Current Assistant AD and Head Baseball coach at Indianola High School in Indianola, Iowa
Starting 2nd season (30-11)
Below .500 year before
Kasey Blake, Brady Blake is junior
Former Head Baseball Coach at Martensdale St. Marys (public school)
10 years, 12 years total
Part of 88 win streak as an assistant coach (under Justin Dehmer)
9 of 10 years as state finalist
Ethan Westfall played professionally (Rockies)
3rd year as a Mental performance coach
Author of Don’t Shoot the Young Buck: Living in the Present Moment
Worked with 3 college teams - Concordia, Central College, Simpson College
Multiple High school teams in all sports
Provides 1 on 1 coaching to many athletes
Notes
The mental game is a separator
Brian Cain total immersion
Mental minute at the beginning of practice
Awareness, strategy, action
Build in routines during practice
Practice green lights, yellow lights, red lights
Release routine - physical, breath, self talk
Practice striking out
End of practice journal - well, better, how or start, stop, continue to reflect on themselves, the team.
Well, better, how for more of a weekly to kick start your week
Start, stop, continue post game to get us closer to where we want to be at the end of the year
Does the kids thinking align with the coaching staff thoughts
APE - Attitude/Appearance, perspective/preparation, energy/effort
Be clark kent and turn into superman when you get to the ball field and change into your uniform. Journaling post game helps them turn back from Superman to clark kent
APE - stuffed animal to visualize APE
Signal lights
Green lights - GO! When things are going smooth,
Yellow lights - caution - pump the brakes or speed up through the light
Red light - STOP or you will crash
Recognize as respond to get back to green light
What does our body language look like in green lights?
How does that change when adversity hits?
Where is our focus?
What does our self talk?
Have kids write it down
Release language
Get big - take a deep breath on a focal point,
GOOD
SO what!
First place to start with team was signal lights, then build routines based on those lights
Shadow bullpens - no ball, just visualize, and lost in a routine