Blog Post #1 I am interning with my coach who also runs a travel ball organization that has multiple teams with different age groups as young as 7 years old! I'm an assistant coach alongside my brother which is so amazing! I'm not really nervous about anything because I've been playing my whole life, however I am so excited to be back on the field considering high school season is over. This week I learned that no matter how young a player is, it really shows how much they love the game through their effort. I just see so many qualities in the players that I had when I was younger and it makes me so happy to see them so excited to play the game that they love. Such an amazing sight to see these little 8 year old munchkins overthrowing balls and just laughing and smiling. Blog Post #2 This week there actually was one interesting obstacle that I encountered and it was with one of the younger players named Memphis. I was soft tossing baseballs to Memphis and he kept on chopping at the ball and I spent around 15 minutes with him helping him adjust his swing and by the end of practice he was making much better contact and it felt good knowing that I really do have an impact on these kids and they look up to me! this week my coach and assistant coach let us do drills with the kids without them supervising and they just gave me some tips on how not to get mad when they aren't doing the best. They just joked about how sometimes it's so hard not to just get upset with the kids and the key to effective coaching is to stay calm and try explaining the drill differently if kids don't understand. Blog Post #3 One specific skill that has helped me so fr has been communication and approaching problems from different views and perspectives. it's much easier to talk to the kids because not only have we collaborated with high tech elementary but we also specialize I communication skills. There as an incident where two kids were messing around in the outfield and the coach told me to go handle it so I approached them and just helped keep them on focus and I almost felt like a teachers aid. I also have learned that if you make jokes and are friendly with the kids they will respect you for life! This has been nothing like any project I've done because I'm loving every sexond of this and I'm actually sad when i have to leave because I have so much fun coaching the game I grew up playing and it doesn't feel like school, it feels like I'm just playing ball all day. |