Skip to main content

Reply to "Lessons in retrospect"

Once again, it's been quite a while since I've posted. HSBBW came to mind recently because of what I had told you all about in my earlier post (see above). Frankly, I think I said just about everything I wanted to say then, and I'm not completely sure if I have anything to add, but I wanted to check in anyway.

 

Since I was last here, my athletic career came to an end. Senior Day was such an incredible experience, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I left the locker room for the last time fully satisfied that I was moving on to another exciting part of my life, but I will always miss that locker room. More than anything, Senior Day was my way of validating for myself that I was able to fight through challenging circumstances.

 

As for baseball, I do have a confession: for the longest time, I was mad at the sport. I couldn't stand to watch it or even really think about it. I felt that I had wasted my time with it because I ended up playing a different sport in college and all of the "love" I had put into the game felt unrequited. I felt that I didn't deserve the treatment I had received from my high school coaches (and I didn't), and that the game might have made me more upset than it ever made me happy.

 

As Spring training approaches, I am finally getting over that. I never had any right to be mad at the game. I had misplaced my frustration with specific elements of my situation. A psychologically abusive high school baseball environment does not mean that baseball itself is psychologically abusive. The fact that I made tons of mistakes during the recruiting process is my fault because I did not seek out the advice I needed and did not follow it when I got it. The fact that I did not play baseball in college, even though I wanted to so badly, is also my own fault, or better put, a consequence of my own decisions. Playing any Division I sport is an honor, and I now see it that way.

 

I think the single biggest problem with our society is that we feel the need to make everything look like it is perfect and that success is always predestined. It's not. I wish adults who I had encountered in my childhood, particularly very successful adults, had told me more about challenges that they overcame so that when I faced my own, I could have understood that this is normal. 

 

I see this problem in my classmates all the time, and especially in myself. We often think that something is wrong when we hit a brick wall. In fact it's the opposite! The only way that success would be easy would be if we set the bar low, and that would make success lose its value. I fell short on my baseball goals, and on my athletic goals in general.  It's not that baseball was unfair to me; it's that it was impartial. I put in a lot of work by my athletically weak high school's standards, but as I learned in college, that's nothing compared to what other athletes across the country were doing. I deserved my athletic fate, and I'm alright with that. I wish I had done things differently, so I will now with my other life goals.

 

Parents and Coaches, PLEASE go out of your way to share some message similar to this with the kids in your life. I wish I had understood that frustration is an indication of high standards and means that you should work harder. It wasn't entirely my fault; every time I watched a game on TV, all I heard about was how genetically gifted player XYZ is, and never about that time when I'm sure he felt like he had failed, yet something in his life convinced him to redouble his efforts. 

 

Players, don't dismiss this as some phony adult saying what he thinks he should say. I AM 21 YEARS OLD. I AM ESSENTIALLY YOUR AGE. Learn from my mistakes. Be proactive and try and find someone who wants to help you change a bad situation. When you get advice that is given in your best interest (which I really think people can naturally discern, by the way), TAKE IT. If you don't know how to act on the advice you've been given, ask. Tell the productive adults in your life what's frustrating you and come up with a practical plan to change it. That is what I have been doing with the situations I face now, and it has made me so much more happy and successful. 

 

You are welcome to message me if you ever want to hear more about how I've approached things or chat about ideas for you/your son/your player. There are tons of caring, passionate people on this forum. This is a great support group. Use it.

×
×
×
×