20 Min Blog #1

Bad softball coaches are something I could definitely be an expert in.  Throughout my 14 years of playing softball, I've had two coaches I can confidently say had my best interest at heart, one of them being my own father.  All the others wanted to do was play mind games with young teenage girls at a sensitive time in their life.  I've been through the ringer when it comes to adversity in sports.  Starting when I first started playing fastpitch for my community team, I wanted to start pitching.  I was so excited to start, but I was already being told to give up because the coach's daughter was a pitcher, so I would have to be pretty great in order to get time on the mound.  I didn't care.  I started pitching anyways, and the coach hated that I was just as good as her daughter.  When i was recruited by an elite team,  my community team had a fit when i decided to leave. I started traveling to places all over the country.  The first elite softball program I was in, I was dragged through the mud. I had talent, but I understood I was not the best player in this new elite world.  Although I was not the star of the team, I did deserve to play, to get better, and to grow.  My coaches only had the interest for me to be an insurance player. They would give me bits and pieces of playing time, telling me my time would come.  Then, my family and I would spend all this money to travel around the country just to sit on the bench.  My coach played mind games with me once I did get recognized and became a starter after waiting patiently for my shot.  I think he had little man syndrome.  He wanted to feel powerful, but he wasn't a very tall man so maybe that impacted his ego. Jesus was what I was focusing on when I was constantly overlooked, and played with.  The next elite coach I had was wonderful.  After switching elite programs to a team that was many levels more enjoyable than the first program I was in, I found my softball family.  I had learned many things about the game during my bench time, my waiting time. When I was finally given a chance to thrive and show off my skills, I had so much fun. I finally had a coach that wanted me to grow not only as a softball player, but in my character as a person.  I got three and a half great years of softball.  Throughout that time, I had started being recruited by college coaches.  My high school season came along each spring, along with the coach for it. Throughout my high school softball career, he was rude, played favorites, strung you along, and altogether, I started in maybe 5 games in my 5 years being on Varsity- I was the only one on the team with a college scholarship to play softball.  And he didn't play me.  I am so grateful for this though, because this experience has developed me as a person.  I have a patient character because of it, and I soon became content knowing that not even a coach could get in the way of God's plan for me.  Bench me? So what.  I know I deserved more, but I didn't complain.  I waited, and I set an example for younger kids.  At my senior banquet, my parents and I had a family come up to us afterwards in tears because of how unfairly I was treated.  Everyone else knew it, we knew it, but it didn't change that I was happy about it. I was setting an example for the younger kids that even a big bully coach can't stop me. Jesus is always the answer.  Bad softball coaches have proven that to me, and made me so confident in that.