JOURNAL
Journal #1
Today was the first day at the field, I shadowed the current assistant pitching coach and watched how he ran the pitchers. He would make sure that the pitchers were getting their daily work in and giving 100% at whatever they did. It's an odd feeling being a coach instead of a player because I'm so used to being on the other side of things and seeing it from a players prospective. I think it will be hard for me to gain power over some of the players on the team just because I have played with them before, but I think I will be okay once they start seeing me everyday. Yesterday was the first time we had to tarp the field because of rain and it went pretty smoothly for the amount of freshman on the team that have never done that before. It was a pretty good feeling to be a part of something again, I was worried after my last year of baseball that it would take me some time to get back into the game but luckily for me an opportunity opened up. The field is in an athletic complex called The Paradiso and it has a softball field along with a practice football field basically out in the middle of nowhere. I'm really excited to learn from the coaches and pick their brains about how to manage a team because I know that both of these men are highly respected as coaches.
Journal #2
Today was my first day on my own as the assistant pitching coach and the day before the baseball team scrimmaged Owens Community College. It was different being on my own teaching these players that are barely younger than me on how to do certain workouts and drills. I was surprised as to how they didn't try to get away with little things and I think it was mostly because I kind of stepped into the coaches role instead of the mindset of a player still. Practice went smoothly and we got done around 4:30, after the players left the infield coach and myself prepped the field for the game the next day. Prepping the field consisted of chalking the baselines and home plate area, and chalking the baselines is much harder than I thought. I had to place string from the beginning of home plate and stretch it all the way down to the outfield grass line. The lines have to be as straight as possible or it won't look right. I didn't trust myself doing the 3rd baseline because I've never chalked the baselines before. I did the majority of 1st baseline but I had to go over it a couple times because of chalk issues, the chalk wouldn't evenly come out of the container. After we prepped the field, we went into the locker room and hung up jerseys in each locker along with cleaning the dust off of the lockers. Prior to hanging up the jerseys in the lockers, we painted the back wall green.
Doing this whole process took longer than I anticipated but seeing how things were ran from the coaching side of things really made me appreciate everything a lot more.
Journal #3
This week of practice, I still felt a little uneasy about being on my own with the pitchers. Although practices aren't very hard to understand, I have to manage the time we have outside properly. We have the same practice plan for the whole week, every week. Typically the pitchers start off by stretching, then going into band work. Band work is when they use stretch bands to warm up their arms to throw, this usually takes them 15-20 minutes to complete this portion of the warm up. When the players start to throw, I typically help water the field while the position players are stretching too. Watering the field takes a long time to do because we have to spray the dirt twice and then the spots that need water the most. Watering the dirt helps make the ground softer which allows the baseball to play truer, meaning that it won't take any bad hops on the infield. When the field is completely watered, the pitchers are usually done with throwing at this time. Depending on what the team practice plan is, the pitchers are split up into groups. With this being my first week, things didn't run so smoothly. I had a really tough time to get the players to their right stations and I sometimes lost track of time. As the week went on, I got a little better with getting the players to the right station on time and at the same time the players would help me out by telling me where they needed to go next. By the time the week was over, I was looking forward to next weeks work schedule.
Journal #4
The organizational culture is pretty simple, it's to respect the coaches above me. The dress that is expected are baseball pants, a green undershirt and a BP top. For certain events and football games the proper attire would be khaki pants and a tiffin baseball polo with nice shoes. There really isn't a strict dress code for the coaches but as for the players they must wear a certain color for every other day of practice. For example, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday they wear green shirts and Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday they wear gray shirts. If a player doesn't have the correct shirt on then that player will be punished accordingly. After 4 years of being a part of a baseball program, having a dress code has become second nature and I'm sure it will become second nature for these guys too.
Journal #5
Practice tends to get a little repetitive, typically we do the same things every day. They had the practice plan set up for a select group of players. For instance, three players would have the same practice plan all week, but their week may start on a Wednesday where three other players may have their week start on Tuesday or Monday. It all depends on which day they were assigned to. One thing that gets on my nerves is how the players always ask what time it is or if they can leave, or if they're done with a station. When I played it was never like that, we kept going until we were told to do something else or to go home. It's a different generation and it's hard to get used to. Since I'm still used to the whole coaching thing, the senior pitchers kind of helped me get through things like when it was time to move on to a different station or what we had to do next. It is still weird for me to be coaching the guys I played with for the past two years so part of me still feels like a player but I have to keep the mindset of a coach.
Journal #6
This week I had the pleasure of creating my own practice plan, Coach Richardson gave me the schedule of all the players and asked me to create drills and other baseball related items for them to do at practice. A couple years back I bought a book called "Tuff Cuff" and it's a book with a bunch of drills, weight lifts, running ideas, and a long toss program. I took some things from that book and a couple things off the internet that I researched and threw it all together. I brought it to Coach Richardson and he was pretty impressed with the practice plan that I created for the players. Throughout the week I had the guys work out with my program at practice and at the end of the week I asked them how they liked their weekly load of drills. For the majority I had positive feedback, some complained that it was too hard but in order to get better you have to push yourself and that's what I want to do with these guys, push them to their full potential. In doing that, it will make the pitching staff better as a whole and that will translate to the mound when the season starts.
Journal #7
Coach Wilkins met with me before the week started and said that I've been doing a good job at being strict with the players and not being "buddy buddy" with them. He also said that because I'm closer in age to the players, they look at me as one of the guys and someone they can come to and talk to if they don't feel comfortable enough to come to the coaches. He was basically telling me that if a player does come to me and talk about something I need to decide if it's important enough to tell the coaching staff about. I understand that they don't want to deal with every little thing that the players have to bring up but if it's important enough I'd have to let them know. He was also saying that although I'm an intern, I play an important role on the coaching staff, kind of as the guy the players can come talk to because I can level with them about a lot of things. It makes me feel good knowing that I serve a purpose on this team and I'm not just someone they have around.
Journal #8
Today we held a prospect camp that included over 100 kids. I was given a clipboard and was told to evaluate the players and give an impute on whether they were good or not, or if they should pursue this player further. We started the camp at 9:30 am but I had to arrive to the Heminger by 8:30 am to help set up stations and also go over the plan for the camp. The players hit first, then they went infielders, outfielders, catchers and then finally pitchers. I don't really know how to evaluate position players other than how good their arms are, so I just evaluated the pitchers when it was their time to throw. There were only about 15 to 20 pitchers at the camp so it didn't take as long as the position players. The pitchers were given about ten minutes to warm up their arms before they threw, then they would get up on the mound and throw fifteen pitches to the catcher. What they would throw would be a mix of pitches, fastballs, curveballs, sliders, and change ups. After they were done, they'd have to wait until the rest of the pitchers were done throwing. After every one left, we had to take field screens and other things back to the field because we still had fall practice.
Journal #9
Today was the first football that I worked with the baseball team, I arrived at 8:00 am and left at 5:00 pm. My job today was basically to make sure things ran smoothly, we had 3 separate coolers for the workers and officials. One was placed in the press box, one was placed in the officials locker room and the other one was at the main gate. I had to make sure that they reached their destination. I had to make sure that all the game day signs were put up in their
correct places. It helped that I've had to do this for the past two years as a players so I already knew where all the signs went. Since it wasn't windy out and it was a pretty nice day, we had to put the dragon up so the football players can walk through it prior to the game. During the game I walk from station to station making sure that everything is going well, I'll walk from the main gate to the visitors gate, to the top gate seeing if anyone needs anything. After the game is over, I was in control of retrieving the coolers and taking down the signs. After the signs are down, we took them into the storage room next to the visitors locker room. There are so many different things going on during the game, SAAC had a DJ playing and they were also selling food, if they needed anything they would come up to me and ask me to relay the information to Coach Wilkins through the walkie talkie. After the game was over, I had to get all of the walkie talkies that were handed out before the game started, after I got those there was pizza provided to all of the players and coaches. There
really wasn't any time to watch the game that was going on because I was moving around so much.
Journal #10
So far there have been a couple stars that have arose in the program. Nick Calandra, Kevin Kline, Logan Sendlebach and Mario Rodriguez have all been seen as the best returning players on the team. The reasons why I see these select few to be stars in the program is because they all have shown leadership qualities at practice by how they act around players, how hard they push themselves, how they lead during stretching and how the other players react to them. Some of it has to do with how well they performed last season and they have the stats to back them up. It isn't easy to become a star player, especially at the collegiate level. Most of the time players just complete four years of college and find a job. Luckily I had a whole year left to graduate so I could have some extra time to figure out what I wanted to do after college. I got lucky enough to find a temporary job to potentially get me moved up in professional baseball.
Journal #11
This week we moved inside and started individual practices. Basically these are when only 4 players come at a time and we work with them in smaller groups for an hour because they are only allowed two total hours per week. On top of lifting Monday, Wednesday and Friday they aren't allowed any contact with the coaches. I'm very pleased with how things are going so far with my internship, the players are warming up to me and I to them. The coaching staff has made the process easier for me as well. Switching from outside practices to indoor practices is a lot easier to focus on player specific needs. Being a pitching coach we focus more on mechanics and location, both of these things are the most important part of pitching. Mechanical flaws can be easy to fix sometimes if it is something simple but if it is something that they've been doing for their entire lives it's going to be harder for them to fix their mechanical flaw. Luckily for us we have video to capture their mechanics and we're able to slow the video down and break the video into parts and show the player just exactly what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong. The video is a main component with utilizing their potential as players. It's much easier to see what I'm doing wrong than being told what I'm doing wrong.
Journal #12
My favorite part so far about my experience is just being around baseball. My biggest fear after the season ended in the spring is that I'll never be able to play baseball again. Luckily enough I stayed with baseball activity and went to some pro camps and found myself playing for a professional team out of Colorado. I performed well enough in the month to be invited back next season and having an internship that kept me around baseball was really helpful for me because I could stay in baseball shape. My least favorite part however was the hours. Since there wasn't a set schedule to go by, I had to basically be on call at all times. There were some weekends where I would get a phone call asking me if I could come watch a recruit and play a little first base for the recruit. Seeing as how I am on the low end of the totem pole, I had to be available at all times which consumed my social life. Having no set amount of hours per day and still being a college student, it was difficult at times to balance the internship and school at the same time. It sounds like I am complaining about the hours but honestly if I weren't around baseball I would get bored out of my mind just sitting at home. Baseball has and always will be a part of me so being around the field any way possible is fine with me.
Journal #13
This week of practice has been similar to last weeks practices. Coach Richardson and myself tried to figure out what the right way to go about making pitching targets to let the pitchers throw into to work on their location. Location is a big key asset to have as a pitcher because if you're not a guy who throws hard you're going to have to locate the ball more so than a guy who throws hard and can get the ball by a few guys because it's coming faster to the plate. These targets have been a pain because there have been a couple attempts on prototypes but each time they've broke. Finally, he came up with a prototype that uses bungee cords and netting with pads so that the baseballs won't break the target. The height of the targets are about knee high which are an ideal height for pitchers. The knee height is the perfect height because it's low enough to still be a strike and just hard enough to get by the batter. Anything above the knee is easier for the hitter to hit because the more you elevate a pitch the easier it is to hit.
Journal #14
This was the last football game I will ever have to work as a Tiffin Dragon. Today was pretty chilly, it was really windy too which made being outside even worse. Although the weather conditions weren't the greatest, I didn't really mind because it was my last football to work and I was prepared for the weather. The football game didn't turn out the way we all wanted it to but it was a pretty good game overall. The signs crew showed up a little earlier today and put up the signs before the majority of the people got there. The players also knew that it was the last home game and worked extra hard to put everything up and tear everything down. Since it was too windy they couldn't put up the dragon that they usually have for the players to run out of. Just like the home football games everything was basically the same, I went from station to station seeing if any one needed anything, seeing if the ticket booths needed any money or water/pop. When the game was over, we had to take down the tents which the wind did not make it easy to do. After the tents were down I left and went home but received a phone call asking me I knew who had the walkie talkies. I had to go back to the field and look in the press box for the talkies and luckily they
Journal #15
I believe that my expectations from this internship was met because I didn't know what to expect going into it. I initially thought that I would just be observing for the most part but when Coach Richardson sat me down and actually asked my opinion on some things. If anything, this internship exceeded my expectations because of how the coaching staff treated me. They all acted like I've been a coach for twenty years and valued my opinion which only made me want to participate in things more. Going into this, I wasn't quite sure how the players were going to react to me being their coach not being more than a year older than some. I'm glad that they respected me as a coach to not treat me as "one of the guys" like they did last year. That was a very important thing that I was told before the internship was it is a lot easier to be tough on them at the beginning and be easy on them later than be easy at the beginning and hard on them later. There really wouldn't be anything that I would change about this organization because I believe that the program is headed in the right direction. They have the experience and knowledge as a coaching staff to win championships. Its actually a good feeling knowing that the program you played for is only going to get better.
Journal #16 (Final Reflections)
This internship have influenced my career objectives by how dedicated this coaching staff is to this team. Last year when I was on the player side of things I didn't appreciate how much they did for us. I never knew what they did behind the scenes of just being a coach but now that I've been a part of it I have a better understanding of the importance of coaches outside of baseball. If other students were considering a position such as mine I would tell them not to have a life outside of baseball. Since the hours vary, you could come in at 10 am and be there until 9 at night. I would also tell them that in order to be useful they'll need to create a position for themselves. What that means is that there is always room for creativity and these coaches are always open to ideas. The quality of communication and supervision between me and my supervisor was pretty good. Since we were always in the same facility I was always around him so if I had any questions or if he had any questions then we could talk about it. When practice was going on, I would be left by myself with the pitchers and he would trust me enough to be on my own.
Journal #1
Today was the first day at the field, I shadowed the current assistant pitching coach and watched how he ran the pitchers. He would make sure that the pitchers were getting their daily work in and giving 100% at whatever they did. It's an odd feeling being a coach instead of a player because I'm so used to being on the other side of things and seeing it from a players prospective. I think it will be hard for me to gain power over some of the players on the team just because I have played with them before, but I think I will be okay once they start seeing me everyday. Yesterday was the first time we had to tarp the field because of rain and it went pretty smoothly for the amount of freshman on the team that have never done that before. It was a pretty good feeling to be a part of something again, I was worried after my last year of baseball that it would take me some time to get back into the game but luckily for me an opportunity opened up. The field is in an athletic complex called The Paradiso and it has a softball field along with a practice football field basically out in the middle of nowhere. I'm really excited to learn from the coaches and pick their brains about how to manage a team because I know that both of these men are highly respected as coaches.
Journal #2
Today was my first day on my own as the assistant pitching coach and the day before the baseball team scrimmaged Owens Community College. It was different being on my own teaching these players that are barely younger than me on how to do certain workouts and drills. I was surprised as to how they didn't try to get away with little things and I think it was mostly because I kind of stepped into the coaches role instead of the mindset of a player still. Practice went smoothly and we got done around 4:30, after the players left the infield coach and myself prepped the field for the game the next day. Prepping the field consisted of chalking the baselines and home plate area, and chalking the baselines is much harder than I thought. I had to place string from the beginning of home plate and stretch it all the way down to the outfield grass line. The lines have to be as straight as possible or it won't look right. I didn't trust myself doing the 3rd baseline because I've never chalked the baselines before. I did the majority of 1st baseline but I had to go over it a couple times because of chalk issues, the chalk wouldn't evenly come out of the container. After we prepped the field, we went into the locker room and hung up jerseys in each locker along with cleaning the dust off of the lockers. Prior to hanging up the jerseys in the lockers, we painted the back wall green.
Doing this whole process took longer than I anticipated but seeing how things were ran from the coaching side of things really made me appreciate everything a lot more.
Journal #3
This week of practice, I still felt a little uneasy about being on my own with the pitchers. Although practices aren't very hard to understand, I have to manage the time we have outside properly. We have the same practice plan for the whole week, every week. Typically the pitchers start off by stretching, then going into band work. Band work is when they use stretch bands to warm up their arms to throw, this usually takes them 15-20 minutes to complete this portion of the warm up. When the players start to throw, I typically help water the field while the position players are stretching too. Watering the field takes a long time to do because we have to spray the dirt twice and then the spots that need water the most. Watering the dirt helps make the ground softer which allows the baseball to play truer, meaning that it won't take any bad hops on the infield. When the field is completely watered, the pitchers are usually done with throwing at this time. Depending on what the team practice plan is, the pitchers are split up into groups. With this being my first week, things didn't run so smoothly. I had a really tough time to get the players to their right stations and I sometimes lost track of time. As the week went on, I got a little better with getting the players to the right station on time and at the same time the players would help me out by telling me where they needed to go next. By the time the week was over, I was looking forward to next weeks work schedule.
Journal #4
The organizational culture is pretty simple, it's to respect the coaches above me. The dress that is expected are baseball pants, a green undershirt and a BP top. For certain events and football games the proper attire would be khaki pants and a tiffin baseball polo with nice shoes. There really isn't a strict dress code for the coaches but as for the players they must wear a certain color for every other day of practice. For example, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday they wear green shirts and Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday they wear gray shirts. If a player doesn't have the correct shirt on then that player will be punished accordingly. After 4 years of being a part of a baseball program, having a dress code has become second nature and I'm sure it will become second nature for these guys too.
Journal #5
Practice tends to get a little repetitive, typically we do the same things every day. They had the practice plan set up for a select group of players. For instance, three players would have the same practice plan all week, but their week may start on a Wednesday where three other players may have their week start on Tuesday or Monday. It all depends on which day they were assigned to. One thing that gets on my nerves is how the players always ask what time it is or if they can leave, or if they're done with a station. When I played it was never like that, we kept going until we were told to do something else or to go home. It's a different generation and it's hard to get used to. Since I'm still used to the whole coaching thing, the senior pitchers kind of helped me get through things like when it was time to move on to a different station or what we had to do next. It is still weird for me to be coaching the guys I played with for the past two years so part of me still feels like a player but I have to keep the mindset of a coach.
Journal #6
This week I had the pleasure of creating my own practice plan, Coach Richardson gave me the schedule of all the players and asked me to create drills and other baseball related items for them to do at practice. A couple years back I bought a book called "Tuff Cuff" and it's a book with a bunch of drills, weight lifts, running ideas, and a long toss program. I took some things from that book and a couple things off the internet that I researched and threw it all together. I brought it to Coach Richardson and he was pretty impressed with the practice plan that I created for the players. Throughout the week I had the guys work out with my program at practice and at the end of the week I asked them how they liked their weekly load of drills. For the majority I had positive feedback, some complained that it was too hard but in order to get better you have to push yourself and that's what I want to do with these guys, push them to their full potential. In doing that, it will make the pitching staff better as a whole and that will translate to the mound when the season starts.
Journal #7
Coach Wilkins met with me before the week started and said that I've been doing a good job at being strict with the players and not being "buddy buddy" with them. He also said that because I'm closer in age to the players, they look at me as one of the guys and someone they can come to and talk to if they don't feel comfortable enough to come to the coaches. He was basically telling me that if a player does come to me and talk about something I need to decide if it's important enough to tell the coaching staff about. I understand that they don't want to deal with every little thing that the players have to bring up but if it's important enough I'd have to let them know. He was also saying that although I'm an intern, I play an important role on the coaching staff, kind of as the guy the players can come talk to because I can level with them about a lot of things. It makes me feel good knowing that I serve a purpose on this team and I'm not just someone they have around.
Journal #8
Today we held a prospect camp that included over 100 kids. I was given a clipboard and was told to evaluate the players and give an impute on whether they were good or not, or if they should pursue this player further. We started the camp at 9:30 am but I had to arrive to the Heminger by 8:30 am to help set up stations and also go over the plan for the camp. The players hit first, then they went infielders, outfielders, catchers and then finally pitchers. I don't really know how to evaluate position players other than how good their arms are, so I just evaluated the pitchers when it was their time to throw. There were only about 15 to 20 pitchers at the camp so it didn't take as long as the position players. The pitchers were given about ten minutes to warm up their arms before they threw, then they would get up on the mound and throw fifteen pitches to the catcher. What they would throw would be a mix of pitches, fastballs, curveballs, sliders, and change ups. After they were done, they'd have to wait until the rest of the pitchers were done throwing. After every one left, we had to take field screens and other things back to the field because we still had fall practice.
Journal #9
Today was the first football that I worked with the baseball team, I arrived at 8:00 am and left at 5:00 pm. My job today was basically to make sure things ran smoothly, we had 3 separate coolers for the workers and officials. One was placed in the press box, one was placed in the officials locker room and the other one was at the main gate. I had to make sure that they reached their destination. I had to make sure that all the game day signs were put up in their
correct places. It helped that I've had to do this for the past two years as a players so I already knew where all the signs went. Since it wasn't windy out and it was a pretty nice day, we had to put the dragon up so the football players can walk through it prior to the game. During the game I walk from station to station making sure that everything is going well, I'll walk from the main gate to the visitors gate, to the top gate seeing if anyone needs anything. After the game is over, I was in control of retrieving the coolers and taking down the signs. After the signs are down, we took them into the storage room next to the visitors locker room. There are so many different things going on during the game, SAAC had a DJ playing and they were also selling food, if they needed anything they would come up to me and ask me to relay the information to Coach Wilkins through the walkie talkie. After the game was over, I had to get all of the walkie talkies that were handed out before the game started, after I got those there was pizza provided to all of the players and coaches. There
really wasn't any time to watch the game that was going on because I was moving around so much.
Journal #10
So far there have been a couple stars that have arose in the program. Nick Calandra, Kevin Kline, Logan Sendlebach and Mario Rodriguez have all been seen as the best returning players on the team. The reasons why I see these select few to be stars in the program is because they all have shown leadership qualities at practice by how they act around players, how hard they push themselves, how they lead during stretching and how the other players react to them. Some of it has to do with how well they performed last season and they have the stats to back them up. It isn't easy to become a star player, especially at the collegiate level. Most of the time players just complete four years of college and find a job. Luckily I had a whole year left to graduate so I could have some extra time to figure out what I wanted to do after college. I got lucky enough to find a temporary job to potentially get me moved up in professional baseball.
Journal #11
This week we moved inside and started individual practices. Basically these are when only 4 players come at a time and we work with them in smaller groups for an hour because they are only allowed two total hours per week. On top of lifting Monday, Wednesday and Friday they aren't allowed any contact with the coaches. I'm very pleased with how things are going so far with my internship, the players are warming up to me and I to them. The coaching staff has made the process easier for me as well. Switching from outside practices to indoor practices is a lot easier to focus on player specific needs. Being a pitching coach we focus more on mechanics and location, both of these things are the most important part of pitching. Mechanical flaws can be easy to fix sometimes if it is something simple but if it is something that they've been doing for their entire lives it's going to be harder for them to fix their mechanical flaw. Luckily for us we have video to capture their mechanics and we're able to slow the video down and break the video into parts and show the player just exactly what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong. The video is a main component with utilizing their potential as players. It's much easier to see what I'm doing wrong than being told what I'm doing wrong.
Journal #12
My favorite part so far about my experience is just being around baseball. My biggest fear after the season ended in the spring is that I'll never be able to play baseball again. Luckily enough I stayed with baseball activity and went to some pro camps and found myself playing for a professional team out of Colorado. I performed well enough in the month to be invited back next season and having an internship that kept me around baseball was really helpful for me because I could stay in baseball shape. My least favorite part however was the hours. Since there wasn't a set schedule to go by, I had to basically be on call at all times. There were some weekends where I would get a phone call asking me if I could come watch a recruit and play a little first base for the recruit. Seeing as how I am on the low end of the totem pole, I had to be available at all times which consumed my social life. Having no set amount of hours per day and still being a college student, it was difficult at times to balance the internship and school at the same time. It sounds like I am complaining about the hours but honestly if I weren't around baseball I would get bored out of my mind just sitting at home. Baseball has and always will be a part of me so being around the field any way possible is fine with me.
Journal #13
This week of practice has been similar to last weeks practices. Coach Richardson and myself tried to figure out what the right way to go about making pitching targets to let the pitchers throw into to work on their location. Location is a big key asset to have as a pitcher because if you're not a guy who throws hard you're going to have to locate the ball more so than a guy who throws hard and can get the ball by a few guys because it's coming faster to the plate. These targets have been a pain because there have been a couple attempts on prototypes but each time they've broke. Finally, he came up with a prototype that uses bungee cords and netting with pads so that the baseballs won't break the target. The height of the targets are about knee high which are an ideal height for pitchers. The knee height is the perfect height because it's low enough to still be a strike and just hard enough to get by the batter. Anything above the knee is easier for the hitter to hit because the more you elevate a pitch the easier it is to hit.
Journal #14
This was the last football game I will ever have to work as a Tiffin Dragon. Today was pretty chilly, it was really windy too which made being outside even worse. Although the weather conditions weren't the greatest, I didn't really mind because it was my last football to work and I was prepared for the weather. The football game didn't turn out the way we all wanted it to but it was a pretty good game overall. The signs crew showed up a little earlier today and put up the signs before the majority of the people got there. The players also knew that it was the last home game and worked extra hard to put everything up and tear everything down. Since it was too windy they couldn't put up the dragon that they usually have for the players to run out of. Just like the home football games everything was basically the same, I went from station to station seeing if any one needed anything, seeing if the ticket booths needed any money or water/pop. When the game was over, we had to take down the tents which the wind did not make it easy to do. After the tents were down I left and went home but received a phone call asking me I knew who had the walkie talkies. I had to go back to the field and look in the press box for the talkies and luckily they
Journal #15
I believe that my expectations from this internship was met because I didn't know what to expect going into it. I initially thought that I would just be observing for the most part but when Coach Richardson sat me down and actually asked my opinion on some things. If anything, this internship exceeded my expectations because of how the coaching staff treated me. They all acted like I've been a coach for twenty years and valued my opinion which only made me want to participate in things more. Going into this, I wasn't quite sure how the players were going to react to me being their coach not being more than a year older than some. I'm glad that they respected me as a coach to not treat me as "one of the guys" like they did last year. That was a very important thing that I was told before the internship was it is a lot easier to be tough on them at the beginning and be easy on them later than be easy at the beginning and hard on them later. There really wouldn't be anything that I would change about this organization because I believe that the program is headed in the right direction. They have the experience and knowledge as a coaching staff to win championships. Its actually a good feeling knowing that the program you played for is only going to get better.
Journal #16 (Final Reflections)
This internship have influenced my career objectives by how dedicated this coaching staff is to this team. Last year when I was on the player side of things I didn't appreciate how much they did for us. I never knew what they did behind the scenes of just being a coach but now that I've been a part of it I have a better understanding of the importance of coaches outside of baseball. If other students were considering a position such as mine I would tell them not to have a life outside of baseball. Since the hours vary, you could come in at 10 am and be there until 9 at night. I would also tell them that in order to be useful they'll need to create a position for themselves. What that means is that there is always room for creativity and these coaches are always open to ideas. The quality of communication and supervision between me and my supervisor was pretty good. Since we were always in the same facility I was always around him so if I had any questions or if he had any questions then we could talk about it. When practice was going on, I would be left by myself with the pitchers and he would trust me enough to be on my own.