Once in a lifetime . . .

Happy Fourth of July!  This has been a huge weekend for tournaments (as usual), but it has also been incredibly hot lately, so be sure to be drinking plenty of fluids at least twenty minutes prior to going out in the heat.  Remember, caffienated beverages do not help with your hydration, and can actually make matters worse.  So-called "energy drinks" are particularly bad in this respect. 

I have been trying my best to get around to blogging, but this has been an insane time of year between coordinating for the muscle fatigue study, scheduling lessons, and actually giving lessons.  I have been dying to write about all of the wonderful events concerning Liz, and now here it is:

As many of you already know, I have worked with Liz Weber since she was ten years old.  What many of you don't know, is that she cried before her first lesson, and did not talk to me in lessons for about the first year.  What many of you also don't know is that Lori and Liz had a huge hand  in my doing lessons on a full-time basis.  When I first started teaching Liz, I was still teaching at Smithtown High School.  After working with Liz and some other students, I decided that I would much rather work with dedicated young ladies all day long than search for a few kids willing to work hard in an average English class.   Everyone thought I was crazy for leaving a good job at Smithtown, but I knew that I had something really unique with the girls that I was teaching.  Nevertheless, the  first year is always tough, and Lori helped tremendously by setting up clinics for me at a gym in West Islip.  Liz and Lori would also drive over an hour so that they could come and pitch in my parent's basement (where I used to practice growing up).  When I bought a house, they came to pitch in the basement there as well. 

Many people have helped me along the way, but Lori, Coach Ventre, my parents, the Gallo family, and the Huntley family all made it possible for me to really get through that first tough year of starting a business.   They all found ways to get me gym space and made it possible for me to do group lessons.  They also referred so many people to me, which gave me confidence and really got my business off the ground.  Lori was constantly encouraging me to open my own facility, which always  unnerved me because of the overhead.  She had even offered to help!  Very few people realize this, but this was one of the many factors that drove me to finally rent my own place after several years of renting at other facilities.  The other two major factors being the wonderful advice and help of Deanna Dovak, and finally getting the blessing from my dad.  My dad also put in countless hours helping me to set up the facility the way I wanted it.  He helped me to find, and to work with, a truly wonderful landlord. 

Now I have been in my facility for about five years and this has been the most exciting year that we have shared as a group.  All you need to do is check the homepage at http://www.flawlessfastpitch.com/ to see how we have all excelled this year.  The part that is particularly exciting, however, is the fact that Liz's  high school team (Bay Shore) won the New York State Championship in this, her senior year.  I could not have hoped for more as she prepares to head for college in the fall.  And yet, there was more.  She was Newsday's Player of the Year and Suffolk County's Pitcher of the Year.  Newsday did an entire article on her.  Just incredible.  I saw Liz on June 24th for a lesson and was amazed to learn that she was graduating the next day.  It seemed like that went so fast!  Needless to say, I had to be at her graduation.  It was then that Lori told me that Liz was up for NYS Player of the Year.  This is a tremendous honor because only one girl in NYS is chosen.  I was honored to join Liz and her family for her graduation dinner and, immediately following, we found out that she was in fact New York State Player of the Year.   I feel like such a sequence of amazing events, from that first lesson eight years ago, to the amazing conclusion of her high school career, is a once in a lifetime scenario.  I feel truly blessed to have been a part of this process.  Though I know it will be very different with Liz away at school, I feel that I will be a part of that process too, and I am so thankful.  Huge thanks to the Weber family, and major congratulations to Liz!