Being Responsible

Whether it is a job, a sport or just life in general you have to accept the fact that you are going to take on a lot more responsibility. In a job you have a certain task you have to do, if you don’t do that task then you aren’t taking on that responsibility. In sports you play one position. You don’t need to worry about what other people are doing with their position. The only thing you need to be focused on is taking the responsibility on of being the best player you can be. When you become a teenager, it is obvious that you have to take on more and more responsibilities the older you get. Some teenagers may have to get a job and they are responsible of being there on time every day they have to work. Other teenagers start driving and they have to be responsible and keep their car from being damaged or anything like that. And the biggest responsibility of most teenagers is to stay in school and to get good grades. I think parents should give their children responsibilities to show them what the real world is like. Taking on responsibilities make you into the kind of individual you are going to be in the future.

“It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.”
-Josiah Charles Stamp

Building Relationships

When it is during the softball or basketball season I spend a lot of time with my teammates. At least 6 days a week we have practice and if we don't have practice we have a game. I'm around my teammates and coaches more than I'm around my parents! This is pretty crazy, but I wouldn't exactly say it is a bad thing. It is very easy to build relationships with teammates. You spend so much time with them and they turn into your second family. My softball teammates and basketball teammates are like my sisters. We actually have a better relationship than I do with my REAL sister! You would think after spending hours and hours with my teammates every single day I would want a break from them. But usually on our days off we are spending them together. You don't get tired of best friends and that is a good thing! Building relationships makes playing sports that much better. Of course we don't go to practice just to gossip, but being on the same team working hard and winning is a lot of fun.

Also building relationships with your coaches is an important thing. If there is no relationship then the coach will look at you like an average player and they may not even remember your name. Like for me my coaches even have nicknames for me. My softball coach calls me Skimmy Lomer and my basketball coach calls me Kimmy. I like how I can joke around with my coaches, but then we still know how to work hard and when to be serious.

Making new friends while playing sports is just another plus. You build life long relationships with friends that you will never forget. The memories that you and your best friends make are like no one elses, they are one of a kind and you can't share them with anyone else. I will never forget the coaches and friends I have made through sports, they will always be a part of my life.

"When all is said and done, it's not the shots that won the championship that you remember, but the friendships you made along the way."
-Unknown

Do What You Love

Everyone loves a certain activity that they do in their life. For me it is sports, for others it may be drama, volunteering, reading, working, hanging out with friends or whatever else you can think of. If you don't have something you love doing, then your ways need to change.

The reason I play sports is because I love it. When I play softball and basketball I leave all of my problems in the dugout or in the locker room. I step onto the field or court and all my problems are gone, all I have to worry about is having fun with friends and working hard (which isn't that hard to do). Playing sports puts me in a good mood and I seem to smile a lot when I play sports. If I didn't love playing sports then there would be no reason to play them.

I think jobs are the same way. If you don't love your job, then find one that you do love. You may have to go to college a few more years, but if it makes you happy then I'd have to say it is totally worth it. Every morning you shouldn't wake up dreading going to work. That is not how you need to spend the rest of your life. If you wake up in the morning and your excited to go to work, this is when you love doing what you do.

The way I look at this situation is, love what you do and do it with a smile :)

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."
~Albert Schweitzer

Just Deal With It!

Everything you do in life you don't always have the choice of who you get to work with. At a job your co-worker may be someone with a complete opposite personality that you have. Your interests may be totally different so there is absolutely nothing to talk about. This is really hard to deal because in most cases you aren't the boss so you don't get to pick the people you work with. If you go to your boss and tell he/she that you don't like the person you work with, your only reason will be that you have nothing in common. That is not a good enough reason and the boss will probably like this more because they wont have to worry about you guys talking more than working.

It is the same thing in sports. You can't pick your teammates unless you are the coach. Speaking for high school girls, you may not like a teammate because they stole your boyfriend our was talking crap about you. Those are really good reasons not to like them, but there is no reason why they should be kicked off the team. You have to learn to get along with them for only a couple hours a day. Usually you just have to get through a 2 to 3 hour long practice without beating them up and after practice you don't have to worry about them again till the next day. Sometimes you just have to work with people you don't necessarily like. Sucking it up for a few hours can't hurt you.

"I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?"
-Jean Cocteau

We Can't Control Our Thoughts, But We Can Control Our Words

There are many times when people (including me) just want to yell at teammates during a game or during practice. A lot of times there will be a player on your team that ALWAYS makes mistakes. You tell them how to correct their mistake and guess what? They make the same mistake over and over again. This not only shows how they are as a player, but it also reflects the whole team and the coaches. It makes it seem like the coaches don't teach right from wrong, and it looks like the team doesn't care about their teammate. There are always going to be teammates like this.

In the working world the same thing is going on. Lets say we work for this company. Everyone goes above and beyond what they were told to do... Except for one person. This person is in charge of sales. Everytime his phone rings there is a chance that he could make a sale for the company... But instead he lets the call go to voicemail and misses out on the sale. The boss will start to look at the sales guy's numbers that he has been putting up. The boss will find that his employee is putting in little effort and is making his company look bad. I can bet you that many employees want to yell at this guy but they bite their tongue instead. Sometimes it is for the best and in the long run you wont have to deal with him anymore.

Like the title says, we can't control our thoughts, but we can control our words!

"Self-determination is fine but needs to be tempered with self-control."
-Unknown

Why Not Push Yourself?

Pushing yourself to the limit. Why do people push themselves till they can't go anymore. This made no sense until I was put in this situation. State softball only comes around once a year. This is when all the teams start to get focused on their main goal (winning a state championship). All season long you work hard for this one reason. You want to prove to everyone that you can compete with the best, and most of all you want to show everyone that you ARE THE BEST!
Each and every day at practice you push yourself till you feel like you are going to pass out. You do this because you know in the end, it will all pay off. The dedication you put in and the hours after practice or on the weekends show everyone your dedication and your love for the sport. Taking grounders in the backyard or going to hit in the cage paid off. Grounders were no longer my worst fear and hitting wasn't as bad as I thought it was after all. Doing these little things showed me how much you have to work at practice and on your own to be the best player you can be. So why not push yourself if its all going to pay off in the end? Push yourself in practice and leave it all on the field without holding anything back!

"Most men stop when they begin to tire.
Good men go until they think they are going to collapse.
But the very best know the mind tires before the body and push themselves further and further, beyond all limits.
Only when their limits are shattered can the attainable be reached."
- Mark Mysnyk

Your Coach and Boss May Not Be Your Favorite People

In life people are going to find people that they don't like. This may be a boss, a coach, a teacher or even someone in the family. I have had plenty of bad coaches in all the years that I have been playing sports. It is really tough to keep loving what you do if a particular thing or person is holding you back.
For the most part I have been really lucky with teachers. I haven't had too many that I just can't stand being around or listening to their voice for an hour is torture. I'm not really looking for a job yet because I am really busy during the school year, but I know there are bosses out in the real world that are CRAZY! Things have to be done the way they want it in the amount of time they want it done. People everyday around the world have to work through obstacles like this. I know a lot of times people may not like some of their family members, but I am sorry to say that you can only choose your friends not your family.
Now back to the bosses and coaches not being your favorite people. If you love a job enough or a sport enough, then you shouldn't let anything stop you. A coach may rip you apart by the things he/she says to you, but if your love for the game outweighs your dislike for the coach then there is no reason to quit playing. You can't let the coach think that he/she won his battle because that is just another weakness that they found. Staying strong and pushing through obstacles in life is the only way to survive.

"If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere."
-Frank A. Clark

Mistakes Happen

Everyone always tries to be perfect. But why??? It's pretty obvious that no one can be perfect in absolutely everything. Of course there is a point where you can come close to being perfect but I can personally say it is impossible to be perfect.
Mistakes are going to happen to everyone. They happen to NBA players, they happen to celebrities, and they happen to average people. Some people may deny this, but I would have to say that every single person has made at least five mistakes in their life. I'm not saying they are the biggest mistakes of their lives, I'm talking about the little mistakes too.
I always learn from mistakes. I can be in math class and I make a mistake on one of the questions. The next time I come across a problem like that I remember the mistake I made the last time and I correct it and do it the right way. I can be at softball practice and I keep popping the ball up when trying to hit. The next time I go up to bat I tell myself not to drop my hands, but instead I take my hands straight to the ball and hit a line drive. I know many times people at work make mistakes no matter how many years they have had the same job. You can't be perfect at everything because sometimes you don't know the right thing to do. All I can say is that mistakes are going to happen no matter what, don't let them stop you. Successful people make mistakes, but they don't quit.

“All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes.”
-Winston Churchill

Body Language Says It All

How many times have you heard, "Body language says it all." I hate hearing this especially when it is directed towards me. I know its the truth but I hate admitting it. Of course they aren't talking about good body language... They are talking about hanging the head and slumping the shoulders. In sports and your not on a winning team, it is very hard to keep your head up and act like nothing is wrong. Keeping your composure is one of the toughest things to do. So many times I've felt like I just need to yell at someone in order to get all my frustration out. When I don't do something to let my frustration out it all starts to build up and in the end, its an explosion! I'm not sure what is better, being frustrated or wanting to give up... Or BOTH!
Sometimes I don't even know what kind of body language I am showing. I could be really nervous and I don't think I'm showing it at all, but really I make it very obvious. The true test of body language is when you are struggling and not having the best day. There are always going to be bad referees, teachers, bosses and coaches that you have to work your way past. Taking the higher road is the smartest way to handle these kinds of problems. Keeping your appearance consistent and strong, keeping your head high, and avoid any whining or shoulder shrugs.

"Body language can work wonders for a team, or it can spell disaster"
-Unknown

Wishing Upon A Star

We all have those things in life where you just wish you could do something. For example go to a concert of your favorite singer, meet your idol, get the job you've always dreamed of. I wish that one day I can meet Pat Summit. In my opinion she is the best college women's basketball coach of all time. I bet her name may not ring a bell to you unless you are really into basketball. She coaches for the University of Tennessee and has won many National Championships. I wish that I could actually play for her but that is letting my dreams get too carried away.
Pat Summit always tells her players to set goals as individuals and as a team. She says that she doesn't want her players to get too carried away with their goals. Her team always sets goals that they know they can achieve as long as they work hard. Holding teammates accountable for the goals you have set as a team is a big deal. Personally, I find it harder to achieve a goal all by myself than it is achieving a goal with a teammate pushing me along.
Setting goals doesn't have to happen just in sports. It happens every single day. Someone at work can say "My goal for the day is to help as many customers as possible." Goals don't have to be out of reach, they need to be reasonable so you don't feel like a failure. You can also set goals in school. You can say, "My goal for tonight is that I'm going to do all of my homework." Goals give you something to work for, without them people start to slack off.
If your goal is not met, there is no reason why you should give up. It's kind of like the quote, "If at first you don't succeed, try and try again. Giving up isn't going to make anyone better.
Since I was talking about Pat Summit I figured this would be a good time to use a quote from her.

"Set a goal that stretches you, requires exceptional effort, but one that you can reach."
-Pat Summit

Sports in College

Sports in college! I don't know how many people consider going on to college to play sports but I know I have. This has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. All I ever wanted to watch on tv was college basketball. I would beg my parents to take me to the OJC games. And I wasn't like the other kids that went to watch the game. I would sit down and watch the WHOLE game even though all of my friends were there. All they would do is run around and I thought watching basketball would be a lot more entertaining than running around. I wasn't even a teenager yet but I knew what my goal in life was.
Then I started talking to college students that are athletes and that is when my mind started to change. They told me that playing a sport in college is more like having a job than it is just being in a sport. They have practice at least one time a day, usually two times a day. They go out of town for games and even sometimes out of state. There would be some long days and some late nights. Of course in college you can choose to go to class or not, but if you are an athlete it would probably be pretty smart to go to class so your grades would stay up. There are a bunch of disadvantages of being a college athlete. You pretty much have a job, but they don't pay you. From the athletes that I have talked to it doesn't seem like they have much of a life outside the sport they are playing. Yes, it is cool that your teammates turn into your family, but no one compares to your real family. It would be really hard to go home and visit on the weekends if you wanted to.
So I'm really having a hard time deciding if I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to play sports in college. Of course I would be dissapointed in myself for not pursuing my dream, but when it comes to the time when I need to make a decision I hope I make the right choice.

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."
-Henry David Thoreau

How Do I Keep Waking Up Every Morning?

How do I keep waking up every morning? Every single day I lay in bed and wonder why I keep getting up. At the end of the school day I wonder why I keep going to practice. I work hard every single day at practice and you know what my reward is? My reward = ANOTHER loss. Sure sounds like a good reward huh?.... NOT!!!! There are a few girls on our team that bust their butts all of the time. We run up and down the court at practice and in the games. We have the heart to keep playing and not give up no matter what the score is. I've learned to not even look at the scoreboard anymore because all it really is, is a bunch of numbers. But then you get to thinking about it and those numbers determine the outcome of the game. What are we supposed to do now? Keep pushing ourselves to the limit and get nothing out of it? I don't know about the other girls on my team but I am really tough on myself. Whether it is in practice or in the game, on the weekends or if I have any free time, I'm shooting. I'm always looking for ways to get better. I just wish everyone would want to do everything they could to make themselves a better player.

Now back to my question... Why do I keep getting up every morning and going to practice??? I think the answer is self motivation. I strive to be the best at everything I can be. I know there is no "I" in team but I feel like if I do my part and I give it my all then I can't get down on myself. I know I'll be disappointed with another loss but I can't help it sometimes.

"No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings."
~William Blake~

life lessons and sports: Introduction

life lessons and sports: Introduction

Its a Way of Life

Learning the fundamentals of any game is needed in order to be a decent player. If you play softball you need to know how to catch the ball and throw the ball. Not knowing how to do that will really slow down your game, its almost impossible to play without knowing the fundamentals. If you play basketball you need to know how to dribble, pass, shoot, and you need to know the rules of the game. Every single sport is the same whether it is golf, football, softball, basketball, baseball, tennis, track, volleyball, swimming, or wrestling.

I was thinking about "learning the fundamentals." It made me think about having a job. If you don't know the basic things about the job like how to type, how to answer the phone, or how to file papers, your job is going to be a lot harder than it really should be. Knowing the fundamentals about anything is just a way of life.

Really good athletes shouldn't look at practicing fundamentals as being boring, they should think positive and say that they are making their skills better. Working on fundamentals can never hurt you, it can only make your "game" better. Of course some people are just born with talent and it seems as if they are good at everything but without learning the correct fundamentals then that player will never be as good as they have the potential to be. Hard work + fundamentals = high potential.

"Perhaps the single most important element in mastering the techniques and tactics of racing is experience. But once you have the fundamentals, acquiring the experience is a matter of time."
~Greg LeMond~

Attitude is EVERYTHING!

I feel like it is hard to have a positive attitude about everything in life. I don't know if you feel the same way but I find it very difficult. Keeping a positive attitude in sports, school, work, with friends, with family and many other things can be a hard task for many people. I'm one of those people. Let me give an example... Your playing in a basketball game and the score is 87-20 (your on the losing team). How do most players react to this? The majority of the players get their heads down and it is hard for their confidence to get very high. Parents say, "Don't look at the scoreboard just work on the things you need to work on to make your team stronger." For me it is IMPOSSIBLE to not look at the scoreboard. I'm always wanting to know how many minutes are left, how many points we need to make to tie it up, or even the number of fouls the other team has. I'll admit, I'm not a very positive person and I hate that about myself... Somehow I always manage to find something negative about a situation, I know thats really bad but I can't help it.

I'm very lucky because I have a best friend that knows exactly what to say to keep me positive about everything. Not just in sports but about life too. If it wasn't for her I don't know if I would be doing very well this basketball season. I read this article the other day and it really surprised me but it made a lot of sense. It said that most sport psychologists agree that attitude plays a major role in the establishment of long and short-term goals. The more positive the athlete's attitude, the more likely he or she is of achieving these goals. The more negative the attitude, the less likely he or she is of achieving these goals. Reading that article made me want to stay positive all the time because when I achieve personal goals that I set for myself it makes me feel really good.

If your job is to be a cashier and you don't have a positive attitude towards the customers, your boss will be hearing about it shortly. Keeping a positive attitude in school can push you through the day. Keeping a positive attitude with friends and family will get more people to like you and in the end being positive benefits everyone... Not just yourself. So now my goal in life is to be as positive as I can about everything.

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."
- Winston Churchill-

Winning and Losing

I've heard many people say, "Winning is everything." But really is winning EVERYTHING? Honestly I don't think so because you can learn so many things from losing. Of course no one likes to lose, but nobody is perfect and can win all the time. I'll admit that I'm a sore loser, I absolutely HATE losing. After losing a game I'm not in a very good mood and I'll take out my anger on anyone who tries talking to me. But on the other hand I also feel like I get something out of losing. It shows me what our team needs to work on as a whole and what I need to work on individually. If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that's a big accomplishment.

Too bad things can't be how they used to be when we were 5 years old. We would play t-ball but no one kept score we just played for the fun of it. Even in parks and recreation we played because we loved hanging out with our friends and playing a sport that we fell in love with. Ever since I was about 6 years old or even younger, basketball became my favorite sport. I would carry my basketball with me everywhere I went. I played every single day that I could and then my dream was that I wanted to play basketball in college and if I could go even farther than college I would. This dream started to fade away once my sophomore year in high school came. Let me cut the story short... We didn't win too many games and like I said before, I HATE LOSING! So after each loss, my love for the game kept decreasing and decreasing. Now I'm in the middle of my Junior year and I don't even like playing basketball anymore because of all the losing.

I also play softball and we have a very good team. Softball in La Junta is very well known and it is like a habit for us to go to state every year. We love to win and when you win, your love for the game increases. I started off playing softball just because it was pretty fun but I never thought about playing after high school. Winning never gets old for me and because we win in softball I love the sport so much! It's hard to say if winning is everything because in life your always trying to win. You want to beat another person out for a job or you want to win the lottery. People have a lot more fun when they win but there can never be 2 winners in the same game. One team gets the win, one team gets the loss... You can learn from both winning and losing.

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
~Michael Jordan~

The Best Person For The Job

I was thinking about this summer when I had a job and I started to compare it to playing sports. I found out that sports are a lot like jobs. When you are trying to get a job, the owner/person who is looking for someone to work for them wants the best person for the job. I'm pretty sure they aren't looking to hire a lazy bum that doesn't even want to be at work. When playing sports the coach wants to have his best players out on the field or on the court. He/she wants to have players in that are going to get the job done and do what is asked of them. A coach is pretty much like your boss for your job. You have to work your hardest when on the field or court and if you don't it's pretty obvious who will be sitting the bench. This is like when you're working, lets say your job is to clean houses. If you don't dust everything or vacuum all the rooms then it's obvious who is going to get fired.

Having the right work ethic is the key. The definition of work ethic is: a set of values based on the moral virtues of hard work and diligence. If one person can clean a house in 1 hour and another person clean the same house in 2 hours and the same quality of work is done then more than likely the individual who cleaned the house at a faster pace will be the one keeping the job. It's the same exact way in sports... In a softball game 2 people can have the same exact hit but the one who is running their hardest around the bases will be the one getting the reward in the end. Having the right work ethic benefits a lot of people, but most of all yourself. If you can tell yourself after a game that you left it all out on the field then you can't regret anything you did. At the end of the day after working and you remember slacking off a little bit here and there you are only cheating yourself.

"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary."
~Attributed to both Vidal Sassoon and Donald Kendall~

Walking Away

In life you are going to make many decisions. And it's not just adults that make decisions, everyone starts when they are very young. It may not be the biggest decision of your life but in the future everybody has to make those right choices. Choices like do i want to go to college or not? I think sports can keep a lot of kids out of trouble. In middle school one of my friends played basketball with me and yes she was kind of a trouble maker, but she was a good kid. The next year they cut her from the team and guess what? She ended up getting pregnant and dropped out of school. Just think what kind of future she could have had if only she made the team that year.

When your really busy you don't have time to get mixed in with the wrong group of people or start using drugs or cutting class. It's really easy to give into peer pressure to your so called "friends." You have to make up your mind and say if I want to be successful then I'm going to have to start taking the right path. When your "friends" ask you to cut class or go do drugs this won't be a problem because when those kinds of things come in your way you will walk away.

There has been many times while in sports that my friends have asked me to do something I don't want to do. I've already told myself that nobody can make me do something that I don't feel comfortable doing. If my friends look at me different just because I don't do drugs and I don't drink then they can. I'm in control of my destiny and I don't want to end up being a nobody. I know that if i start going down the wrong path in life then all my dreams of playing sports in college will be going down the drain. All you have to do is stand up for what you believe is right and who knows maybe you will be setting an example for some people.

"Sports do not build character. They reveal it."

Introduction

Okay so i know that not everyone plays sports, but I know a lot of people that do. I play both softball and basketball and no matter what sport I'm playing I always learn something. Surprising or not the things I learn help me out in every day life. There are many things that you can learn from by participating in sports such as; learning how to deal with pressure, setting goals, meeting challenges, learning how to handle with both a win and a loss, wise decision making and self-motivation. I think having the right attitude towards anything is the key to success. I think it should be easy to share the life lessons that i learn each day and relate them to sports and to life in general.

"Play like you're in first, but train like you're in second." ---Unknown