors - probably feeding off of pitchers who were a year or two younger than me. When I moved up to the majors I was back to batting once per game and typically striking out. This is where I'm heading with this story...... I hated that feeling. Who wouldn't. With all your friends and friend's parents watching it was like going to the gas chamber. For whatever reason, I just accepted it. Well, here we go, it's my once a game time to go down swinging. I had a huge habit of stepping out before swinging instead of stepping "in" to the ball. Put me in a game with my cousins with a plastic bat and ball and I was fine - better than fine. Playing neighborhood games with a tennis ball and bat you would never know I was a horrible batter in real games. I could play the field a little as a middle infielder and center fielder but I was a classic 8th spot hitter. Why I didn't work on it I'll never know. I never remember asking Still A Dad to take me out to practice hitting. Not once. Like I said, I guess I just didn't care enough.
That's too long of a setup for this story but oh well. Still A Stroke excels at swimming. She made League Individual Champs this year as the 14th seed in Breast Stroke where they take the top 16 kids for each age group in the entire 21 team league. I think there were over 130 girls in her group so for her to be 14th was really exciting. Her team has over 155 swimmers and while she isn't one of the team "super-stars", she gets a lot of recognition from the coach and other parents when she swims. She wanted something to do this year between summer and winter swimming and signed up for JV Volleyball for 5th and 6th graders. I thought it was cool because she's never held a volleyball in her life. Maybe the Olympics inspired her (the outfits inspired me!). So many girls went out this year that in order to not cut anyone they asked for more coaches so I'm now a head VB coach. I went to coaching clinics and bought a youth VB book put out by U.S. Volleyball to learn the basics.
I have 11 girls and need to start 6. Serving is the most important skill at this age because the rallies are short. You serve good, you win. Still A Stroke rated 5th of the 11 players when I made my first starting lineup of 6. She's very good at back line play. OK at front line play. Still learning to serve. Our first game was last Sunday. It is deathly quiet in the gym when you serve and everyone is watching you. Everyone in front of her either served a few in or made it close - all trying overhand. When it was her turn to serve she hit a ball that barely made it to the front row. You get a 2nd chance on your first time serving overhand in every match. I could see she was upset when she got the ball back and the second serve was worse than the first because she was so upset. I could see her fighting back the tears which made me feel really bad for her. When it was her turn to rotate out she told me she didn't feel well. As it got closer to her rotating back in I asked her what she wanted me to do. She said she didn't want to serve to put her in after the server. When she moved up one spot closer she called me over and said "I want to serve". Hmmmmm, cool. She went back in with the eye of the tiger, and promptly missed, but didn't get upset. On her next rotation she tried again underhand this time....no luck. Outside of serving she had a really good game but we lost. 0-1 for the new coach. While other girls didn't get a serve in either - it was eating away at her and for no reason because all we did was tell her how good she played.
On Monday after school she announced to me that her homework was done and she wanted to go work on her serve. I grabbed the bag of 6 balls and Mrs. Fan went as well. We worked on establishing a pattern and imagining a perfect serve as the last step before the toss. We were at the courts for 90 minutes. We had another game Wednesday. On her first serve attempt, she was in a stance to serve underhand and while that shocked me a little I let her go - it JUST MISSED clearing the net and was hit low with a lot of velocity. Some of the other girls were to the point where they could serve their limit and I knew it was bugging her (after 5 points from the same server it's a "side out" at this age). When she rotated around again I could see her going through her mental checklist - BOOM - perfect overhand serve, they return it, we return back and score. She serves overhand again - BOOM - nobody touches it. Point. She lines up again - BOOM - they get to it but can't return. Point. When she gets the ball this time she has the support of her team and the parents. She's smiling....I'm smiling.......of course she forgets her pattern and hits this one right into the net but who cares. We won and she got her mojo back.
That night Mrs. Fan and I were talking about it and we were SO proud of her tenacity. She couldn't stand it that some of the other girls could serve 5 points in a row and she couldn't. It didn't even help to point out that most of them were in 6th grade and she's only in 5th. She saw how the other girls reacted when somebody could serve a few in a row and she wanted the same treatment. It all comes down to your determination and what you're going to apply it to. I was chased by our school tennis coach to play for the team but I worked at Burger King and wanted to make money. I quit playing baseball at Pony League age because I got a paper route (again - money) but I was tired of striking out and had no desire whatsoever to practice hitting a curve ball. Once Still A Dad bought me my first PC, a TI/994a, I couldn't wait to come home and write code. There's nothing cooler as a parent than to watch your kid really like something and want to get better at it.....and then succeeding. I clearly did not have that drive at 10 years old to not strike out.
3 comments:
When a child is motivated it's hard to stop them.
You're story is funny. In baseball I could hit anything except Bob Galasso's fast ball. Couldn't field too well and couldn't throw worth a shit.
In football I could run fast and catch anything but wasn't big enough to take the pounding.
Played Church League Basketball in high school where I was the best player on a team that went 3-15.
Didn't pick up a tennis racquet until I was 18. And didn't take up playing tennis seriously until age 30. Eventually I got pretty good at that.
And only learned to write code on a computer to earn money since I wasn't ever going to make any playing sports!
But I learned a lot about life from striking out and playing on losing teams. And we didn't get no "participation trophies" either. When I finally got a trophy for rec. sports (Team Tennis League Championship in 1986) I thought it was the greatest thing. Almost like I won the Super Bowl.
It's so great to see the "lights go on" in a kid. More power to her!
I also used to be a sandlot athlete growing up. Didn't play much organized sports (except Little League) and preferred playing every sport in tht back yard or driveway.
I had a weird performance curve in Little League... Started off doing very good against my peers. Then all of a sudden one year, I couldn't hit worth a damn. Struck out almost every time. It was quite bewildering and I hung up my cleats.
In the meantime, I got glasses, then we moved across the state. I started Pony League, basically just to meet some other kids. Just as suddenly, I could hit again. Funny what being able to see the ball can do!
i'm trying to think of the most watched good thing i ever did in sports. when my daughter swam in league individual finals, there were a lot of people watching.....heck there's a lot at every invitational we go to. she's fearless of crowds and once danced by herself to a mix i made at a camp talent show with the entire camp and their parents attending.
my baseball games weren't widely watched but i sucked at the plate 3 out of 4 years. nobody watched company softball and i had good success there. i played short and batted second. winter league basketball had 0 viewers. i once played in pepsi 3-on-3 hoop-it-up but again, no fans. nobody saw me play golf and if they did, it was nothing to brag about. i was part of the runner-up mixed doubles intramural champs at college but nobody watched. i ran in three half marathons very recently but again, lots of fans but i did nothing special. in all seriousness, i think the best sports performance i ever had in front of a large crowd was in 6th grade. we had 4 homerooms and after each intramural sport's championship - the teachers picked an all-star team and we played the teachers in front of the entire student body. i was picked for kickball, scooter soccer and nukem. i remember making a diving catch in the nuken game at a critical juncture and getting some hoots and hollers. that's about it. pretty sad. preeeeeeeety sad.
Post a Comment