Building Self-Esteem in Youth Baseball Players

The Trent Reynolds Player Development Commit to Hitᵀᴹ Process is a unique program that offers youth, high school and college ball players improvement in the attributes coaches want most—hitting for average and hitting for power. While our Commit to Hitᵀᴹ Process guarantees a professional baseball swing once the player has completed the program, it also promises growth in the maturity and hitting knowledge and savvy of the player. Below, TRPD’s Commit to Hitᵀᴹ instructor, Coach Justin Fultz, shares more insight into the philosophy of the program and what to expect. Review Part 1 before reading Part 2.

Building Self-Esteem and a Positive Self-Image

In our process we also focuses on building the player’s self-esteem. This is critical because no one can perform beyond their self-image. What coaches, parents and instructors say to a player has as much to do with his performance as his hitting mechanics. Unfortunately, our experience has been that most coaches (and way too many parents) point out the faults in a player’s hitting, what he is doing wrong, and his poor at-bats. This is a big problem for a couple reasons:

1) By stressing the player’s failures, we rob him of his successes and his enjoyment of the game.

2) The time to work on what’s wrong is during hitting when the player can actually do something to fix the problem, not before, during or after the game.

Our players and parents are often surprised when they first see us continually telling the player things that build his self-image and esteem. For example, each time a player enters the cage for a session, I ask them the same questions:

1) Who is the best player wherever you are?

2) Who is a beast hitting machine?

3) Who’s a committed player ready to work hard on becoming a great hitter?

And I encourage them to respond, ‘I am!’ and repeat it several times. With enough repetition, this conditions them to believe it, accept it, and it grooms them in a positive light.

As I mentioned earlier, what coaches, parents and instructors say to a player is important in that we have a great influence on how he sees himself. But in our process we help the player understand that the person who has the most impact on his self-image is himself. A player with positive ‘self-talk” will almost always have a well developed self-image. And a player with a positive self-image is not only more likely to perform to his potential, but less likely to be influenced by the negative things that he hears from well-meaning but unknowing coaches and parents.

Learn more about the Commit to Hitᵀᴹ Process Hitting Instruction. If you or your player are interested in the Commit to Hitᵀᴹ Process, please contact Coach Justin Fultz for more information: [email protected] or 512.970.8955.