Musings from the CU Suite

Editors note: As I finished this post, something seemed familiar. Well, there was a reason. I wrote about this day before. I thought about scratching it and starting over, but I looked back at the day a bit differently this time. I hope you don't mind. 

Written by Anthony  Demangone

He was struggling. 

Our best 11-year-old pitcher was on the mound. But he has lost his touch. And as the pitches soared this way and that, I could see his frustration grow. 

He loaded the bases with walks. 

And then I heard it. 

"Just throw strikes." 

That was the head coach. And he didn't say "just throw strikes."  He growled it. 

Four more pitches. Four more balls. 

He walked in a run. 

I've pitched before, and there's no worse feeling than losing control. I saw the pitcher's head drop.

"Just throw strikes," bellowed the coach. 

I was the assistant coach that season.  

'Let me handle it," I said. 

I was lucky. My little league coach was a former catcher who worked his way up the Detroit farm system - all the way to Triple-A. He never had even a cup of coffee in the majors. But he was a heck of a coach. 

He knew that sometimes you coached, and sometimes you inspired. And that a lot of getting performance out of a team was getting them in the right frame of mind. Coach was always the master of cracking a joke when a game got tight. Or focusing us when we got a bit too loose in the dugout. 

As I went to the mound, I carried his wisdom with me. I needed it. The pitcher was tearing up. And he wanted to be anywhere but on that mound. 

"What's your favorite pizza?" I asked him. 

He looked at me, puzzled. 

Well, we talked about pizza. He liked plain pizza. I told him peppers and sausage was a man's pizza. When he laughed a bit, I simply told him what my coach had told me a thousand times. 

Don't think. Just throw. Look at the catcher's mitt. Don' t think. Just rock and fire. We didn't want anyone else on the mound- because he was the right guy that day to pitch. Just don't think. Look. Rock. Fire. 

He rocked and fired. -pop- A strike! You could see the world roll off his shoulders. The parents cheered, and he worked his way out of the inning. 

Strasburg, getting ready to pitch in game one of the playoffs last year. Think his coach told him to throw strikes?

All too often, we have moments where people struggle. They screw up. They make mistakes. String a few mistakes together, and you can find yourself turning into that 11-year-old on the mound. Your throat tightens up. The pitches go wild. Things that were easy, now seem tough. The fear of making a new mistake has the power to paralyze.

You have a choice as a leader. You can tell them to "throw strikes," or you can do what you can to stoke the fire in their belly. You can remind them what you see in them. There will be time to coach tomorrow, but in the moment of a crisis, confidence moves mountains. 

Like I said, I had a good coach. And that kid? He hurled a 1-hitter at our last game of the season.