Life Lesson #34: The Fire Within

The Fire Within

An intangible ingredient to a successful athlete is drive. When this drive, internal fire, or desire to get better is lacking, it becomes a limiting factor to change. I believe that certain athletes have a fire burning inside of them, driving them to improve and succeed while also leaving them open to suggestions. These athletes inherently push themselves, requiring much less of a mental push from an instructor. The more difficult athletes are those that are easy-going in nature and require a little more assistance in stoking the fire. The “Fire Within” refers to this inherent drive. Athletes that do not have a burning desire to get better present a major challenge for instructors: How to teach an athlete to care! In an effort to help these athletes get better, we try to stoke the fire within in. This means that we are training them to increase their intensity… with hopes that this mental change will improve their ability to make physical adjustments and improvements. It’s a delicate balance, because you can’t turn a passive youngster into a raging maniac, or a less-than-coordinated athlete into Roger Clemens. However, it will be beneficial, and the athlete will like it, when they get better. Regardless of their skill level, improvement breeds confidence and confidence leads to enjoyment. So, the challenge is to pick up the intensity level in a positive way. Relating this to pitchers, an athlete must care. Athletes need to know that throwing a terribly wild pitch is simply unacceptable. While the definition of “terrifically wild” will be determined by the athletes’ skill level, our responsibility as coaches is to assist athletes in understanding (and learning to believe) that they are held to a certain level of performance. With that responsibility should come a sense of frustration when not pitching up to their ability. IE a terrifically wild pitch should cause some degree of anger, frustration or disappointment. There is nothing more frustrating that working with an athlete that doesn’t care where he’s throwing the ball. Typically, I’ll let one or two sail by, paying close attention to the athlete’s reaction and efforts to correct the miss. If the athlete shows that he is not making any effort to improve – showing a lack of Fire Within – then it is time to light the fuse. Be positive yet firm in explaining that throwing a ball sideways is unacceptable… and that doing so should eat them up to a degree. We’re trying to help stoke a competitive fire, setting a reasonably high expectation level, and then realistically striving to reach that level. The same can be said for a hitter. In order to improve, a hitter must be upset with making an out. While there is never an excuse for poor body language or disrespecting an umpire or opponent, striking out should not be an enjoyable experience. Sometimes, this intensity needs to be manually increased. A good friend and former Major League instructor with the San Diego Padres, Joey Aversa, shared his thoughts on how he developed his “killer instinct.” Naturally, Joe was an easy-going, fun guy. He needed a manual adjustment in the box to make the experience personal. The way he increased his fire within was to view each at-bat as a battle between himself and the pitcher. When he struck out against a certain pitcher, he took it personal – that pitcher had beaten him. And when a catcher threw him out trying to steal second base, he would make sure to watch the catcher’s reaction and tell himself that next time would be different. This line of thinking helped to pick up his intensity level, especially as the seasons grew longer and longer over years of playing.