The "2nd Generation Windmiller" Story

It was an ordinary day. Just got off the phone with my daughter, Brynn, who lives in Urbana, MD. My grand daughter Courtney is going to be a pitcher. Softball is in her blood. She started playing two years ago at the age of 8. Coaches did all the pitching during the games, but a player was positioned at the pitcher's mound with the coach, and they had to make any plays that came in that direction. This year Courtney moved up to the 10-12 year old bracket, and the girls must do the pitching. Last night at practice a pitching coach for the league came to her practice and was demonstrating how to pitch. No limitations as far as arm movement. The girls can just throw it straight in or the can bring their arm completely around the top of their head and let it fly. Known as a windmill pitch. Can get quite a bit more velocity on the ball that way. Brynn saw how good she was doing while pitching that she tried to encourage her on the way home from practice, but Courtney wasn't sure she wanted to pitch. She doesn't like to draw attention to herself and being the pitcher certainly would do that. That evening the coach sent an email to Brynn telling her that he was impressed with Courtney's pitching and hoped that she would give it a try. Brynn showed Courtney the email and that changed her mind. She thought she would give it a try. I can remember when Brynn was about the same age and I tried to show her how to do the windmill windup. She practiced it and practiced it. She was a good athlete and any sport she tried she excelled at. And boy, could she fire the softball. But, you weren't quite sure where it was going. Where ever it went, it went in a hurry, but her control wasn't very good. I can remember having to replace the screen on our porch a few times because she fired it past me through the screen. You'd have thought I would have had her pitch somewhere else instead of next to the porch, but we had a small back yard and I didn't want her to ruin anything on our neighbor's property. Didn't take long before we stopped the pitching. She did give it a try in high school, but she enjoyed playing the infield better than pitching. Maybe Courtney will soon be following in her mother's footsteps on the softball field. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. PS - photos are Courtney on the top and Brynn on the bottom.