Life is designed for you to get nervous—whether it’s about what has happened in the past, what is happening now or what is going to happen in the future. It is how you deal with that fear that will determine how you live your life.
During my sophomore year of high school, I was pulled up to play baseball for the varsity team. I was excited, but I had zero expectations of actually playing. We had three pitchers older than me, and I was an unknown underclassmen. However, I went into the season with a positive attitude, focusing on how I needed to prove myself, get better and hopefully get an opportunity to get a couple of starts against weaker teams. And, if I was really lucky, I would get some middle relief appearances against better teams.
In the first game of the season, our ace pitcher got hurt. The next week of practices involved my distraught coach trying to figure out who was going to take his place. I saw the opportunity in front of me, but I was nervous. The prospect of starting big-time games made me a little squeamish. Yet, the next week came, and I was deemed to be the replacement.
After a couple of starts, I was doing okay. My performance was not fantastic, but I was providing solid efforts against subpar teams. But, looming the next week, we were going to be playing the best team in our conference, and I was named as the starter. This was a big game that would help decide our seeding in the conference playoffs and possibly the state playoffs. The opposing pitcher for this team was a kid named Bryse Wilson. Kid is an understatement, as the dude looked like he was 25 years old. He was committed to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at the time and his fastball topped out at 96 mph (he was eventually drafted in the fourth round by the Atlanta Braves, and he signed a professional contract for over $1 million). And then there I am, a scrawny, 150 pound, 16-year-old thinking about how I’m going to compete at his level.
There are a few moments before the game that I will never forget. I remember playing catch and seeing the first MLB scout walk up the gravel road with his hat and backpack, followed by 15 more. I remember throwing my pregame bullpen right next to this behemoth high school senior with all of these scouts standing behind us, watching, radar guns pointing.
We lost. 2-1. I pitched well, but the biggest takeaway was that I wasn’t nervous while I was out on the mound. I didn’t care what the scouts thought, about how good the team was or how big of a game it was. I just pitched, and I pitched with confidence. And that was a moment of realization for me. Live life how I play baseball—without fear and with confidence.
There is a difference between thinking you can do something and expecting yourself to do something. With expectations, there comes an ultimate desire to succeed and the belief that you will accomplish the goal. It keeps you from hesitating and second guessing yourself. This has helped me in the classroom, as well. I hold myself to a higher standard that has enabled me to be successful academically. It has also helped me socially with interacting with people in different scenarios.
Life hands everybody “bases loaded, no outs” situations. You’re in a terrible spot and just need to find a way to get out of it. And I can’t thank the sport of baseball enough for when life throws me those situations; instead of giving up a grand slam, I can strike the next three guys out.
– By Davis Palermo