pitching – Softball Nation

Nausea, dizziness, loss of vision, diarrhea, stomach bleeding – these symptoms may become more intense later in the season or further into the bracket of the tournament
Severe fingernail loss – Parents of pitchers don’t always chew their fingernails. But when they do, they prefer to chew them down to the nubs.
Uncontrolled pacing, gum chewing, sunflower seed eating, cigarette smoking or vaping – This is game day and you need to do something while worrying about your kid pitching
You throw away nearly-new cleats because there’s a hole in the toe – You wish you knew a kid with the same size foot as your daughter’s, who pitches with the opposite hand. That way you could split the cost of cleats.
You have multiple bruises on your shins – Sometimes you can see the marks that the seams leave on your skin. The bruising goes up when your child learns a new pitch.
Consistent numbness in your left hand – Catching all those pitches has a side-effect. But having feeling in your glove hand isn’t that important anyway.
High cell phone data usage – You send frantic messages or emails to your child’s pitching coach to get analysis of what’s going wrong. This chews up data like a teenager on that stupid lip-sync app that has thankfully become uncool.
You feel your kid is responsible for winning or losing the game / You feel everyone else’s kid is responsible for winning or losing the game – Parents of pitchers can have one of these feelings or waffle back and forth between the two. There’s no logic to it. It’s purely emotional.
You wish you could draw an ‘air’ strike zone for umpires – Why can’t they wear contact lenses with a rectangle to show the strike zone?
You prefer sitting on a bucket instead of a chair – the lid is already shaped to your ass

Pitching Coach Monica Fenton has helped players find success in the circle for 18 years. She’s seen well over a hundred of her students recruited to schools around the country.
In the first part of our interview with her, she answered the questions:

– What do college coaches want in their pitchers?

– How important are taking breaks from the game?

– What’s the toughest thing about getting recruited as a pitcher

As a known pitching coach to college recruiters, she has a unique perspective on how college coaches and recruits find each other.

We asked her a battery of questions about pitchers and the recruiting process. While the questions were about pitching, the answers can be applied to other positions. They give us a great perspective on the mindset of college coaches in searching for players.