Follow Through

If you asked me what my favorite season was, without a doubt I would say summertime. There are so many fun things to do during the summer: swimming at the pool, bustin’ a move at street dances, showing livestock at county fairs, and going on Sonic runs with your friends. However, my favorite summertime event out of all of these is easily baseball games.

Believe it or not, I actually used to be a baseball star. Check it out.

Okay, maybe I wasn’t a pro, but my Pee Wee baseball career was pretty awesome. I was the star first baseman for the Soldier Chargers. I could catch and tag bases better than anyone else on the team. To the contrary, my throwing arm certainly wasn’t the best, which was probably why I played first base a lot.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have very many players on our team. We had exactly nine–just enough for a team. For that reason almost everyone played pitcher at some point in the season, including me. Pitching was a challenge for me. I practiced and practiced with Coach and eventually got better. However, I always made a key mistake: I would forget to follow through.

For those of you who aren’t baseball fans, following through on a pitch is fairly simple. As you throw the ball, you lift up your back leg and carry it forward and plant it in front of you. This way, you carry more energy into your pitch and it remains accurate. Regardless, I had trouble following through with my pitches. Without following through, I couldn’t deliver a strike. Even if my initial form was perfect, the ball would end up way outside of the strike zone if I didn’t follow through.

With SCCL wrapped up, those of us who attended have a new vision that we plan to implement within our chapters. Some of us have attended or plan to attend our chapter retreat where we can brainstorm new activities to start in the upcoming year. Maybe even some of us planned to revise some of our existing chapter events while at State Convention. In order to make these plans come to life, we should learn from my flaw as a baseball pitcher: following through.

As members we create goals to improve our chapters. Too often, though, we forget about these goals and fail to follow through on them. As the school year approaches and we begin to wind up to pitch our newfound chapter plans, it is essential to take that step and plant our feet firmly into the delivery. When we carry those plans forward, we’re sure to land a perfect strike.

Living to serve,

John Kennedy
State Vice-President