Virtual Spring Season

Hi Everyone,

Hope everyone is doing well despite the circumstances! I’m not going to lie, the first few weeks for me were pretty gloomy with so much unknown of the Olympics, training, financial situations, the list goes on!

The last few weeks have gone much better as I have found somewhat of a routine in filling in my days with workouts, social-distancing lessons, and finding tasks around the house to do that I’ve been meaning to get to for months! My bullpen in the backyard is slowly coming together, although I did bust a whole in the fence today on a curve ball. I guess that’s this season’s version of a hit by pitch! Luckily, our neighbor isn’t home for the weekend so we have until Monday to fix it up before her dog is in the backyard again. If you didn't see it on my social media last week go check it out for a little laugh: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_IPP3qJq4_/

Little update on my ‘2020 Season’: Obviously with the postponement of the Olympics to 2

021 that leaves our summer much more free. The ‘Stand Beside Her’ tour was officially cancelled for this year with the postponement so as a team, we won’t be training until later this year. It’s tough but understandable at the same time. I did get the opportunity to compete with Scrapyard Dawgs this summer as they teamed up with my former(sounds weird saying!) team USSSA Pride with some games to fill the summer. Majority of our USA team decided to stay together to train and compete with Scrapyard to continue the progress we started from tour earlier this year. I’m excited for the opportunity to have somewhat a season this year as well as be apart of a partnership with USSSA Pride. In the professional world of softball it’s not everyday competitors work together so it’s a huge step to see these two organizations, who not only grow the game incredibly but also have such highly talented teams, work together. As everything else is going this COVID season, this is obviously up in the air and will not be set in stone until the curve starts to flatten. But until then, I am preparing for season in June!

In other news, I have just been staying busy with Zoom meetings like I could imagine much of you are doing as well. It has been very cool interacting with not only my teammates and friends via Zoom but also having the opportunity to speak to other softball teams and/or athletes going through the same process as me right now.

I have also gotten the hang of virtual lessons via Zoom. I was skeptical at first because I am a coach that likes to walk around and see different angles from my pitchers but I am starting to like it with the circumstances we have! It works out great especially for my girls who had to travel far to come see me in Norman and I have even gotten to work with girls from out of state! If you are ever interested head to my lessons portion of the website to get signed up or just go ahead and contact me personally throughs the website or email.

That’s all the update I have for now! I’ll leave you with this piece of advice for those looking for encouragement during this time. We may feel alone since we around our teammates and/or friends but really we are all in this together! Instead of looking at this time as a step back, think of it as an opportunity. That’s been our mindset with USA going forward once we heard of the postponement of the Olympics. It’s just more time for us to get better! For me growing up, yes I got better in games and practices but the moments where I truly got an edge were the practices I put in at park or in the backyard throwing or hitting to a fence because I started to develop the mindset of ‘Outworking my competition’.

Hope this helps! Keep controlling what we can control and stay safe and positive out there!