Searching for a mentor

[Blackshirt]

Some interesting comments from Erstad in reference to Osborne -- see bold comments about half-way down...

 

Searching for a mentor

 

By David Brown

Comments (No comments posted.)

Given his natural talent, and if left alone to fend for himself in the wilderness of Major League Baseball, White Sox rookie John Danks someday probably would make a fine left-handed pitcher.

 

Mark Buehrle, Danks recently recalled, just could not leave well enough alone.

 

“It took Mark Buehrle one day to start helping me out,” said Danks, a newcomer to the Sox after a trade this past off-season. “It was the first day of spring training and we were paired up together in live [batting practice], and after we got done throwing, we’d do about three or four pickoff moves to first. After my first throw, he came over and said, ‘Maybe you could turn your foot this way, or do it like this.’

 

“Mark’s been great. The first thing he told me was, ‘Need anything – ask me. If you have a question and don’t know where to be – ask me.’ ”

 

Mentoring moments such as that one, Danks said, might be the difference for him between being good and very good, or improving sooner rather than later.

 

The concept of mentoring in sports is a tradition similar to that which is seen in everyday life – where an experienced, trusted person counsels someone who is a bit green, troubled or at risk.

 

Bob Hurley has played the mentor role for hundreds of kids the past 40 years. As boys basketball coach at St. Anthony in Jersey City, N.J., Hurley has been hands-on in influencing, improving – and sometimes outright helping to save – young lives.

 

Rashon Burno, who played at DePaul University and recently was named the boys basketball coach at Marmion Academy in Aurora, credits Hurley in his development from precocious, but endangered, kid – surrounded by poverty, crime and death – to responsible adult.

 

“The drive I had was something that any kid in the inner city has in order to improve his own situation,” Burno said. “I was just fortunate to stay focused, with the help of others, to get myself out. The [local] boys club, Hurley and other people along the way kept my eye on the big picture.”

 

Hurley said he feels only partly responsible.

 

“You know that expression: ‘It takes a village to raise a child’? We also need to look around and invest in the lives of people who need help,” Hurley said. “This is what happens if you can have these miracles or stories about a kid who came from very, very difficult circumstances, and now he’s living the American dream.”

 

Young athletes need not to be a wrong step from jail, or worse, to need a nudge in the right direction. Sports is a fertile place for mentoring.

“It’s huge,” said Sox outfielder Darin Erstad, who also played football at Nebraska. “It’s the natural progression of the game.”

 

Erstad was a middle-class kid who punted for a national champion football team in Nebraska and was a top pick in Major League Baseball’s draft.

 

Despite his advantages, mentors still played a big role in Erstad’s development.

 

When he was a rookie with the Angels in the mid-1990s, Erstad counted on Dave Hollins and Gary DiSarcina to show him the ropes.

 

“I had a great group of guys who taught me – not that I didn’t know how to play – but they really fine-tuned what I already believed in,” Erstad said. “They made it stick; they reinforced what was there.”

 

Before turning pro, Erstad said his college football coach, Tom Osborne, set the ultimate example in what happens when a coach shows confidence in players.

 

“He’s a man of few words, but when he says something it’s got something behind it,” Erstad said of Osborne. “He’s got it figured out and was a great guy to learn from. He just stands for everything that’s right. You just don’t get much more pure than him.”

 

Erstad said Osborne’s halftime speech at the ’95 Orange Bowl, in which Nebraska trailed Miami by 10 points before mounting a furious comeback, still amazes him.

 

“He said to ride out the storm for the first half and, over time, our conditioning and strength will wear them down,” Erstad said. “Stick with the plan and, no matter what happens, toward the end of the game we’re going to be the better-conditioned team, and we’re going to do what we want to do.”

 

Nebraska won, 24-17.

 

“It couldn’t have been any more true, you know?” Erstad said. “He had the game plan. He knew his team so well and knew his opponent so well that, by the fourth quarter, they were down on one knee with a lot of tongues hanging out, panting. ... He knew what was going to happen.”

 

Baseball Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan might have the same idea about Danks, a former first-round pick of the Texas Rangers. Long before Buehrle ever befriended Danks, Ryan was giving pointers to a skinny kid who pitched in the same town.

 

“When I see him, I can talk pitching,” Danks said of Ryan. “Who better to talk to? It was right before I signed with the Rangers, he took me down to an Astros game and we sat right behind home plate. The whole game, we watched Greg Maddux throw for the Braves. He was pointing out different things he was doing and kind of gave me what to expect as a young kid coming to the minor leagues. Yeah, I’m forever grateful for Nolan Ryan doing that. Any time I see him, I can ask him a baseball question and he can help me.”

 

Often, Sox slugger Paul Konerko said, the best mentors do so quietly.

 

“I think you’re getting mentored best when you don’t know it,” Konerko said. “If you have to sit there and say, ‘I need a mentor, I need help,’ I don’t think that works as well as when it naturally happens. Then you look back and say, ‘That guy was a big help to me.’ ”

 

Konerko said mentoring goes beyond on-the-field situations.

 

“It’s how to handle yourself in the clubhouse, in the hotels, on the plane, around older players, around staff,” Konerko said. “It is hard, just because you don’t know. It’s just like going to school. When you go to high school where you go in as a freshman and work your way up to being a senior.”

 

Konerko has tried to help Sox outfielder Brian Anderson through a rough start to his own career. Many of Konerko’s and Anderson’s conversations have nothing to do with baseball.

 

“When you’re a young player, there’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen trying to tell you how to swing or to do this or that,” Konerko said. “I certainly had a lot of people telling me that kind of stuff. So I said to myself, ‘If I ever get into a position where I’m older, you’re going to help – but only if a guy asks. Don’t try to force yourself.’ ”

 

That probably is why, Konerko said, Buehrle and Danks get along.

 

“The way he performs and goes about his business, it’s perfect,” Konerko said of Danks. “He works quick. He’s not a ‘mental’ guy who overanalyzes. That’s probably one of the biggest pitfalls in the big leagues – and we still fall into it sometimes – is when you overanalyze every little thing. When you see a guy like Buehrle not wasting a whole lot of energy, you tend to follow his lead.”

 

– David Brown is a sportswriter for NorthWest News Group. Write to him at rdbrown@nwnewsgroup.com.