Youth-Athlete's Sport Blog

On Saturday April 26, 2008 in the Div 2 Great Northwest Athletic Conference softball finals between Western Oregon and Central Washington, Mallory Holtman and Liz Wallace demonstrate an incredible act of sportsmanship after Sara Tucholsky hit a home run and is injured rounding first base.  What did Mallory and Liz do?  They carried the opponents outfielder around the bases, making sure Sara touched them all, for what eventually turned out to be the winning run.  Although Central Washington lost the game 4-2, Mallory and Liz act of kindness demonstrated sportsmanship that will be used as an example by parents and coaches for years to come.  More...

It is much easier to build you athlete's confidence when they are performing well, but unfortunately it is not easy to obtain successful results in sports.  As the coach, it is unrealistic for your players to expect you to be positive 7/24/365.  There are going to be times when you need to correct them after they make a mistake or are upset with them because of a lack of effort.  Many athletes admit that their coaches need to be hard on them at times to get their attention, which raises the question: How do you correct your athletes without them getting down on themselves?  This is the real trick of coaching - knowing how to preserve your athletes' confidence when you need to correct them.  More...

This story about golf balls in a jar highlights the fact that there are very few life priorities, but a lot of activities that can distract you from those things that are important things. More...

I recently posted the details about hitting fundamentals (stance, loading, bat speed generation, swing, follow through) and the feedback was pretty consistent.  "Great description, but where are the drills to perfect the swing!"   Truth be told, the dills we do can be found all over the web.  The secret sauce is not in some special new drill, but in organizing the hitting practice to maximize the fundamentally correct swings to develop proper muscle memory. More...