Looking back at this appalling time in my life, my stomach still turns just thinking about the day when I became a quitter. My parents always tried to instill upon me that whenever you choose to start something, you finish it, especially when it comes to something as big as being a part of a college baseball team. I wanted to quit probably a month before, but my parents talked me into hanging in there for a few more weeks. However, something happened that day where I just snapped. I had hit my bottom. It couldn’t get much worse than the actions I displayed that day. Answering Coach Garcia’s first question… I feel badly about many things that happened that day and my entire sophomore year. It seems almost impossible to narrow it down to one thing specifically, but since the question was posed, I feel obligated to answer it. I’d have to say that bailing out on my team would trump all the other negative feelings I have toward my actions. It was almost expected that we would lose that Super Regional because how could any person perform at their best knowing that one of their team leaders abandoned them the day before. I cannot even imagine what each player felt after my sudden disappearance. As far as ripping up the jersey and writing on it, I must admit at the time I was almost in a different world. This despicable act came as a close second in what I felt bad about the most that day. It is hard enough to think about, let alone write about it to the world. I learned a lot about myself my sophomore year, needing to hit my bottom in order to rise to the top. It was inevitable since I grew up letting my emotions get the better of me. They utterly controlled me and this became the reason for my ultimate downfall. Growing up I was a very emotional kid and let things get to me very easily. This was not the first time by any means that I had a meltdown, but not to this extent. This significant time in my life eventually made me become aware of how my emotions were controlling my life. When someone is run by their emotions and goes through a lot of negative issues in life, eventually they will erupt like Mt. St. Helens. It is one thing to be in touch in with your emotions and be sensitive, but allowing them to completely take control usually lead to irrational thinking. I became very impulsive when I got to high school. I spent quite a bit of times speaking before completely thinking about it when it mattered most; not thinking of the consequences to my actions. I believe negative emotions should be dealt with on your own time; with your family and close friends or a therapist, not for the rest of the world to bare witness. People do not need to suffer from whatever is bothering you at that given moment. I have learned over the years that there is usually another underlying issue behind unnecessary squabbling between people.
“Whatever happens around you, don’t take it personally. If I see you on the street and say, ‘Hey, you are stupid,’ without knowing you; it’s about me. If you take it personally, then perhaps you believe you are stupid. Maybe you are thinking to yourself, ‘How does he know? Is he clairvoyant, or can everybody see how stupid I am?’ You take it personally because you agree with whatever was said. As soon as you agree, the poison goes through you, and you are trapped in the dream of hell. What causes you to be trapped is what we call personal importance. Personal importance, or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we used to make the assumption that everything is about ‘me’. During the period of our education, or our domestication, we learn to take everything personally. We think we are responsible for everything. Me, me, me, always me!”
This was a passage from the book “The Four Agreements” written by Don Miguel Ruiz. This passage described me to a “T”. This book along with “The Secret”, “The Way of the Peaceful Warrior” and Ken Ravizza’s book “Heads Up Baseball: Playing the Game One Pitch at a Time” were a major part of what transformed my game and my life. It all came together slowly once I got to Fullerton, but it would not be until my senior year that I became the ultimate warrior. Now, how I got there… well, you’ll just have to keep on reading!
Back to the coaches questions… My head coach did play a role in this because of the lack of communication. I am not saying in any way that he was responsible for this. I take complete responsibility for my actions. But if I am speaking bluntly, (which is my goal in writing this blog) he lacked the necessary skills to be the complete coach. He is a very successful head coach but not untouchable, which is what every coach should strive to be. You will learn more later about how Coach Horton was a back- to- back National Coach of the year because he was a great communicator with his players. Every day he would have all his thoughts and plans for practice or notes he takes during the game to communicate everything he wanted to tell us. In my long career, I was yet to see such an organized and detailed way of doing things on the ball field. It was like the military. Why do you think it is that we have the best military in the entire world? How many state championships has my coach won? How often did we go to the final four? These are all valid questions in analyzing the teams I have been on. It is the only thing that I can base my knowledge of the game of baseball. I am not out to bash my coaches or “bite the hand that feeds me”. It is my confidence in my knowledge of this game that makes this a powerful blog. With that confidence, I am going to tell it as it is. If I had no confidence, then there would be no way on earth I would be able to write this blog. Over the course of the next few years, I am going to break down the game at a level that has yet to be seen by the 99% of people who play this game. So this is why I may seem to “bash” my coaches, but I hope that one day after reading the entire blog (being the case that they even read it) they will understand and perhaps learn a better mind set instead of playing the victim. After hearing this horrendous story, one would think that the odds of this kid ever becoming successful at baseball again would be impossible. There was only one way, and I happened to stumble upon it by mere chance.
What it all comes down to is that my head coach could have been a better communicator. I remember players talking about how it was hard to speak with him at times and I felt the same way, especially my sophomore year. It was fine my freshman year when everything was great and I was the guy; but when the going got rough for me and I couldn’t figure it out mentally or physically, a coach should be available on an emotional level to speak with his players about whatever problems may be occurring. My coach was simply not emotionally available. Any teacher should be able to connect with their student when the time is needed. At Fullerton, when I needed to vent with someone, it was my assistant coach and now head coach of Loyola Marymount Jason Gil. I eventually felt a connection with all of my coaches, but Gillie was the coach who recruited me and had to tell my entire story to before I would set foot on Goodwin Field. If it wasn’t for Coach Gil, I wouldn’t have even played my senior season, and we may not have made it to Omaha for the 15th time, let alone make the playoffs, which would have been the first time in 16 years. After we lost our final game of the season against Long Beach St., I thought we were not going to make the playoffs as we had finished the season dreadfully ending in 5th place in the Big West Conference. Thanks to a chat that Coach Gil had with me one day in the outfield during BP, I stayed for a second year and became the ultimate warrior, getting to play against my best friend in the College World Series, a game I will never forget.
Part 2… All will be back to normal, answering Coach Garcia’s two other questions on Thursday.
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