I am here because my passion is training kids fastpitch softball, especially pitching. Way back in the olden days before AI would make a bucket like the above, I was a bucket Dad. In the last 25 years, I spent 13 years of studying travel and college ball, 15 years of pitching and hitting lessons, and 18 years coaching teams. Nope, I never played college softball (my daughter did) or baseball or won a national championship. I did teach myself to pitch and can still set em down at 12, maybe 13. But every kid who played for me who wanted to play in college did. Everyone of them graduated, and all have real jobs and some are even parents now. Maybe soon I’ll get a second generation to train.
Perspective
When I started this adventure there was no I-phone, the only video used tapes, radar units were only for cops, bats were made of aluminum, there was no internet and we had to rely on our eyes to figure out anything! Somewhere along the way I got smarter and I learned a lot. We learned that many elite pitchers thought they did “A” when they did “B”.
Gradually the elite colleges and coaches, the Pro teams, the elite training centers in the US, Japan, Australia, and Canada mastered new tools – high speed video, kinematic sensors. – For those willing to learn a complete understanding of what elite pitchers and elite pitching coaches became available on DVD, the NCFA, the internet, through training programs.
I am a fastpitch nerd – I have like 150 DVDs on fastpitch, 100Gig of downloaded training material, and have studied and been certified by a number of trainers. I would guess I spend 150 hours a year learning from others. Most notably Rick Pauly of High Performance Pitching who helped me when my daughter was playing and whose Elite Coach training program and Coach Facebook group are one of the best pitching resources anywhere. In the last 5-7 years I began to study biomechanics, learned a ton about softball strength training, experimented with high speed video, and acquired new technologies such as Rapsodo and pitchlogic. I’m in the process of expanding my knowledge and acquiring kinematic measuring technology.
One of my student’s Dad dubbed my pitching space the LAB. I am an engineer by training. I approach training kids with precision and data and make sure they develop fundamentals. I know what it takes to compete at high levels. I also know that the most important thing I teach is confidence, self esteem and the relationship between hard work and success.