Don't become "The Victim"

One of the best parts about the coaching profession is the people that you get to meet along the way.  I have been fortunate enough to spend a lot of time with Coach Ralph Willard this year, and he has been able to give great insight to both our staff and our team.

One of Coach Willard’s recent messages to our guys involved not letting yourself develop a “victim’s mentality” when times get tough.  As we all know, when you lose it is easy to make excuses and say “what if I made those free throws,” or “what if we  got that stop at the end of the game.”  If you let yourself become “Victims”, things are not going to go your way and things will start to snowball individually and collectively.  Victims are always looking for reasons why things are going wrong, rather than doing something about it.  Victims are always pointing the finger instead of patting their teammate on the bat.  Victims develop the “whoa is me” mentality, rather than picking yourself (and teammate) off the mat when times get tough.  Victims are losers….and it can be contagious.

So how do you stop from becoming a victim (and we all know that this isn’t easy after you lose a few games in a row)?  Well it has to come from the top and trickle down.  Everyone from the head coach to the seniors, to the walk-ons have to collectively come together and make up their minds that they will not become “The Victim.”  We will not say, “well what if we won that game…”  instead we will win the next one.  We will not point fingers…we will collectively have each others’ back.  We will not feel sorry for ourselves…we will get tough and work even harder.  And as Coach (Ralph) Willard says…”it doesn’t just happen overnight, you have to work at it and preach it everyday.  You have to be upbeat, positive and have great body language.”

So as we are in the midst of a tough patch in our season, we were thankful to have coach Ralph Willard share some of his insight with our team.  It is now up to us to see how we respond during the stretch run in the season.  Every coach, player and team as a whole, goes through ups and downs throughout the season… but it is how you react when times are tough that defines you and your team.  Not allowing yourself to become “the victim” will determine your future.

Best of luck to everyone down the stretch!

Coach McHale

Go Pirates!

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