Elle Servadio — Blog 5

This past weekend I went back to Jonesboro to watch my little sister’s tournament. Well, little did I know that my dad basically tricked me into coming, so I could help him coach. He was on call and had to leave twice, and the other coach wasn’t there at all until like six o’clock. I’ve helped my dad coach before, so I didn’t think it was going to be that big of a deal. But coaching a travel ball team versus coaching a league ball team is a lot different, and I didn’t realize it. So much more goes into it. I guess I should’ve known because I played travel ball until last summer, but I didn’t. Coaching the girls was fun though. I expected them to be brats and not listen to me, but they weren’t like that at all. They cut up with me and listened to everything I said to them. Coaching this weekend made me realize that I want to be a softball coach. There was one point this weekend when the girls had a really bad inning. They had two runners on third and had no clue! I was yelling, dad was yelling, and all of the parents were yelling. The other team ended up scoring 9 runs off of errors because the girls just gave up. The game ended up being put on a lightening delay for an hour, so we sat in the dugout and talked. Dad said what he needed to say, and then he looked at me and said “you got anything to add Ella?’ I was kind of shocked because I didn’t expect to have to speak up, but I did. When I did, all of the girls really listened. Seeing them actually absorbing everything I said felt good, but it also made me feel old. I remember being their age, starting my first real travel team, and hearing those exact same words I was telling them. I can remember how much those same words impacted me and how I viewed playing. I changed the way I played, and I changed the way I practiced. I went from working at home maybe one day a week to every day. I just hope those words stick with at least one of those girls.