Coaching Middle School Part II...

As a new girls softball coach in a well-established middle school league on the far east side of Tucson, I've got a lot to learn.

First, there are the have and the have-nots. My school is new and it'll take a few years to rise to the top, so to speak. A couple of teams have it all and you might as well pencil them in for the playoffs in May, a one-day tournament consisting of the top four teams in the 10-team league.

The coaches on the "have it all" teams will tell you up front if you are interested (and I am) that this is the way it is gonna be, so you might as well live with it for a few years. What is so interesting, is that my girls (at least nine of the 13 anyway) are aware of it and take a loss in stride.

As for me, I hate to be on the bad end of a score, but I'm working on it. That is one thing I've learned from my girls already.We are 1-1 on the season...and that's a plus. But we hit the road this week and take on the defending league champions. Supposedly, they have a pitcher that throws harder than Nolan Ryan! The school has a website with 91 pictures on it and a Facebook page to match. The pictures depict how they demolished their first three opponents by the mercy-run rule...and shows in each photo just how much fun they were having in the process.

As for me, I can't believe how I've grown to love the "team" in just a few short weeks. Give us a flame-thrower and we can compete right now and I fully expect to be one of the four teams in the playoffs in just our first year. If for some reason we don't reach the playoffs, then we'll be back next year even stronger and we'll get it done in 2011. I'll keep you, my readers, posted on our wins and losses in the next few weeks, giving you the "ups and downs" as we head for our number one goal, which is to make the playoffs. Stay tuned.

Middle School Softball Update: A victory of sorts! We suprise the defending league champions, jump out to a 2-0 lead, tied at 4-4 through the middle innings, before losing in six innings and in two hard-fought hours, 9-4. We're now on the map, so to speak, and the rest of the league knows it. The first runs scored off of the defending champions since April of 2009.

Got to love it!