Building from the Beginning

Courage is doing something in the presence of fear. This past year I had the pleasure of doing this very

thing. I have coached softball for a long time, from little league to college, but this year I was able to

help a small western Nebraska town start a program from the bottom up. This feeling was unlike

anything else that I have experienced in my time as a coach. I went through several different emotions

on this journey which still has many twists and turns. I am going to try and convey those feelings in

hopes that you can have courage in your journey.

1. Optimism - In the summer of 2020, I had six young ladies approach me about coaching their summer

rec team. I was honored to lead these young ladies in their softball journey. What I didn’t know, this

small town hadn’t had an 18U summer team in 25 years. I was optimistic and a million thoughts ran

through my head about where to start. I found three 6th graders to join the six and we had a team!

2. Fear - As we started, I realized players were further behind than I could imagined. Fear started to set

in on whether I would be able to get them to a level where they could compete against other teams.

When fear takes over your brain starts going to a dark place that can feel helpless and alone. I knew I

would have to do something to fight back this fear and face it head-on. I sat at my computer and wrote

my plan on how I would start to build this program form the ground floor. I included everything I would

teach and what grade I would start teaching it. It took over a month to write and rewrite until I felt the

fear start to dissipate.

3. Amazement - As we started to get deeper into practices and games, I was amazed at how well these

young ladies were learning. Every single player was coachable and would try their best to implement

what we were teaching. Sometimes I would take a step back and sit in awe on how far these young

ladies had come in such a short timeframe. I caught myself asking, “what was I so fearful of…”, because

these young ladies would amaze me every day.

4. Frustration - As we got deeper into the season, players started to ask, ‘could we start a high school

team’. I thought, why not! Is there a better feeling than representing your school in the sport you love?

The landscape in western Nebraska though would be tough to navigate as softball isn’t strong in the

area. I asked around to see what the process would be and was met with resistance quite often. I was

told that our school was too small for a softball team, y’all aren’t ready to play in high school

competition, and that your team doesn’t belong on a high school field. I thought, “what is everyone so

scared of that they don’t want to give these young ladies a chance to represent their school?”.

5. Gratitude - Even though there were outside people who didn’t want these young ladies to have a

school team, we had the support of great administrators and school board members. These wonderful

leaders stepped up and allowed these young ladies to see their dreams come to fruition. I was

immediately thankful for being in a place that put students above all else and who took a leap of faith on

me to lead this journey.

On September 15th, 2022, we had our very first home game in program history. As I walked up to the

ballfield I started to tear up. That day it wasn’t the same field that we practiced on every day for the last

two years, it was more. It represented the hard work and sacrifice these young ladies endured to play

this great game we call softball. It represented the perseverance we needed to deny the haters. If I

would have allowed my fears to continue to drag me to dark corners, this day and all the other great

days to come could never happen. Next time you have a decision to make on whether you let fear win,

think back on these amazing young ladies and the challenges they overcame.