Saturday, March 31, 2007

MTC recruiting

This past week I ventured out to one of my favorite places in the entire world, Austin, TX. It was my turn to recruit for the program this past Wednesday, so I took a couple stacks of flyers, informational brochures, and email lists over to the University of Texas Student Union for a career fair. I was already looking forward to the trip just as an opportunity to see some old college friends, but I was also looking forward to try and get the word out to students about MTC. I remember when I was in college MTC was something that I stumbled upon by luck and was completely blown away at how amazing the program seemed. I stepped in and eyed my position early to find out where exactly they would be putting my booth up. I was front and center; not a bad place to be. I also looked three tables down on the same row and there was this huge black flag with the letters T.F.A. stenciled in. I knew right then and there, it was GAME TIME. I’m really just joking, but it was so much fun to inform people about what exactly we are doing out here in Mississippi. I think sometimes we can get a little burnt out by teaching, so it was nice to take a quick break and go back to speaking about why I went in to a program like this in the first place.

I was also blown away at the fact that many people are interested in helping out in areas like this. After being so frustrated with the lack of support sometimes by parents of my students, it was nice to be surrounded by fresh idealism. Now of course a lot of the people that looked so interested in the program had no experience whatsoever; it didn’t matter, people were excited and I was enjoying every bit of it.

I spent 5 hours at the fair and got to meet some great people, but it was now time to go speak to an organization on campus that is very dear to my hurt. I always felt my time in Texas Cowboys helped give me the necessary push I was looking for to become a better leader. I was constantly blown away at the guys I was in it with, and hence they are still a lot of my best friends today. Now, I was going to get to go back to our meeting place and speak about something very dear to my heart. It was awesome. I had the room dead quiet with all eyes glaring hearing about some of the experiences that I have had. I only received a handful of emails asking for more information, but I had numerous people come up and just say how proud they were of me. I had always craved the respect of my peers in this arena and it was just nice to get to come back. Hopefully, one or two of them will join me in the future.

David vs. Goliath

One of my proudest moments as a coach occurred last week. I know I have blogged about it earlier, but over the past month I have had the opportunity to get a chance to coach high school baseball at the feeder school for my middle school. Not only has it been a great opportunity to being around the game and kids, but it has also been so refreshing to be around kids that I can talk to as adults. They are great guys. I was telling my dad the other day that I think I would write letters of recommendation for just about everyone of them. Not to mention we’re a pretty fundamentally sound team.

But anyway, onto what happened last week. Until last week, I’d say we were a 9-6 ball club overall with the potential to still crack a spot in the playoff picture. We did take a break from district ball to schedule a game with the No. 2 team in the state in 5A, Northwest Rankin.
Our bus pulls up and you get the feeling that we’re already walking in to something special. It’s that feeling like you know that you’re going to have to play the best ball of your life to even feel worthy of being on the same field as the opposing team. The whole time as our bus is approaching the field, the other assistant coach is letting out his frustrations to me telling about how he has never beaten NW Rankin in his tenure as a coach or a player. They were the Yankees of Mississippi according to him.

We step off the bus and look out onto a massive stadium with three banners covering the entrance: 2003 State champions, 2004 state champions, and 2005 state champions. Underneath the last banner was the No. 6 ranking in the USA according to Parade Magazine. It was awesome to say the least. We stepped onto their fresh cut field with the opposing time looking so orderly just in how they played pitch with one another on the opposite sideline. The entire outfield was bulleted with banners showing consecutive district championships.

We then began our usual routine and one of the craziest things happened as we emptied our equipment into the dugout. Our senior guys sprinted onto the field to hold what looked like a team meeting without the coaches. I didn’t hear what was said, but immediately they sprinted onto the field to do the warm-up drills that I had showed them. Only it was the first time that I didn’t have to say a word to them about it or watch over them like a hawk to make sure they knew exactly what they were doing. Something was different in the air to say the least.

Now in the time that I’ve had to coach the team, the player that I most enjoy getting to work with is our senior shortstop. There’s just something about him that our players naturally follow. He’s also one of the most mentally tough kids that I have ever been around. This definitely helps with his own limitations as a ballplayer although he is quite proficient in nearly all aspects of the game. Today was a little different though, because he wasn’t going to play shortstop for us today. Instead he would be taking the mound and I would be putting my short-armed second basemen at the short spot. I watched as he warmed up with the catcher getting ready to pitch against a team that we haven’t had enough preparation for in my opinion.

Before I knew the national anthem finished its verse, and it was time to get it started. The first three innings of play were probably three of the best innings I had seen us play defensively all year. I looked to the scoreboard and at the end of 3, the score read 0-0. Now it was time for the top of the 4th and our leadoff hitter gets an opening base hit to start the day. We bunt the next pitch to advance the runner and for the first time in all day we have a runner in scoring position with one out. A pass ball then occurs and we end up stealing third. We then took a blow as our next hitter struck out. We had two outs and a runner on third. The hitter knocks a sharp ground ball in between third and short and as the shortstop goes to backhand the ball and throw to first, something in his arm overextended and the ball sailed over the first baseman’s mit; we’re up 1-0.

They would eventually even it up and we would go all the way to the bottom of the sixth inning with the No. 2 team in the state of Mississippi, and the score was 1-1. It was awesome. The glisten in our kids eyes electrified and inspired me as a coach, and for a moment I knew our team thought that we could beat them. Some unfortunate events then took place the second half of the inning and we would finish the game the losing by 6 runs. It didn’t matter; that was the proudest I have ever been with a group of guys. We were mediocre by everyone’s opinion up until that point. But for 6 innings, we looked unflawed. We pitched, we fielded, we threw, we ran; we did it all. We just ran out of gas. But at the end of the game, our team was much more confident as men. I can't wait to see how our season finishes out.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Baseball and Positives

I always take the time every once in a while in blogging to write about how my teams are doing. I am currently coaching baseball at one of the Jackson schools right now, and we are now three games into the district schedule. The first team we played was horrible I hate to say. We had to go to the Delta two and a half hours out of the way to play a game that wasn’t even close. The only thing I think I really got from it was a cold. The next day at class I was absolutely miserable.
Then a couple of days ago we hosted a game against a Delta squad. That was the best defensive game we have played thus far. Our team looked sharp, and one particular bright spot came at third base. We had been looking at different people to play that position early on this season, and we just had a freshman kid become eligible. He put on a show. I think in one stretch he had 5 put-outs in a row. His potential is sky-high. His technique is a little rough, but his hand-eye coordination is unreal; you can’t teach that. Plus, he likes me a lot and he’s always volunteering a lot to participate in things to get better. He’s making quite an impression on me as you can see. We did end up winning that game by a score of 11-1 though. The other team was horrible I thought. They made us look really good. I’m still not quite sure how we’ll match up when we play the talented suburb teams. They’re just so well coached that we really have to put on a show in the field and then hit the ball. I guess we’ll see; we play them next week.
Now to follow up on my last blog, I wanted to post a couple of reasons why I think MTC is a great program. First of all, if you love a challenge, this is the spot for you. You will be challenged every day you step in to your building. It is a profession where the unexpected can happen at any time, and it is up to you to react and make the right call.
The second reason is the life-changing relationships that you’ll make along the way. I think a person might be too idealistic if they think they are going to revolutionize the school that they get placed. I do, however, though think that they will make a huge difference to a handful of kids in the community, and this will carry over for the rest of your life. The friendships that you’ll make out here will cause a lot of self-reflection, and I think they’ll do nothing but improve your outlook on society today.
The last reason that I wanted to cover is that you’ll come out of your two years with a degree from the University of Mississippi. Not only are you getting a remarkable experience in teaching, but you are going to get the opportunity to tackle coursework that will be stimulating and beneficial, and it’s free. I don’t think you can beat that.

Negatives

I am so ready for spring break. I hate to make a statement like this at a time when I know the mindset has to be positive and on improving the students, but I just can’t help myself. I feel exhausted right now. I just skipped going to class this weekend to attend my old college roommate’s wedding in Dallas. The only thing is that I couldn’t book a flight, because I was uncertain as to when our baseball game would finish up. It didn’t finish until 9 pm; it should have been over at 8, so I had to drive 6 hours to make it Dallas. I feel like I could sleep for 2 days straight. The 3 preps and 3 sports are killing me right now. I feel like I am at a constant full speed going from one thing to the next. I’m normally not a complainer at all, and I normally get annoyed with people that do but I am just flat out tired right now. Spring break could not occur at a better time.
On a different note though, I know Ben had mentioned maybe posting some reasons why or why not to join the program. For this particular blog, I think I am going to write reasons why someone might not want to join a program like this. I feel like I am in a mood where I could come of as somewhat negative.
First of all, if you are not a committed person, you are screwed. You are going to be tested on a daily basis where challenges pop up either in your classroom or on the playing field. Having no previous knowledge of the culture, this puts you at a huge disadvantage, since you don’t know what gets results. You are testing them out. Well, I guarantee you that you are not going to figure out the correct results the first time. It’s going to take you a while….months, a semester, maybe the first year before you attain your goal.
Another thing that an applicant might want to consider is the amount of sacrifices that one will have to make depending on your background. Maybe perhaps, you are used to being in a big city or college town where you have access to a vast majority of entertainment resources and opportunities to hang out with people your age. If you get assigned certain places in the Delta, this will be a huge change. You go from being able to do anything you want to do whenever you want to, to having to plan out when you are going to partake in certain entertainment ventures, even in Jackson.
The final thing that I would consider before joining is do I really want to have to do additional coursework. A lot of people join the program with the notion that they just want to teach in the classroom. Well, a large requirement in this program is having to partake in additional projects and write additional papers. Plus, you have to make the sacrifice of using some of your Saturdays for class time instead of using it for recovery time for the week. All in all, I think these are the reasons someone might not want to do MTC. Hopefully, this week will be more rejuvenating.