One Baseball Coach by Wesley

One Baseball Coach by Wesley - January 2025 Scholarship Essay

I Love Baseball. I have been playing basically my whole life. I have had a number of coaches over the years but there is one that truly has impacted me more than any of the others or any of my teachers. When I was twelve, I started playing on a new travel team. That is when I first met Coach Bert.

Despite being a baseball coach, Coach Bert taught me a lot about life, work ethic, and just being a good person. He taught me a lot about baseball too. Many coaches are focused on winning, especially in travel ball. This results in a lot of them yelling trying to get the results they want. I have also had coaches that focus on things like running laps every time a game is lost. In one-hundred-degree June heat, after a tough loss, running laps tends to only make you resent your coach. Coach Bert was never like that. Instead, he focused on reinforcing the basics and practicing them enough that it was almost muscle memory. This helped me to realize that when faced with a challenge that you should focus on the solution and continue to work toward it. I was able to use this in school as well as baseball and life. He never got upset when we lost, never yelled and never punished us in any way. He would explain where we went wrong and what we could do to improve. That helped me learn how to approach failure. It was also valuable to me to learn that it was ok to fail. I just had to remember to work toward my goals and try again.

There were a couple games where some of the kids on the team weren’t playing their best or their hardest. We were twelve so when you are already losing it is easy to start to feel defeated in a game where failure is normal. Coach Bert sat us down and explained to us that he did not care if we lost. What he wanted from us was to give one hundred percent when we are playing. He did not want us to stop trying. This was more motivating to us to go out there and do our best than anything else. We knew it was ok to fail. We knew that these things happened. We knew this because someone took the time to explain it to us. This has helped me all through high school when I have been faced with challenges. I applied the same concepts I had learned that season of baseball. What I found was that when I approached a problem knowing that it was ok not to be perfect or succeed the first time as long as I tried my best and focused on the skills, I had been taught that I almost always succeeded anyway.

Coach Bert was the best possible mentor I could have had. I was very lucky to have such a positive experience with someone who was able to teach me so much. I will continue to apply these lessons in college and beyond. I know the positive impact he had on me will be more than valuable in my future career.