I love seeing these photos. It gets me amped that one of our players delivered in a high-pressure situation. It takes me back to when I played. My favorite moment of all time is putting away the 2nd to last out for my friend who pitched a championship game no-hitter. When he struck out the last guy we dog-piled in front of 7,500 of our fans.
This was nothing new for him. He was our best pitcher and delivered whenever we needed big moments. If you want to be like my friend you need to understand what it takes to win. If I could rank top attributes of a player, I would put them as follows: mentality, a good human being, athleticism. How you view the world around you is massively important. It will dictate whether you’re able to overcome adversity, aggressively compete, and finish what you start.
I believe humans are innately good at heart and it’s choice of following a set of core values that makes your future self. These values are teachable and it comes down to a mentor to show the value of team, patience, and fortitude.
I’m not going to deny that having players who are athletic makes competing fun. BUT I would take a person who is open-minded with strength of mind over the person who is closed and weak minded and is more athletic. I can teach the person who is open minded how to win on a set of core values.
To get more experiences like my friend you first need to build your view of the world and be opportunistic. In these opportunities, it’s not necessarily the bigger and stronger player that wins. It’s the person who’s built better. (i.e 1980 US Hockey Team, Buster Douglas KO’s Mike Tyson, UMBC upsets 1 Virginia in 2017 March Madness opening round).
My friend was not the most talented pitcher on our staff. He was a right handed pitcher that sat 85–88mph with a good secondary pitch. He wasn’t explosive and he didn’t intimidate hitters, but what he had was the competitive mindset. He would dominate you and believed he could strike you out. It was a culmination of his training and upbringing that gave him an edge over his peers.
Focus on building who you are: mindset and core values. Let the athleticism take care of its self.
Spiker Helms 👊
spiker@rawlingstigers.com