All in

As a new school year begins and fall sports games get going, I’m sure most of us are wondering how the next group of teams will fare. The talent levels for each particular team will play out with a lot of variables.

Things like depth, injuries and how well the young kids’ progress will dictate how far the season will progress.

It takes a lot of hard work in the offseason with weightlifting and getting in shape; going to camps and trusting in the coaches.

Having a successful season takes a lot from a lot of people and playing each play as if it is your last should be part of the mission statement.

As in play each ‘Play each play as if it is your last because one day it will be.’

On Sunday I was watching the Little League World Series (LLWS) final between Texas and Japan.

I was listening to the announcers talk about what the kids from Japan were doing in practice. They said that the kids started practice at 6 a.m.

Their coach practiced defense for five hours.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to ask how many days a week this was going on, because I would have liked to know. All I do know is that the team from Japan was serious about winning the championship.

If you are or were a parent of a little league player what would you say if the coach told you to have your kid at the baseball diamond at 6 a.m. and that you can pick him up around 12 or 1 p.m?

Does the conversation go something like this, “What are you trying to do win the Little League World Series?” I think we know what the answer might be.

I was thinking to myself, “Five hours of defense?” Then I saw some of the plays these kids were making and I thought, “It paid off!”

I wondered about how many parents would have said, “No, my son has swim lessons at 8 so he can only be at practice for about 1 hour and 45 minutes, and then he has piano or violin lessons at 10:30 so his morning is pretty much taken up. Sorry!”

At this point in time I’m sure the exasperated coach would say, “That’s fine. I think he will be a fine swimmer, pianist or violinist but he will never be a baseball player. Thank you for the time we had.”

I couldn’t tell you how much practice time the kids from Texas had but it had to be a lot.

When you are from one community adults have a way of figuring out who the really good players are and find a really good coach to mentor this group.

Then you need to get the parents to buy in because it is a journey to play in the LLWS and usually kids thrive on success and the more they win the more they want to continue those winning ways.

I’ve heard about more than one parent who thinks that too much of an emphasis is made about winning. “Why do we need to keep score? We should just be having fun out there!”

I played on three little league teams. The first team I played on lost every game except for a tie game we had. That was a moral victory.

The next year we won a little over half of our games and the final year we won the championship with one loss and defeated an all-star team made up of the best players from the remaining teams.

Which season do you think I enjoyed the most?

There is a good chance that we put a fair amount of emphasis on winning. But kids can count and they know what the score is even if there isn’t a scoreboard.

It is a natural tendency to want to win because dang, it feels good to win. And to be successful you need to be all in.

It takes a lot to reach the top but it always seems to be worth it.