Softball has been the center of my life for the past 14 years of my life, my two positions being catcher and outfield. I played travel softball from 10U all the way to my first year of 18U, I played in high school, I am a freshman at Saint Mary’s playing for the softball team and I have also had the honor of being an assistant coach for a 10U softball team. So what does any of this have to do with the mental game of an athlete and its importance?
This question is not easy to answer — at least for me it wasn’t. Through my experiences playing softball and coaching softball, there are a few different reasons why a mental game of an athlete is so important. Two of these aspects are confidence and focus.
Confidence
I have learned that softball is a game of failure. You make mistakes, and you learn from them. The most important thing, though, is that you cannot let one mistake ruin the rest of the game, or it can lead to more room for error.
My senior year of high school helped me learn that. I did not get my freshman year season due to COVID-19, and I was out my sophomore and junior years due to surgeries. However, I was able to make a comeback and start as a designated player.
After not playing for three years in high school, I stepped into the box during the first game and struck out. As soon as that happened I realized that I had no confidence in myself and that I was scared. This ties to confidence because confidence tells an athlete that they can do it and they can step into the box in high stress situations and be able to make the play happen.
I remember the summer before my senior year, I was coaching a 10U travel softball team and one of the youngest girls on the team was going to catch for us at a tournament. I remember her walking up to me and saying “Claire I am really scared, I have never caught before.” At that moment I knew that she did not have a lot of confidence in herself.
As a catcher, I understood that feeling of nervousness and fear, so what I told her was that no matter what happens, whether we win the game or not, she is trying something new and she should be proud of herself for that.
Focus
Focus is a key part of an athlete’s mental game. This could mean knowing where the ball is, knowing where you are going to throw the ball if it comes to you, fielding the ball smoothly and making the play and much more.
I am a catcher and this position requires a lot of focus, which I have learned over my years of play. When I was in high school and I was behind the plate, there were a few times where I would stop paying attention. This could be not knowing where the runners were, not paying attention to the pitch that the coach was calling or not knowing how many outs there were.
This is where I learned why it is important to stay focused, especially behind the plate. Not knowing where the runners were caused more than one error in the field. Not knowing what pitch the coach called caused me to line up wrong behind the plate and the pitcher threw the wrong pitch. Point of the matter being is, without focus, one error turns into another and ultimately leads to a team loss.
In terms of when I was coaching, focus was very important. Of course there is no doubt that these 10U girls were probably focused on something else.
One thing that I had to make sure that they understood was that, without focus, there is no game no matter where you are on the field. Without focus, there is room for error which will evidently lead to more errors and end in a loss.
Overall, the main point that I want to make to answer my original question is that without confidence and focus, there will be error after error, leaving no room for improvement. It is truly a mental game.
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