Hi from Vegas

Hi from Las Vegas! I flew in this morning for the National Fastpitch Coaches Association convention. On my flight from Burbank, I sat next to the College of Charleston coach and met the UCSB coaches. Even the flight was awesome, so I knew this was going to be a great week!

They gave us a bunch of cool stuff for coming to the convention

The convention is being held at Bally's and I will be listening to presentations, getting ideas for drills and strategy for my team, and seeing the latest and greatest softball products out there. I checked into the hotel and the entire line at the front desk was softball coaches. I had to calm myself down a little bit because I was feeling completely star struck. I saw Laura Berg (3 time gold medalist) and Lisa Fernandez (best softball player in the world, possibly ever) within my first 20 minutes of being at the hotel. It made me feel like I was 12 years old again watching the Stanford softball team play. I had to remind myself that I am a Softball Program Head at one of the top prep schools in the country and these are the people I need to be networking with and basically colleagues.

The first speaker of the convention was an all day thing about "Creating a Championship Culture." He focused a lot on how to identify what you want your team's core values to be and how to get players to buy into the mission. He gave us tools and ideas for reflecting on our teams and how to make them better. I am feeling very inspired and can't wait to have these conversations with my coaches and team.

So far the best part of being at the convention is feeling apart of the softball community. I am surrounded by great coaches all the time, but because they coach other things, sometimes it is hard for me to relate to them. The energy in the room today was electric because everyone has the same passion. I also saw people that I knew and wasn't expecting to see. Britney who played for the Devils two summers ago is here and my friend Benz is flying in tomorrow. I also saw Coach and her new assistants from Towson. I am hoping to catch up with them about the new softball stadium later this week.



Anyway, I am almost feeling too excited for the events tomorrow to sleep, even though I am super tired. I am so focused on the softball stuff I haven't even realized the city that never sleeps is out there. I had dinner at the buffet in Paris by myself, which was a little lonely, but Melanie my assistant is coming tomorrow. Should be fun.