"Feiler Knows Best: Coaches' Dreams"
Teamwork. Encouragement. Improvement. Championship. These four words are extremely important to Albright’s men’s baseball team’s head coach Jeffrey Feiler, and his assistant coaches, Gary Yeager and Kyle Wenrich, as far as plans for the team next season. Reflecting on the 2009 season, the coaches saw promise in his team, especially with six freshmen, Tom Canuso, Ben Koch, Doug Mace, Matt Rehrig, Tyler Storms, and Brandon Wiegand, joining, and his two seniors, Jason Dunkelberger and Tim Flannery, preparing to graduate. In the article in the Albrightian, “Improvement is key for men’s baseball team”, by Kayla Waldrup, about Feiler’s hopes for improvement for the team during the 2009 season, he shared some goals that he would like the team to reach by the end of the season. By the end of the season, some goals were met, and some have yet to be attained, but one thing is certain: the coaches are proud of the team, and look forward to their ride to the top.
One of the main goals that Coach Feiler stated in the article for this season was to help the incoming freshmen adjust to collegiate baseball, and, along the way, become better players. To do so, he “tried to help the freshmen and players who don’t play much get prepared for games. I tried to put them in game-like situations, and I didn’t just put them all on the same team. I made mix-matched teams, so that everyone was intermingled. It really helped team building.” Assistant coach Yeager felt that to help the freshmen become comfortable on the team, it had to be a sense of family between the players, on and off the field, “We make every effort to challenge the entire team to push one another and gel together like a family.” Once this ‘gel’ happened, the team had to start playing together, and pushing each other, even the underclassmen to the older players, which is important to Yeager, “No matter what class level, I personally engage every player to become a leader in some capacity.”
Before the season even started the coaches all clear ideas of what they wanted the team to accomplish. In the Albrightian article, coach Feiler stated that with a younger team, he feels as though it is their chance to re-develop. He wanted to put players in new positions and let them all know that their roles would be expanded. Yeager concurs, “Some of our goals that we laid out in the beginning of the season included playing a style of TEAM-oriented baseball every day that highlighted our strengths and allowed us to gain an identity. By doing this, we challenged each Lion to get better at some aspect of the game every single day. Ultimately by playing Albright baseball as a unit, we expected to win enough ball games to return to the playoffs.”
With all of the things that Coach Feiler stated that he wanted the team to improve on, the question, of course, if the coach was pleased with the season’s results. Feiler was satisfied, to an extent, “I was pleased with the season. The freshman played pretty well. But the team started off played well, and then we got tight, for some reason”. When asked why he thought this ‘tightness’ happened, he stated that because a lot of things go wrong in baseball, players need to know how to deal with them, and adjust quickly during the games, physically and mentally. He thinks that at time his team go ‘beat down’, and it affected how they played. But fortunately, he said, “We got out of the funk, and got into the playoffs.” Reaching the playoffs was clearly something that coach Yeager was proud of too, “By the end of the season, a majority of our goals were accomplished as we restored the confidence that we had at the start and jumped back into the postseason chase for the Commonwealth Conference Crown.”
Discussing the next season was a moment of reflection for the coaches, as they realized what the team managed to accomplish, and what goals they think should be set for the 2010 season. Coach Feiler has high hopes for his team, “I definitely want to get to the playoffs, and get to the Conference Tournament again, like we did this year. I want to win the tournament, and advance to a higher level. But overall, I want to be a better team at the end of the year, than we were at the beginning of the year.” While Coach Yeager undoubtedly shares these sentiments, he desires an array of things, “Some of the things we definitely need to work on for next season is to execute offensively particularly with runners in scoring position, improve our defensive play, and to consistently work together to become a family that exudes confidence.”
Post-season, it is important for the players to continue their skills once they leave Albright’s baseball field, and go home for the summer. To help them polish their skills, coach Feiler expressed that he encourages his players to continue to practice even when he isn’t their coach, “I encourage them to play summer baseball and try out for teams, so they can practice even after the season is over.” He also commented on how he allows the players to know that they have room for improvement, and what to do to fix their flaws. He and the other coaches are currently in the process of meeting with each player individually for discussion on improvement, and things they should continue to work at. He believes that this will “make for a stronger club”, for the upcoming season.
College athletic teams are like revolving doors; as players leave, new players come in. And the coaches of the Albright baseball team are well aware of this, which is why they strive so hard to set goals for the team, and help those that are there for the season, to lead their team, both individually and collectively. It’s a group effort, for the players and coaches, and as coach Feiler said, “From a coaching standpoint, the season’s outcome is a question of why did certain things happen, when sometimes there isn’t necessarily a reason.” The only thing he, and his assistant coaches, can do is encourage teamwork, and improvement, and hopefully, bring a championship trophy back to the Albright campus.
No comments:
Post a Comment