Over the summer we renamed our press box in honor of the Bob Christofferson of high school baseball. @RichSweum We honor you and all the blood, sweat and tears you have put into the Glacier Peak Baseball program.
If your 16 YO student athlete isn’t willing to make his or her own meals and get to bed on time they don’t really care about being elite. Seriously, if a 16 YO who has a license, has a cell phone, spends hours a day on social media and drives one of your vehicles they should absolutely be able to structure a routine to supports their goals.
Summer isn’t a time to goof off it’s a time to dial in your nutrition, sleep, hydration, training, and habits. Don’t claim you want to be great and want a D1 scholarship yet have a work ethic consistent with intermural sports.
Tough love from me today.. there’s a lot of hard working athletes out there hungry to get better and they will outperform those who relied on “talent” this summer. Champions are built in the offseason.
High school coaching is not for the weak. It’s countless hours spent in this field. It’s not just a show up and coach on game days. There’s so much more behind the scenes that high school coaches do that goes unnoticed by many.
HS Players...want to know if you're physical enough? How many of the things below can you do?
1. Drive the ball consistently over outfielder's heads.
2. Bench Press 225+
3. Run a 6-minute mile
4. Throw the ball 90+ yards
5. Sub 7 60-yard dash
6. 85+ on mound
7. Sub 4.5 to 1st
8. Perform vs good competition.
Players that can do all of those things are getting recruited. If you can't do them...get to work. A HS team full of guys that can do those things are called state champions.
Good coaches recognize the correlation between work ethic, GPA and player success. A commiteed student-athlete, demonstrates they want to learn, can focus, and care about doing well academically (regardless of pure intellect). These are matching qualities of a coachable and high performing athlete. This is why a combination of low GPA, excess tardies, poor grades in electives, hides in weight room & poor test scores, etc. equal a big red flag to most college recruiters.
One bad apple can spoil the bunch. Likewise, one toxic player can ruin a team’s culture. As a coach, you need to be very careful about recruiting troublesome players, no matter how talented they are.
9/23 Baseball Northwest Green vs Southern Nevada (NV) - 3:00pm, Mariner 4
#0 Gabe Pham, 2025, OF
@gdpham5
Juanita HS (WA)/@Elevate__NW#Uncommitted
Hard hit double
Champions are made during moments of adversity. When most athletes give up and feel sorry for themselves, champions use their mental toughness to persevere!
#uncommitted ‘24 Lucas Coma (Lincoln) with a line drive, RBI single thru the left side
Quick, direct swing that produces LD contact. Mature approach in the plate. Makes sound swing decisions and recognizes spin