Listen to your coach
It just may pay off in the long run
If you’re a high school athlete, maybe the only thing you didn’t miss these past few weeks is your coach correcting your flaws.
Teenagers generally think they know best, which explains why they are often at odds with their parents.
In sports, this generally applies to their view of coaches as well. At least, I know it did for me.
As a high school baseball player with Hackensack High in northern New Jersey, my coach, Dave Seddon, decided he wanted to completely overhaul my batting stance.
Looking back, I don’t know why I fought him so hard, considering my previous batting stance had not done any wonders for me. I was in the lineup for my defense at shortstop on my freshman team and my sophomore and junior years on junior varsity. I hit in the low .200s as a JV player.
But between my junior and senior years, when I played American Legion ball for Seddon, he told me that I should be able to hit .250 on the varsity next year. To do that, he told me, I needed to change my stance.
Until then, I had used a thickhandled bat, choked up on it, held the bat vertically while I crouched with my feet together and took a long stride toward the ball. It wasn’t a pretty stance, nor was it very effective. But pigs grow accustomed to their pigsty and don’t want to be cleaned up.
In practice, Seddon broadened my stance so that my feet were wide apart and I took a very short stride. He had me hold the bat back, parallel to my body. If you watch YouTube videos of Joe DiMaggio’s stance, you will get the idea. (I may have stood like DiMaggio, but I’m not saying I hit like him. The longest hitting streak I had my senior year was four games!) I also switched to a thin-handled bat, a Vada Pinson model.
After a couple of unsuccessful at-bats in an American Legion game, I approached the plate for at-bat No. 3. Seddon, coaching at third, told me to assume the new stance. I shook my head vigorously, but he insisted.
I was facing a flame thrower named Rex Peters who had overpowered me in my first two plate appearances. As I waited in my new stance, he reared back and fired. I swung and missed and looked down the third-base line pleadingly at my coach. He wouldn’t relent. I stepped back in the box in my new stance. Peters threw another laser and again, I swung and missed.
I looked down at Seddon
again, but he wasn’t changing the game plan. I stepped in again and Peters threw another heater. This time, to my great surprise, I connected solidly and smacked a hard line drive into right-center for a single.
From that day on, I was sold. On the thin side and not terribly strong or fast, I spent that fall and winter working out. I consulted our track coach on how to gain speed and did what he said. I asked a P.E. teacher how to best utilize our new weight room to my advantage and went into school early three times a week to do as he suggested. I swung a bat with a donut 100 times a night in my
bedroom.
When spring came around, I was amazed when in an early-season game I slammed a curveball over the left fielder’s head for a double. I hadn’t hit a ball over an outfielder’s head since Little League. I did it again in a league game and then again in a scrimmage against the Lafayette College (Pa.) junior-varsity college team.
The culmination of my new stance and my hard work came in the final league game of the season. We were 15-2 and hosting Wayne Valley, the secondplace team with a record of 14-3. We had to win the game to win the title outright.
In the second inning, our all-county catcher, Art Sarro, hit a tremendous home run over the left fielder’s head that rolled
a mile (we didn’t have fences) for a home run. I batted after Sarro in the seventh slot. I picked out a knee-high fastball and drove it between the left and center fielders. It also
rolled a long way as I circled the bases for a home run (also my first since Little League) to give us a 2-0 lead.
We went on to win the game 4-1 and clinch the
league title with a 16-2 mark.
I hit .294 on the year and was named the allleague second baseman (I shifted there from shortstop my senior year).
That summer of 1971, what was largely our high school team played in the Connie Mack League and went on to play in the Connie Mack World Series in Albuquerque, N.M. Coach Seddon accompanied us to the series and served as an assistant coach. I had not hit well during the Connie Mack regular season.
In New Mexico before our games got underway, Seddon noticed that I had reverted in some ways to my old stance and had me make the necessary corrections. Immediately in batting practice, I started hitting the ball with authority again. That carried over
into the World Series. We were eliminated after three games in the double-elimination tournament featuring the best eight teams in the country. But I went 5-for-10 at the plate.
It’s hard to see this when you are young, but high school coaches are in that position because (a) they probably played the sport; (b) they have been teaching the sport for years and have helped countless players before you; (c) they are not in it for the money (coaches are probably laughing at this one) and (d) they want you to improve and genuinely have your best interests at heart.
So when you get back on the field or the court, whenever that may be… listen up!