May 2008 - Undefeated!

Well, we made it through another softball season. It was a (mostly) great experience. Eric and I coached Maddie's AA Fastpitch team - Swift Plumbing again, to Maddie's dismay. Some of you may remember she had the same sponsor last year and never got over me telling her their hats would be plungers. The team voted to call themselves the Swift Bulldogs... That worked to make everyone feel better.

It was a blast to watch the girls' skills develop over the course of those 2 months. Eric and I decided to really coach - demand the best out of the girls, even if it meant yelling and making them run laps. It really worked. The other coaches said, "We just want them to go have fun." Our argument was, how can they have fun if they don't know what to do? That just creates frustration and anxiety. We gave them the tools, worked on minute mechanics, ran situations until they were asking if we could just go run laps... But come game days, they showed up ready to play. Every single player stepped up to the plate and truly improved. And they were a team because we made them accountable to one another. They cheered each other on from the dugout and on the field. What a cool thing to watch develop!

The season wrapped up last week with our girls going 12-0! Undefeated! It was pretty exciting to see these girls realize their abilities. We decided to coach because Maddie had a coach last year tell us he wasn't going to teach them something because "they're just girls." To Eric and I, they were players and deserved to know what they were doing right and wrong. Was it always perfect? Absolutely not, but they learned and we hope this base that we gave them is something they will be able to build on for years to come. We had 6 of the 13 girls on our team that had never played organized fastpitch before. At the end of the season, 2 of the other coaches accused us of having a "stacked team." Eric got angry because he thought that wasn't giving the girls credit for all of the hard work they'd done. I think that was the ultimate compliment - going from never having played before to having a reputation around the league as All-Stars! You go, girls! Tune in for more on Parker's season...