Ben Bizier

It always irks me when parents, players and coaches have the mindset of ‘the best players should play.’

No they shouldn’t, they shouldn’t always play. There are times where everyone on the team should play, in every circumstance possible

If you’re on a team you should play

If you’re on an MLB team and you never play, they release you to the marketplace

If you’re on a college team and you never play, they send you to the portal

If you’re on a HS team and you never play, find someone who will play you!

If you can’t find anyone to play you regularly, or give you any chance whatsoever, you’re probably not good. It’s OK to walk away at that point as long as you’ve tried all your options

In a perfect world, coaches pour themselves out & players receive it

But we live in an imperfect world w/ imperfect people

An unbalanced result can lead to harsh feelings from player, family & coach

My strong encouragement is to say ‘Thank You!’ as often as you possibly can

This will be one of my least liked posts because it promotes positivity

The number of players isn’t astronomically high, but it’s probably notable

In 19 years of coaching/training - 20 or so players that have completely quit the game within 6 months of me beginning to train them and said a genuine thank you for helping them to stop wasting time

One of my assistants reminded me of a funny story that happened 10-12 years ago… while coaching at Broward we also ran a showcase team & had a really good 16U club

One kid showed up late to practice so I told him to go run until I told him to stop… he said ‘Coach my parents drove me here. They’re the reason I’m late.’

I said, ‘Where are they? You want me to go ask them if they wanna run instead?’

Hurricane Irma hit Broward County Fall of 2017 & knocked our covered batting cage completely out of commission… condemned by the school

No cages all Fall and all Spring, every swing was taken on the field

We came up with functional stuff to get our work in

Staff got creative and used the resources we did have to eventually gain the #1 National Ranking & Southern Conference Title

Kids and staff could have easily made excuses but they didn’t. Proud of that

Focus on what you do have and getting the most out of that