Heart of Ohio Softball Clinic-comments!

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Let me first thank Rich Rossinski (Ohio Wave ) , for bringing in these guys last year .Rich first came up with this idea and it was an obvious success from all the feedback on here , I decided to take his idea and bring it to the Heart of Ohio Organization and then Central Ohio Softball. I believe it instantly brings crediblity to your orgnization if your willing to bring these top notch instructors .2nd I did it for my team , I saw the flaws that not only we have but I have as Head Coach of my team. I firmly believe that you have to always want to continue to ?learn as a coach and player to get better and the only way you do that is by bringing in instructors that know what there doing .I also want to thank all of the players, coaches that came to this weekend clinic , we had over 300 girls from Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit and all over Ohio. Next year we plan on even a bigger event ! The OHSSA did hurt our attendance at coaches clinic, Joe A. anyway of finding out when next year's is so we can schedule around it ?Let me give just my observations of each instructor and some comments they were pass onto me:

Howard Kobata- anyone who has ever ?saw or had Howard come in with there team knows he is 1 of a kind , his footwork drills are absolutely dead-on . He is the best defensive instructor for a reason and we have already implemented 5-6 of his drills into our pracitces. I believe we counted 22 drills he did with our girls.1- note- Your girls must have thick-skin , Howard is not mean , but "brutally honest" ands I like it that way!

Dave Patkeau- This was the first time we had him and after listening and watching him with the girls all weekend ?he was awesome! He had my daughter's ?swing and hitting the best ever in just and hour and his hitting style is 1 we will be using from now on.It's simple but precise and all the girls/coaches/parents really like it !Dave is personally instructing several girls on the Canadian Olympic and Junior Olympic teams for Canada and that in it's self speaks volumes!

Bill Hillhouse- What I like about Bill right off the top is is Honesty! We all know there are 100's of different
pitching styles and coaches out there and Bill does not teach a ?style nor does he try to bring down any styles , what he does is show you absolutes of pitching .His style of pitching is simple and consistant and he is exactly right when he says" Pitching in last few years has become dilluted because of all these so called pitching experts that have never pitched or they pitched in H.S. ball and now they all some great pitching coach". Bill got nothing but compliments all weekend and when girls come from Detroit and Pittsburgh just to have a 1 hr session with him that say alot!

Shelly Prochaska - Shelly is realtively knew to instruction community having graduated from Oregon State University and now asst. Coach at Kenyon College here in Ohio. I got the ?referal from Tony Beachy(Laser's) and he was exactly right. Shelly does and excellent job of communicating with the girls, she really put the girls through some hard drills . I know I learned alot from her and will be having her come back for more with our team. Every single girl that I spoke to after each of her sessions said they really liked her and wished she was closer to there pracitces.

I want again to thank all of the parents,players,coaches and instructors for coming to our clinic and hope you all come back next year!

Thank you,Bruce

 

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My dd is 13 and attended the Kobata clinic. You had mentioned that he introduced 22 drills. For my 13 year old cramming that many drills in 2 1/2 to 3 hrs. is pretty overwelming. (Not real sure how many he did in our session but there was alot) and it is very fast paced! Not real sure how much sank in but, if one or two things did than it was worth it. I think it was too condensed and too fast for a group of 10 or 12. He had told our group that his normal session was about 5 1/2 hrs. long. Well he is the best and I hope she got something out of it!! Thanks, HoO and Bruce for making this happen!!

 

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Bruce,

Thanks for the kind words. Our organization talked with Bill Hillhouse last winter because he had conducted a large clinic like this in Kansas City. They had a different hitting instructor that traveled with him and Howard and he had come from a baseball background. We were looking for someone who knew the fastpitch game. After kicking around a few ideas for other hitting instructors Bill mentioned Dave Paetkau. Dave is a Hall of Fame hitter in the mens fastpitch game and he really has a way of breaking down the swing so players can understand it. We have seen a huge improvement in our players who have worked with him. I think that these three instructors together are a powerful group. As I mentioned before I am not familiar with Shelly but from what I have heard so far she did an excellent job as well. Its nice to see some cathcer specific instruction being done.

Congrats on a successful clinic and lets keep bringing these quality instructors to the state so we can help raise the level of skill and play state wide. It is a big undertaking and by all accounts you guys did a great job.




Rich Rosinski
Ohio Wave Fastpitch

 

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Bruce,

You and your organization did an outstanding job bringing these top notch instructors together. I've taken my daughters to Bill for almost 3 years. As far as I'm concerned, he's the best.

This past fall we did 2 days with Howard and it was great.

Great job.....Keep up the good work!

 

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Bruce, enjoyed the clinic very much. 2nd time seeing Bill and 1st with Howard and they were both great. Dave was also very good and fun to listen to and I agree having a catcher instructer was a great idea.

 

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thanks for all the comments , we will try to make it even better next year