In 2024 we had two 14u teams and of the 26 or so players, around 25% have gotten reps on the varsity team as freshman. The freshman North Oconee team went 15-0 and beat JV teams with sophomores and juniors on it. What does this have to do with our current 14u?

I told our players that it’s their job to not be the guys that only see the field when they are seniors. It’s their job to work hard to continue developing to ensure they don’t have to wait until high school senior night to see the field. On the other side of that, you have 7th graders that will funnel in also competing for varsity slots in a couple years.

Complacency, entitlement, and laziness are the killers of dreams. I went through those myself and it resulted in sitting on the bench. It’s my mission to help hold them accountable to not go down that path and to earn everything that is coming their way in this game. 

I want to remind our players that the work ethic and the intrinsic motivation of finding satisfaction in the process of development will yield better results than being extrinsically motivated and expecting it to be handed to them because they wear a baseball jersey and have cool batting gloves named after a guy called “Bruce”. 

I want them to compete and as a leader for them, I will never ask them to do something I am not willing to do myself. I pitched against them last week from 58 ft and I competed. I want them to have a fire in them to compete. Compete against an opponent. Compete against a hitter/pitcher. Compete against teammates trying to make the same varsity roster spot, and compete against themselves by fighting complacency, laziness, and entitlement.