Personal Essay: The Role Of Failure In Baseball

This is probably the part where you see someone put a cliché quote that inspires them, but I’m going to jump right into this. The value of failure is something you should learn in life, because failure can teach you a new mentality to do things, like working hard and trying to get better or quitting because someone can’t deal with failure. 7th grade tryouts were the first time that I actually had to try out for a school sports team, It was the most nervous I had ever been in my life up to that point. The summer that led up to tryouts consisted of throwing off that Louisville Slugger net to work on my fielding. I had made the improvements that I felt were necessary and put in the hard work that now has defined me as a player and as a student.
I may not be a starter for my baseball team, I may not play near as much as I want, but I still work hard and I still want to prove people wrong. I know that I’m not the best, but like Dustin Pedroia, I will work to be better, to prove people wrong, and to succeed in what I do, whether it’s sports, coaching or academics. But without the coaches that worked with him to get better, Dustin would’ve never succeeded and in my case that is especially true. One coach in particular is coach Ohlau who, no matter what worked with me whether it was in the baseball camps, after practice or after we’d just finished coaching baseball for the middle school he always was working with me. Thanks partly to the efforts by him and the other EHS baseball coaches I have become the player, student and person I am today. As a coach, I also believe in the value of hard work, it’s sad to see players who could be good just be lazy and seeing the failure of people with great talent but no work ethic, is an eye opening experience, and it inspires me to work hard to not end up in the same