Last year I chose to volunteer at several baseball camps by offering free instruction and assistance. One of the camps was for younger children and was a free clinic offered through my high school. The other was a prospect camp for Newberry College, in which high school juniors and seniors came to pursue dreams of playing college baseball. Both of the camps were rewarding in their own respects, and they offered me insight and a new perspective on the motivational nature of humanity.
The first camp, a free clinic offered through Dreher High School in Columbia, SC, allowed me to work with children between the ages of eight and twelve years old. The clinic is advertised in elementary and middle schools every year in the surrounding areas and targets those in disadvantageous situations. These children would most likely not have the opportunity to play, much less go to camps for baseball, due to financial or family circumstances. The format of the camp is one instructional day and one day to apply their newly acquired skills in a real game. I was put in charge of the hitting drills and also to be the head coach of one of the teams on day two. To say that this experience changed my perspective would be an understatement. I got to see the passion in the children’s eyes; it was the same look I imagined that I must have had when I was their age. I knew that when they came to that field that they were getting away from something. Beyond the fence was everything that was holding them back, from dysfunctional families to poor financial situations, but when they arrived to camp all that disappeared. For once they were not oppressed kids… they were just kids. They asked me questions about my career and what it is like to play college baseball, and I told them that it is not nearly as fun as playing when I was their age. I knew they looked up to me as I had looked up to the college players that I met when I was younger. I knew that every movement I made and everything that I said would have a lasting effect on them. This invited me to ponder the nature of humanity. I concluded that the closest we can get to fulfill our souls through any earthly pleasure comes through simplicity. The look in the children’s eyes when they finally understood a new concept or got their first hit is unlike anything I have seen as I have gotten older. This was an interesting concept that I got to take over to the more advanced camp the next week.
The recruiting camp, held by Newberry College coaching staff every year, allows coaches and players to work with prospective student-athletes and evaluate their skills. An invite is sent out to those athletes that have expressed interest in the program as well as those that have caught the coaches’ eyes throughout the recruiting process. Players take part in drills, throw bullpens and hit batting practice to showcase their talents. The college players are asked to do miscellaneous tasks from setting up drills to throwing batting practice and keeping charts. I was put in charge of the radar gun for pitchers throwing bullpens. This allows for coaches to get a velocity reading on pitches and get an idea of the physical capabilities of young pitchers. I had been to similar camps in high school, in which a lot of pressure was put on me to perform well and earn a scholarship, so it came as a surprise to see how laid back everyone was. When guys hit well or made a good defensive play, they smiled just as they had when they were younger. They also looked up to me just as the children had. This was a weird concept for me, because I was in their shoes just last year at this time, but they asked me questions and I gave advice just as I had to the small children. Baseball is one of those sports that has a certain personality to it, and it becomes more and more apparent the more I am around the game. The young men out there on that day had a similar passion about them as the young children had at the free clinic. They were two completely different levels of competition made up of opposite demographics, yet it felt the same to me. Mechanics may change with experience, but the soul’s needs and desires remain the same throughout a person’s life. The concept of the aura of baseball allowed me to conclude that the human soul is not necessarily tangible, but you can certainly detect its presence in the physical world.
Both of the camps had their own unique effect on me. While my role, the skill level of the players, and the types of people that were involved may have been completely different, I still detected the same atmosphere. The contrast in situations allowed me to reach more finite conclusions on my opinions of motivation. The young children were driven by different motivations that the high school athletes, but they all had similar reactions to success. Whether they never pick up a ball again or go on to play in the MLB, on those days between those lines they were all the same.
