I am 45 years old. Grew up in Concord, CA until I was about 14 years old. We moved to Vancouver, WA the summer before my freshman year of high school and moved to Tyler, TX about 2 years ago.

Let me give you a little history…

My parents recently did the parent thing and broke out old video to enjoy some laughs and some memories. There was a lot of amazing video that was great to see. But one thing I realized was that I didn’t remember any of it. Video from when I was 11/12 years old to video of me playing ball in HS. I remember the people of course, but the moments…Well the memories are few and far between.

One video showed me acting like a complete fool towards my sister. In a teasing manner but when I see my actions, it’s quite embarrassing. In another video, I watched myself pitch in a Freshman HS game. Though I was tall and had a decent arm, my delivery left a lot to be desired compared with what I know now.

Through HS, I wasn’t the best son or student. Especially those first couple years. When I look back, this was right after we moved. The biggest reasoning for this was who I chose to spend my time with. My grades were awful. I spent most of my time around unmotivated people and I constantly disrespected those who had provided the most for me my whole life, my parents.

Blame it on puberty, blame it on moving, blame it on whatever. All I know is that I was going down the wrong path.

Through all this, my parents had faith. Things started to turn around and it all revolved around Baseball. The possibility of being able to play beyond HS started to become a reality but I had to make some big adjustments and improvements, starting with my school work. It was a big uphill battle but I was able to make enough changes to sign a scholarship to a major college.

I was drafted out of HS and chose to go that route. Three days after graduating, I was off. I had to learn how to take care of myself in a hurry.

Seven years into my career, our first child was born. He is now almost 20 years old and looking back, that was the moment in my life that everything changed. All of a sudden I had someone else to provide for and take care of. I realized that there was more to life than myself and baseball.

We were blessed with seven more years of traveling and playing baseball. During those years, we had two more beautiful children. We spent a lot of time apart but we also traveled the country and even overseas together. During all those years, I’m always surprised at what I remember most. Not the games I pitched or the championships we won but the ups and downs of being parents.

After my playing days were done, we found ourselves still fortunate to travel the US but now it was because of coaching. We did that for three years until we decided to step away from the pro game and focus on teaching, guiding and mentoring our local ball players and their families.

During those years as a player and coach, all the traveling, being around so many different people with so many different upbringings and experiences while raising a family in the process… Let’s just say it has all taught me so much.

13 things life has taught me…

1) Relationships are first and foremost. With your family, spouse, friends, students or players.

2) As adults, we most likely won’t remember many of the details of our youth, but all the moments along the way molded us. Think of it like this, in youth Baseball, it’s not the games and the outcomes that a child will remember, it’s the little things like someone showing faith in them when they fail or someone belittling them and pushing them to the side when they make mistakes that will develop their self esteem and teach them how to trust or not trust.

3) Puberty can be hard on anyone. It hits everyone different. My parents persevered. Realizing what I put them through has helped me as a parent of now three teenagers.

4) Baseball is a game. A game that should be fun and played to win. But the life lessons it can teach you, 1000% outweigh one’s physical ability, how many trophies or rings they win, how many homers they hit, how many guys they strike out, how hard they throw or where the game takes them.

5) Character > Athleticism

6) Playing the game is tough. Coaching the game is tough. Parenting is tough. Growing up is tough. Play it the best you can. Teach it the best you can. Raise them the best you can. Learn as much as you can.

7) You can’t teach experience but experience doesn’t always mean better. It means you may have more to share from but not everyone is a teacher. Playing and coaching are two very different things.

8) Knowledge is power. Gain as much information on the subject as you can before you start making choices and decisions.

9) We are a product of what we surround ourselves with. Do the things we choose to have in our life provide positive and encouraging thoughts or do they breed negativity and put us in a place of constant bitterness to what is happening around us? I suggest filling your head with as much motivation as you can. Life is tough enough!

10) Everyone has different opinions. Different feelings on topics. Different ideas and different approaches. IT’S OK! We don’t all have to see eye to eye on everything.

11) There are two kinds of coaches. Transactional and Transformational. Learn the difference between the two. Personally I strive to be Transformational and breathe to help others become this type of mentor.

12) Too many adults often forget how hard it was growing up and how hard this game is. Many have lost perspective that the number one goal is raising people. Developing quality people. They get so caught up in, and become obsessed with, the outcome of a game, that they become blinded to the children that are standing before them learning how to live.

13) FAMILY IS EVERYTHING!!

The game is called “Life.” In our world, Baseball is an amazing tool we get to use to teach with. The lessons that it teaches are endless. It’s not for everyone and very few in this world understand the passion we all have for it, but I recommend we all learn to use it for goodness and not greed.

What the game of Life has taught me.

Chris Gissell (172 Posts)

Founder of Baseball Dudes. Blessed with three beautiful children and an amazing wife. Baseball is my life, after my family, and I love sharing what I have learned from it. Thanks for taking the time to view what we offer here at Baseball Dudes.

All dirt fields, mismatched uniforms (if they had them), hand me down cleats, bats and gloves (if they had them), old ratty baseballs and some stories of quitting school as teenagers to support their families.

I was drafted in 1996. Three days after graduating HS, I was on a plane across the country where I would soon find myself sharing a clubhouse and dugout with young men from all over America, to Australia, to the Dominican Republic, to Venezuela, to Mexico. I had no idea that the next 17 years of my life would not only be an experience of a lifetime as an athlete but an experience that would help mold my perspective on the game, development, what it takes and getting to know men all over the country/world, their life, upbringing and what their path was like which led to us being teammates.

Many have seen the video of Mariano Rivera talking about, and showing, how he would use a piece of cardboard to make a glove. This Dude is arguably the best closer of all time yet he didn’t grow up with the shiny stuff.

The energy our latino teammates brought was awesome! Getting to know them, their culture and what life was like for them as kids is something I will never forget. Many of them literally came from nothing yet here they were considered some of the best athletes in the world. Many would send money home from their already small paychecks (as minor leaguers) but they would show up everyday grateful for their opportunity.

Looking back on this experience and playing with these men day in and day out I am certain of one major thing that gets lost in our youth game…

It’s not the team, the uniforms, the bat, the glove, the batting gloves, the cleats, the sunglasses, the name of the tournament, the coach, the instructor or the school that makes the athlete. It’s the ability they were born with, their attitude, their work ethic/desire to be great, their grit, their aptitude and their ability to keep going when things get tough.

Perspective is formed from our personal experiences. Because we all have different experiences through our lives many of us tend to see things a little different. This is a bit of mine.

Chris Gissell (172 Posts)

Founder of Baseball Dudes. Blessed with three beautiful children and an amazing wife. Baseball is my life, after my family, and I love sharing what I have learned from it. Thanks for taking the time to view what we offer here at Baseball Dudes.

The game has been a part of me since I was 5 which means for the last 41 years it’s been a constant process of learning. I played until I was 32 and have been teaching full time ever since. Here are a few things I’ve learned throughout this process that are necessary, needed and missing…

1. No matter their age, even those big kids we get to watch on TV, they need to believe in themselves. Their level of confidence will determine the quality of their performance. We as coaches (and adults in their lives) are there to help them with this. Mechanical adjustments can help especially when they see a positive change in their ability but helping them get their mind right, teaching them approach, visualization, how to handle adversity, etc. WILL give them the best chance at consistency.

2. Communicate!! The best coaches I’ve been around are great communicators. They explain well, are great with eye contact, they follow through with their words, if they tell a player one thing but plans change they take time to explain. Without communication minds are left to wonder and we all know what happens when that happens.

3. Organization is key. Practice plans should be made well in advance of showing up to practice. Line-ups should be written before you get to the park. We need to be mentally prepared for an audible at any moment but scrambling to make a plan will always lead to mistakes and often confusion.

4. The Player:Coach ratio is vital when it comes to player development. For the younger I’ve found the ratio is best around 4:1 and as they get older 5/6:1 works well. The smaller the ratio the more eyes on reps, the more touches they get, the smoother practices can run. The goal is little to no standing around during practice.

5. We want great competitors out there. Players who play fearless, aggressive, have awareness, know their jobs and have great baseball IQ. So we need to teach them what that means. Some need more help at it than others but that’s why we are out there. We need to teach them the game. Situational baseball. Give them the freedom to be aggressive knowing mistakes will be made. If we want them to have feel for the game we need to teach them and then let THEM play it. When we hold their hands, tell them what to do and when to do ALL THE TIME, we are not giving them those chances to develop that feel.

6. We preach confidence, believe in yourself, focus on what you can control. The best way to help them with this is to live it. Be that voice for them. Be that example for them. We have to be ultra aware though of how many of our actions go completely against this. Our body language when they make a mistake. Our belittling tone when they make an error. How we respond when we think the umpires are making the wrong calls. Speaking positivity one moment but then going against it in the next is an US issue. BE THE EXAMPLE!

7. Get them to talk. See what they are thinking. Athletes are used to always being talked to, I’ve found talking WITH them helps them be more aware and more engaged and we know better what we are working with when we get to hear how they are processing things. It doesn’t matter how much we know as coaches, when we give them TMI we can’t get upset with them when they simply aren’t ready for it all yet. We need to be aware of our audience.

8. We never know what’s going on at home or on that car ride home. We have the opportunity to make a difference in their lives. Some may see it differently but there are many times when coaching baseball becomes much more than teaching a game. That PERSON may just need one person in their life to show them kindness, understanding, someone to trust or even on the flip side, someone to hold them accountable, call them out and teach them that’s now how we do things.

9. Everyone is a hitting coach!! Where are all the pitching coaches?? As a former pitcher I’m blown away at how few teams/programs out there make preparing pitchers a priority. Every arm on a team that has a chance at pitching in games should be getting weekly time on a mound to practice. Just like hitters take batting practice, fielders take ground balls, outfielders work on catching fly balls. If we can’t throw strikes consistently, we will give away too many runs.

10. Coaches, how often are you working your catchers out? How often do they work on blocking? How often do they work on throw downs? How often do they work on catching high pop foul balls? How often do they work on leadership? Our performance as a team weighs mightily on our pitchers and catchers. Too many coaches are missing this.

11. Fear just may be the hardest thing to help players work through. It’s a powerful emotion that grips many young players. Fear of not doing well. Fear of getting hurt (aka, being hit by the ball). Fear of embarrassment or fear of who is watching and what they might say or how they will react. It requires patience and consistency from us adults to help them work through it.

12. Mechanical adjustments are not always, you could even say rarely, the answer to what’s causing a slump. Sure giving them some attention may help a little and act as a distraction but more often than not that slump is happening because of what’s going on, or not going on, between our ears. Lack of approach. Negative self talk. Poor visualization and/or giving too much attention to the un-controllable’s. Coaches, help them get, and keep, their mind right.

13. The game and what we know about it, how to perform better at it, has really evolved since us in our 30’s, 40’s and over 50’s were growing up in it. We know so much more now. There is a lot of great information out there, we just have to intentionally look for it. We need to be just as coachable as coaches as we want our players to be. None of us know it all.

14. We are their leader out there. They feed off our energy, emotions and actions. If we are complaining about the umpire, so will they. If we talk about focusing on the controllable’s, so will they. The culture and attitude within our group (parent’s included) is a reflection of our attitude, the standards we set, the example we give and the actions we allow.

15. For most of the players we get to teach, the game will not be their lives. They won’t get to play it for long in comparison to how long they will live. The lessons we can use from the game to help them with life are endless. You can find something everyday to relate. In the end they MIGHT remember a few of the moments they had playing the game but we have the opportunity to help them develop as a person which honestly is more important than any outcome of any game.

“Baseball is life but there’s more to life than Baseball.”

Chris Gissell (172 Posts)

Founder of Baseball Dudes. Blessed with three beautiful children and an amazing wife. Baseball is my life, after my family, and I love sharing what I have learned from it. Thanks for taking the time to view what we offer here at Baseball Dudes.