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No Fear
by Dave
Friday, May 09, 2008
I've experienced "the fear." That was quite a while ago. I'm over that now. I've seen the fear in others' eyes. There doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it other than to explain what I mean by "the fear," how I overcame it, and what I think others ought to do when they experience it or see it in others' eyes.
"The fear" refers to fear of the unknown - that which we can only imagine, of course in a travel soiftball setting. More specifically, the kind of fear I am referring to is fear of going to a "nationals" tournament whether that be ISA, USSSA, FAST, PONY, NSA, or some other fastpitch sanctioning body.
Many bodies which sanction some sort of nationals require a team to earn their bid via a national qualifying tournament (NQ). Several provide a means by which a team hosting a NQ can acquire a bid by virtue of their hosting the NQ. The value of obtaining a hosting bid is, a team can plan to attend well in advance and set their sites on preparing for attendance from the outset of the season. Obviously, the value of earning a bid is the team knows they belong there. They are going because they won a NQ or because the team which beat them in the NQ final already owned a bid. But trust me when I tell you that even though a team may have earned their way, they are going to have a logistical nightmare trying to get everyone and everything organized enough to get there in good shape to compete well.
I said that I've experienced "the fear." A few years back, we both hosted a NQ and earned a bid to go there. We had joined the team knowing that they were going to nationals. That was condition of being on that team. Yet, as the season wore on, we suffered numerous injuries and shortly before we were supposed to leave, we were down to 9 players at a tournament in which there was a bid at stake.
Most of the teams were headed to the same nationals we were going to. Several had earned bids and a few were going on host bids. Generally, the best teams from our state were playing this tournament. And we got smoked. We were mercied three straight preliminary games in 4 innings, mostly because every able body played every game and there was no way to rest a pitcher or catcher - we were down to one and a half pitchers and just one catcher. The day of elimination games, we held our own despite being a bottom seed, playing against a much higher one. We lost that elimination game but it boiled down to a late run scored on an error. I felt then and I feel now that we should have won that game.
After that tournament, I think 75% of our team felt we just couldn't go to nationals. We weren't healthy and although two of the three injured kids would likely be able to play some, we still weren't entirely whole yet. We grumbled along the sidelines "how can this team go to nationals?" I think I forgot to mention that 75% of the team had never been to nationals before. Finally we mustered the courage to go before the team's manager and plead our case against going. He listened long and hard. Then he thanked us for our opinions and informed us that "we are still going."
That manager was right. The team competed well, going 3-4 and losing yet another game we could easily have won. Had we won the game which eliminated us, I believe we would have won the next one and then had a shot at going into the final round. We were that close. There was no reason to fear anything.
I also said that I've seen "the fear" in others' eyes. Obviously I saw it in the eyes of parents and players from the team I just discussed. But I've seen it in a number of other people's eyes as well.
Last year, one team was trying to get my daughter to join them for this year. I asked the head coach what their plans were. he mentioned several tournaments, some of which were NQs and many involved lesser competition. I asked him directly about the prospect of going to nationals, any nationals. He replied, "well, we're playing several qualifiers, so there's a shot we'd go. Sure, I'd be interested in going to nationals ... provided we won our bid. We wouldn't want to go unless we won our bid."
So I told him flat out, "there is no way that you are going to win a bid in late June and get it together enough to book a hotel, make travel arrangements, and get all these people to nationals. The only way you are going to go is to make plans right out of the box and then make sure you go. The way you have your schedule set up right now, you won't be able to anyways because you have something planned for the week they are being held."
The team had arranged to play one of those tournaments near some big theme park where there are lots of touristy things to do. The coach told me, "it's a really, really good tournament and the families all like going there because we stay a few days extra and make a vacation out of it."
OK, that's fine but it is not nationals. You don't get to go to some place and make a softball experience out of a vacation. It is just not the same thing. But in the course of my discussions with this fellow, that's when I saw "the fear." He's not the sort of fellow to admit any kind of fear. But I could see "the fear" in his eyes nonetheless.
There's another fellow I've met in softball circles who has "the fear." He's been running a team for several years now. They're pretty good - better than many teams we've played at nationals. His team sticks to tournaments in which they have a good chance to win. They're afraid to play anything in which the team might get mercied by a monstrous opponent. They are also fond of telling everyone what their won-loss record for the current year is. We see this team mostly when we play tune-up "friendlies." They usually win most of their games, except those played against better teams. The team crumbles psychologically when they play the type of team which routinely plans to go to nationals.
I've also seen the fear in a few people's eyes more recently. I was involved with a team on which the manager was plain, flat out afraid to go to nationals. We had a host bid with that team. And by every way I have to judge a team, they would do quite well. But the manager is afraid of going. So when the date to register that the team would be taking the host bid came and passed, he said, "the only way we go to nationals is if we win a bid." That is the common "out" used when someone is afraid of going. That's the same kind of language, spoken in the same manner, as the fellow I mentioned above. It is a way to avoid facing the prospect of going to nationals while not admitting that you are afraid.
I told you that I overcame the fear by just going to nationals and watching our team do not too badly. That's partly true and partly false. The very next year after first attending a nationals tournament, i managed an team of young, inexperienced girls for their age category. I told the team before we even organized that we were going to go. I went so far as to tell the parents that at some point in this season, we were going to find ourselves at a low point and somebody was going to speak those words. Somebody was going to say "how can we bring this team to nationals." Well, we got to that low point and I was surprised at who was doing the talking. It was me!
We reached the low point with the team during a "summer league" game against the team which tried to get my daughter to join them the following year. They beat us via the run rule after, I think, 5 innings. I was so disappointed in the degree to which we had not improved, perhaps gotten worse, to that point. Our trip to nationals was about a month or so away and the girls quite frankly couldn't play a lick. I was stressed out to say the least but I was shocked to hear myself suggesting that we wouldn't go. I was snapped to my senses when one of the parents reminded me of what I had said a few months earlier and the team generally made me keep my word. We went, we did pretty well, and I'll never experience "the fear" firsthand again.
So what do I suggest you do when you encounter the fear? There are only a couple options. The best one is to keep talking. Tell your experiences and let others know that there is nothing to fear. Its fine to go to nationals or another big tournament with lots of teams and get your butts handed to you. There's nothing wrong with getting smoked as a result of shooting to high. More learning is done at the hands of defeat than can ever be as a aresult of winning.
When you join a team, I do suggest you ask the coaches if the team is going to nationals, whichever one you'd like to attend. Make sure of the team's plans for getting there - host bid or earned one. Find out when the team plans to play tournaments and how many shots at earning the bid they will take. Try to learn whether this "plan" has a real chance of coming to fruition. Many of these "plans" to earn a bid are merely smoke and mirror intended to fool those who don't know better. If the team actually does earn its bid and then they don't go because they couldn't get a hotel, so and so can't get off from work, or because somebody or somebodies cannot afford to take an expensive vacation, you can bet dollars to donuts that there never was a plan to go whether we won the bid or not. You were told that the team would go to nationals if they won as a way of enticing you to join the team. But most likely, the team not only won't go this year, they never will. Most likely, they are afraid to go and compete against God-only-knows what sort of team might be there!
There are many reasons to go to a nationals tournament. The kids will invariably enjoy staying in a hotel or motel. There's the team bonding that goes on in the tiny swimming pool. There's the two or three other teams also staying at your hotel. Pin trading is a blast for the kids and you really need something in your house which you can brow beat your kids about once they have left your nest. "You come over and collect the things you left behind like those pins from nationals or it is all going into the garbage next week."
More than anything else, there is a certain festivity which goes along with playing a national tournament. There's bound to be some softball vendors there. And you can go watch a myriad of other teams playing. You'll undoubtedly get a chance to watch some team which murdelized you this year get murdelized by some other team from East Jabib. You may get to beat a few teams, also from east Jabib in the process. You'll eat breath and drink softball for a week while you stay in some rotten place and eat at fastfood places or, if you are lucky an Applebees or two. The whole thing will be an incredible bonding experience. And neither the kids nor you should ever be intimidated by the prospect of playing a team from some state you;ve never even visited again.
So, have no fear yourself and when you encounter folks who have "the fear," try to help them get over it.Labels: mental toughness, youth tournament teams
 
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