About me & my goals.
Hello!
I am Haley Meinen, the one behind the screen here! I am so excited that you are here even if you are just stopping by.
My goal is simple: spread the love for the game.
At an early age I fell in love with sports, and particularly softball. I have played since I was 5 or 6. I am so grateful that my parents put me in softball and saw the potential I had in it. I really would not be where and who I am today without that experience of playing sports.
Let’s start with this: I was not always good at everything I did. I feel like this is a common misconception that kids have when they see athletes they may want to be like. I remember trying out for league in 8u and they would evaluate us on a scale from 1 to 10. I remember getting 10s from every coach, except one. Who was that one? My dad, he gave me 9s because “there is always room for improvement.” I appreciate this because it is that sort of thing that fueled my competitiveness (if you ask my sisters… maybe a bit too much).
Fast forward a few years, and like many, I tried pitching. I won’t say it didn’t come natural to me, because I did always have pretty good mechanics. I threw harder than almost anyone we knew and for a while that worked, but sometimes… strikes didn't come natural. Hitting came to me much easier, so for me not getting a sense of instant gratification from pitching well was difficult. I became very hard on myself and during 12u I really did not get to play very much.
I say all of that because it’s clear that even though at times I couldn't find the strike zone, or I wasn’t getting to play much, that it did not mean I was a bad player.
During my lessons, I see the players (and parents too) get a little too caught up in the trivial things in this sport. Failure happens. Everyone knows that when hitting if you fail 7 out of 10 times that you are doing great. That is tough as a young athlete to learn to accept. I can’t tell you how many times I see a pitchers shoulders drop because on the first try the pitch wasn’t perfect.
So my goal here is to try to instill the confidence they need to be successful in this sport, or just in life. I know first hand that being so incredibly hard on yourself doesn’t help and it wasn’t until I decided I had nothing to lose that my mentality got so. much. better. So if I can give these girls a leg up into that mentality then I will. I was fortunate to have a pitching coach in high school who did the same for me and it makes a difference.