Russellville Outlaw Baseball

05/04/2024

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The best way to learn
the game is to watch it.

Watch the strategies.
Watch the situations.

What do they do with the ball when
it’s hit. Does that change based on
where the runners are?

What’s the batters approach at the
plate? When he has 3 balls, what
does he do? When it’s 2 strikes he
didn’t agree with, does he adjust?

Watch the coaching strategies.
What worked? What didn’t?

What’s the thought process
behind the decisions made?

Watching games can teach players just
as much as practicing and playing it can.

Probably more.

It can do the same for a coach or a
parent who wants to learn and grow.

Go watch your local high school games.
If there’s a college, make a day of it.

There are games on TV or live streamed
for just about every college team out there
and many are free.

If your player wants to pursue a college
athletic career, watch the school they’re
interested in. That’s the talent level you
need to be above to gain their attention.

Watching the game is a lost art these
days. But it’s by far the richest reward.

The only thing it requires is your time.
But it’ll give you so much more in return.

04/05/2024

If anyone has one of these older white outlaw jersey that I could borrow for this weekend, that would be great. Preferably not larger than adult small

03/28/2024

03/16/2024

09/09/2023

12/31/2022

Some of them drive broncos —- 2fast

06/03/2022

Long long post
Disclaimer may hurt some feelings.

So I have been preaching “the recipe” and “proof is in the pudding” . So after 16 consecutive summers of coaching summer baseball has me paying attention to the obvious for years and it speaks louder now than ever! Not ever taking anything away from any other well rounded previous teams (because there are several) but if you look back at history, our best teacher! You will see that the sacrifices that certain parents were willing to make will BUILD championship teams! The early AM games that are over an hour away , the costs of a 2to 3 day hotel stay at a Usssa state competition, the costs and sacrifice of winter practices yea during another sport season, delay of summer vacations or none at all. Cost of additional lessons.
The countless hours of being away from home unable to even cut your own grass, the time not spent on our own dreams and ambitions, the ride home at 11 pm to wash uniforms to get back on elimination day not even knowing scheduled time for the next day from the games played the day before, the cost of hotels and eating out.
so as a parent you put off that “new deck” because of money restraints, it’s all about sacrificing from the player to the parent and siblings and beyond.
I PROMISE you , you WILL not build a championship highschool team with out this recipe. You CANNOT build this dream with 10-12 games of recreational baseball that does not teach the RULES of baseball from the start. The coach pitch, the no walk, the no balk, the no lead off, the no steal is all a fundamental regression in learning of the fast pace of this great game, and if your highschool coach has to teach you these from scratch vs experience from previous repetition it slows down that progress at the higher level.
Let’s look at some perspective.

You can count right ? From the ages of 8-13 that’s 6 seasons. @ the Rec league level with 10 ( if you play more than 10 insert your own math) games ends up with 60 innings if you don’t get run ruled.
your player has the opportunity to have 360 innings of experience and very few with all rules in effect. Maybe half of that time.

Take the typical competitive player and even if you start with less than the normal amount of playing.

League 12 games - you have the same 360 innings even with less one year of (8u)
Even if you are conservative with Tournaments
9 you do 3
10 you do 4
11 you so 8
12 you so 10
13 you are all out at 13
That’s 228 more innings
In a spring season. IF you only play 3 games a tournament and not 4/5
Now add 4 fall Tournamnets and you play all into championship brackets for minimum of 4 games you can add another 96 innings to that total x 5 years will earn you another 480 innings to your total.
Well over 1,000 innings by the time you start highschool. Again this is conservative to the team I had put the most time into on from early ages to 14 we have almost 3 times this conservative amount for example.
Tournaments is where the toughness is built. Tournaments is where resilience forms. Tournaments is where you experience pressure. Tournaments are where pitchers create confidence.
And at the end of the day it’s not about how many tournaments did you win or how many games you even won at all. it’s about how many innings did you play.
Some of you are going to complain about the cost and I guarantee you any parent from the state championship team will tell you you cannot put a price on a feeling you get when you put in hard work time and money and this is the result they had. Many of you have over $100,000 a year family income, I assure you in the early days I did it with much less. For those of you who would rather have your Starbucks six dollar coffee a day that’s over $2000 a year guess what it don’t cost that to go play baseball. Sacrifice.

This should answer the question of who plays over who and how champion are made . It’s all experience and repetition and being under pressure of the speed of the game and knowing what to do next. It’s simple math, it’s a simple but loooong recipe to follow.
If you take the three teams in this schools history that have made it the furthest and you look into their youth you see this exact scenario mentioned above . Again not discounting the “other” teams that had some of the exact pieces of the puzzle as well as they made good runs as well, but at the end of the day you cannot ignore the outcome and the beginnings of these three teams. AGAIN this could not happen with out sacrifices from parents and families. We appreciate all the highschool coaches do as they also sacrifice what they do to get them there. They get little pay and probably lesser appreciation for what they put in to make great things happen but we must provide them with the product to get them there if you want to see more of this in the future, I assure you it will NOT happen hanging out in the “fun league” of recreation baseball/ softball. Not taking anything away from that foundation if you are just out to enjoy the game and have fun , just don’t have high expectations from the 360 innings your player has .
I have seen a decline in and the willingness for the sacrifice.
We probably have over 50 kids between the ages of nine thru 12 that I hope at least Half of the parents take this message and Coach Bransons to the field..
Do your part
Don’t fall behind now
Continue to support
Continue to push
Continue to sacrifice

So
congratulations to the class 2 state champions
Congratulations to the class of 2019 and underclassman who earned 3 district titles and a trip to final four
And the players of the 2006 final four appearance ! And all the un selfish parents that were willing to put in the sacrifice for a lifetime memory for their player!
I’ve been waiting a long time to post this information but I wanted to wait until I knew the next great teams were coming up to make the same difference, I didn’t want anyone to feel like I was biased towards one team that Myself and others had coached for long period of time. Your class of 2020 probably would have done it have they not been cheated out of their senior year.
And for those of you who are coaching to do nothing but win 9 through 12--year-olds, and not worrying about trying to create development. You are doing it wrong.

06/03/2022

From the man himself! There is a message if you read between the lines a little. I’ll enlighten that message later today !

The past few days & weeks have been a whirlwind of emotions for all within our Indian Baseball family & program. To reach this level of success there have been so many people who have had a hand in reaching our ultimate goal of winning a State Championship.

Our 2022 story starts with the changes that we felt we needed to make in order to be mentally stronger on & off the field & those changes began in January. Most may not know this but every year there is a ABCA (American Baseball Coaches Association) Clinic for coaches of all levels from professional to youth & I have tried to attend this over the past several years. This year in early January I attended the ABCA clinic in Chicago & was able to listen to some unbelievable speakers & came home with what I felt was the missing piece to getting to the next level. The players gave me some strange looks at times during the pre-season & in the hallways at school when I was assigning them podcasts & book studies to listen to. However, we began seeing the shift almost immediately when practices began the 1st week of March. Our focus became looking at our process & not the outcome while trying to hit every step in our journey & not trying to skip any steps along the way.
We challenged our guys early playing 13 games in the first 15 days of the season & coming out of that we began to see the toughness & resiliency that championship teams have. As we got into the middle stretch of our season we took a couple steps backwards but we stuck with our plan & process & continued to retrace the steps as we moved forward.
Toward the end of April & early May we began to see the light at the end of the tunnel & really began to get close to our potential but knew there was still no ceiling to what our level of play could be. Entering district play in May our focus shifted to making sure that we were simply the team that fought the best & also talked about what it meant to have competitive greatness - the ability to be your best when your best is required.
Being able to grind through some mentally & physically taxing playoff games we realized the hard work on & off the field had paid off as our guys showed their competitive greatness & were going to be the team that fought the best. The amount of heart & guts our guys played with made them believe & trust in each other that there was no way they could be beat. The end result was playing our best baseball over the last 5 games of the season & winning our baseball programs 1st State Championship. Thank You to the 2022 Indians for your hard work & believing in each other. Being able to live out your dreams on a baseball field & becoming State Champions leaving your legacy as the first team to accomplish that will be with you forever wherever you go.

As I said before, there are so many people that have had a hand in winning the 2022 Class 2 State Championship. All of our former players that built the foundation in the early 2010’s to recent players in the late 2010’s that began to turn our expectations into reality winning 3 district championships in a row.
The parent & community support that has always been there year in & year out is a crucial piece to our success. Parents taking players to play on travel teams in the summer to be challenged & getting them started at an early age to be ready to compete at the HS level has been very important. We cannot thank all the parents in our baseball family enough for all they do providing transportation, food for away games & most importantly, a shoulder to lean on when things didn’t go our way but also pushing our players when needed & buying in to what we wanted our program to be about.
Thank you to the administration over the years for providing support & giving our athletes the necessary equipment & facilities to be successful. We have been blessed to have the leadership within our administration & school board of education to put all students & athletes 1st in their decision making.
Thank you to all of our former & current assistant coaches. Current Assistant Coaches - Tyler Watkins & Brian Bishop are the best assistant coaches in the game. The dedication they have for our players & program is unmatched. They grew up as Russellville Indians & I cannot be happier for them to have State Champion attached to their name. They truly have earned it & deserved it.
Lastly, thank you to my wife Amy for being the best coaches wife & “volunteer” assistant coach I could ask for. I truly appreciate all the late nights, listening & offering suggestions & advice whether I wanted to hear it or not. Amy & William supporting me & all the boys chasing our dream, seeing her passion & care for the boys to make us successful will be one of the best memories we can ask for as a family. I love both of you so much.

To everyone who has played for the Indians Baseball program & supported us over the years this is for all of you from Coach Branson & the 2022 Class 2 MSHSAA State Champion Russellville Indians - THANK YOU!