Saturday, May 05, 2007

Coaching under pressure

Friday at the 6A State Softball Tournament at El Dorado, I thought Lady Wildcats' coach Lyn Benson made a mistake during her team's 4-1 loss to West Memphis.
In the bottom of the seventh, El Dorado had an opportunity to walk the Lady Blue Devils' power hitter. The Lady Wildcats pitched to her and the young lady hit a game-winning home run that left a lot of folks wondering about the coaching decision.
I must admit, I was one of Benson's critics.
Saturday afternoon, she silenced all of my criticism with one of the best performances I've seen in a long time. A man standing behind home plate had a seizure and fell to the ground in what appeared to be convulsions.
I froze, not knowing what to do. Benson did not.
She immediately aided the man, sent word to get the paramedics to the sight and stayed with him until they arrived. It was amazing how she took care of the guy, talked to him, telling him he was going to be alright.
In the heat of battle, you never know how a person will react. I thought the coach might've froze in a pressure situation on Friday.
I was wrong. When the real pressure situation arose, Coach Lyn Benson made the best call I've ever seen a coach make.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home