Logan Eades...doing what he does best! |
Like the hitting coach told my son as we stood on a baseball field covered in snow in the middle of winter, "Your local high school may be easy for you, the state may be easy for you, but while other kids are playing video games, you are practicing against the players in Arizona, California, Florida, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. Today you hit against the world."
Some of you may think it seems harsh to have a young teenager hitting baseballs out in the snow, but that is where he wanted to be. That was his choice. As I walked around in the outfield picking up baseballs with snow and ice stuck to them I thought these two guys (hitting coach and son) were a few bricks short of a full load (if you know what I mean). The weather was so bad that we did not see a single car drive by the ball field in the two hours I was freezing and shivering. Honestly, I was the only miserable one as they were laughing and having fun throughout the ordeal and I suffered alone and kept wishing that I was back home sitting next to the fireplace. The thought of hot chocolate persistently invaded my thoughts with every baseball I picked out of the snow.
However, when I returned home, cranked up the heat, and had my hot chocolate, it dawned on me that I had the wrong attitude about the day's activity. I was totally wrong because what the hitting coach was really pointing out to my son, at an early age, is that competition occurs not just locally, but internationally as well. You should always think about the big picture, not only in baseball, but in education, business, and life.
Technology has created a global world and our educators must also remember that we are training our students to compete in the global marketplace. The sooner our children figure this out, the better off they will be as well.