A moment of clarity

By Mike Moritz

To be honest, there have been times when it would never seem possible for me- to overcome the inability that has haunted me to keep my head straight without getting flustered, angry, tense while trying to stay confident and patient and to stop over thinking the most simple things. The mental aspect (and inexperience; I've playing baseball on the competitive stage for a little over a year as a junior in high school) has long kept me from harnessing my raw talent in baseball. I have struggled with staying calm and clear. I have trouble putting myself in the right mindset and when I do, I have trouble staying there.

Baseball has not been the only source. I find myself experiencing these "mental lapses" in school. And not just there either. Flag football with my friends.

Sounds corny but that's an area that I have had bad expirience with. And sometimes I like making this story movie like-just makes me feel cool.

Not too long ago-freshman year- I was a great flag football player. Speed. Strength. Agility. Stamina. And the ability to catch most everything that was near me. The combination made for a rather dangerous player (I was convinced). Yet, it must've been a bad day of some sort for later on, perhaps during sophomore year. A day where I just couldn't catch anything and I couldn't let it go because I had done, uncontrollably, the evil act that an athlete should never approach- I started over thinking it. I was over thinking how to catch a football. I became useless as my mental lapse in flag football became larger and larger and harder to get out of. When we picked teams, I quickly saw my draft value shrink to that of a last round pick. I had lost confidence and was still over thinking it.

And then I played flag football today. I was expecting to be a last round pick and as usual I was. Yet for some reason, I just stopped thinking. The first pass that I received in that game I wasn't thinking. I just reacted. The throw was a little high, so I jumped and caught it, as if it were no big deal. I continued to get more and more throws as the game went one. One throw to me was very high, so I jumped very high and grabbed it. When my feet landed, I turned, faked a defender out of my way and had a clear path to the touchdown, my first in more than I can remember. I got a throw low to the ground, so I got my hands low and snagged it. I didn't think, therefore I didn't drop a pass. My head was clear so today my talent was shown through.

Today, I overcame one more obstacle in my path to being the efficient and controllable thinker and baseball player I can be. The obstacle of over thinking happens to be one the hardest for me to overcome. But today I got on the field and played football, and I didn't think about what I was doing, I just did it. At some points, I found myself a little distracted by another social situation at hand and I welcomed it while I was playing and I found that it didn't bother me from succeeding at football, I was just going with the flow. A teammate of mine mentioned to me that I wasn't over thinking anymore BECAUSE I was being distracted by said social situation, which caused me to think about the act of catching a football. But I just put it to rest just as I have been taught and told to do, only this time it worked. After that? Well I still caught the rest of the passes that were thrown to me for the whole game.

The key is for me to be able to do that consistently. Today was great, but the thing that would make it better is to learn how to build off of it and send a spiral in the right direction, not downward (no pun intended).