Being grateful means being appreciative, and to appreciate means to value or admire something or someone highly. Another great definition from Merriam-Webster for "appreciate" is: to judge with heightened perception or understanding; to be fully aware of.

I bring these definitions to your attention this Thanksgiving weekend in an effort to heighten you and your athlete's awareness, perception and appreciation for the gift of softball and youth sports in general.

Let's get down to specifics with The Attitude of Gratitude and softball:

Players - Recognize and be aware of just what a privilege it is to play your sport.  No matter  what team you play on your coaches chose YOU to be on it. They believe in your ability, so respect and honor your coaches and teammates by giving 110% effort all the time and bringing the Attitudeof Gratitude to every practice and game. Get excited about being on your team and appreciate every minute of it. Your energy of gratitude can inspire you and your team to do great things!

As well you should express deep gratitude and appreciation to your parents and other family members who support you in playing your support and sacrifice both valuable time and money for you to participate and improve through private lessons, traveling tournaments, clinics, top equipment, etc.

Parents - For parents the Attitude of Gratitude looks like appreciating coaches for the hard work and commitment they make to your athlete's development (no, you don't need to like or agree with all their coaching decisions, but you can still be grateful and respect their time, energy and commitment). Appreciate your athlete and their team for the effort they put into mastering a very difficult sport. This means don't expect perfection; allow them time to learn by making the inevitable mistakes and adversity the game will throw at them. Focus on the process or getting better rather than solely on the results.

To continue reading the greatly expanded "Players" and "Parents" sections please go to:  http://www.softballsmarts.com/2012/11/the-attitude-of-gratitude.html.

Thanks for reading and Happy Thanksgiving! 

John Kelly,  Softball Smarts