Baseball Lessons Learned Essay

Baseball: A life full of lessons “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” - Dr Suess. My first steps were with a baseball bat in my hand. Baseball was life, the rest was just details. From my brother teaching me how to play catch, Mr. Cram being a father figure and mentor in my younger years, to having my limitations challenged by a high school coach that to this day his name puts a sour taste in my mouth. This game was the foundation of the man I have become today. It taught me that hard work is the biggest factor when it comes to success. I worked hard on the field, and even harder in the classroom to give myself the opportunities I have today. Education leads to opportunity,

That name to this day is one that I cannot say without a sour thought coming through my mind. He was old school, no nonsense, and a baseball genius. When tryouts for the high school baseball team came, he already knew me by name. He called me straight into his office on the first day of school and said “Josh, you are going to be the catcher on my varsity team, nobody is going to like that. Prove them wrong”. He was blunt, straight to the point and as a freshman I really didn't know what to do with that. Once tryouts began I knew what I had to do, and so did Coach Coomes. He worked me harder than I have ever worked in my life, for the first two weeks of practice the team didn't even touch a baseball, we ran, and boy did we run a lot. “Running this much” said Coach Coomes “is what is going to separate the dedicated from the quitters.” This continued for the next four years of high school. Every year we all knew what he expected, yet every year we never failed to fall short of these incredibly high standards. He taught me from the very first day I stepped on his field that the only way for me to be successful was to have him push me harder than he pushed everyone else. I was a stubborn young man and what made me love Coach Coomes is he knew it, and he never let me slack off for even a