Bill Edwards: Adversity and Triumph on the Pitch
29 May 2014 By Abi Giwa
Edwards (Courtesy: www.wn.com)
Coach Bill Edwards of Hofstra University in Hempstead considers losing in games as a form of adversity and he does not like it. To avoid it, he works hard teaching his softball players fundamentals of the game; pushing them when necessary, letting them know how much he loves them and making them understand the ethics of hard work to win their games.
Resultantly, Edwards has consistently develop winning teams. He has lost count of the number of games he has won, but he remembers the record breaking laurel for his 900th win.
TESTIMONY
"Coach Edwards teaches and emphasizes the fundamentals of the game as thoroughly as anyone in the game. There is no question he has earned his Hall of Fame status by turning good players into great ones over their four years in a Hofstra uniform," assistant coach Kate Stake said about Edwards. "A lot of players go into programs and get better only to the degree that they get stronger and get more repetitions, but players under Coach Edwards' tutelage reach their full potential because they become such smarter players learning from him, as well."
Kate said that Coach Edwards had quickly demonstrated that she didn't know nearly as much as she thought she knew about this sport, and Which was exactly why she said she came to work Hofstra. "There's no doubt I will leave this program some day a far better coach than I would have been had I not chosen this place."
ADVERSITY
"It was good in the second game to finally see we have overcome some adversity and to compete to the very end on every single pitch," he said at a post game conferences, when asked how he felt watching his team loosing the first game, before the team later found its rhythm and won the second game.
Edwards is explicit about ensuring avoidance of adversity during his games. He says it is why he always find a way to get his team to win. It is why he says he always try to figure out what is happening to the team on the pitch and why it is happening. If the turn of events is negative and the team is loosing, he says it is his responsibly to figure out a way to turn it around to have the opportunity of winning. He is constantly thinking about how to maintain the good play or modify not the so good play. Always looking for an edge, trying to figure out how the team can win the game it is playing, either from the hitting standpoint or to pitch better. He says there is always the management of the game and putting the players in the right spot.
BACKGROUND & FAMILY
These are why Edwards has been doing for 25 years as Hofstra University's softball coach. "Trippi, common hit hard," he was heard clamoring in one the games with the LSU Tigers that his team was down before rising to clinch victory. It is what he does at virtually every game whether winning or loosing, characteristic of all coaches worth the calling as they are often seen demonstrating by the pitch side. It is what Edwards has been doing for 48 years, when the number of years he has worked before coming to Hofstra is added to his years at Hofstra.
He was born a winner, a New Yorker and in Nesconset, Weschester in the Bronx County. He attended the Northern University of Michigan and graduated in in Physical Education in 1967, and bagged a Masters degree from the University at Stony Brook in 1975. He read for his masters degree while working as a football coach in Kennedy Junior High School, Wood Park Elementary School and at Commack High School as offensive coordinator. Edwards came to Hofstra in 1980 after 33 solid years of working experience and a developed sound work ethics. "It is about learning, hard work, having the right mindset and the right philosophies," he said. He said that growing up, he played everything: Baseball, Basketball and Softball. He said he he did not play Lacrosse, because it was not big at the time; he did not play soccer, because it was just beginning to come to the country. But the main game he mostly played was hockey. He believes that Hofstra has given him a wonderful opportunity to coach college softball, and he has taken advantage of the opportunity. He says he has been working hard to be successful with the opportunity given to him. Edwards, 69, is married to Janie and they have two grown daughters : Shari - who played NCAA Division 1 softball at Northern Illinois University from 1986-89 and coached at Hofstra; and Karen - a licensed practical nurse now a director at an assisted-living facility. Shari, like her father, was outstanding as a softball player. Her team - The Huskies - belonged to the Top 20 national hierarchy. According to her, during her playing days with the Huskies, the team went from national no-name to playing powers at the UCLA and Texas A&M at the National Collegiate Athletic Association College World Series in three months.
TEACHINGS
Edwards wants his students and players to not just be students and players, but good teachers as well. He wants them to understand how to teach the game. He wants them to learn the game; understand the game and be able to teach the game, keeping it simple with short and precise instructions . He wants to make sure his athletes are doing exactly what it is he wants them to do all the time, teaching fundamentals of the game. Edwards says every game has its fundamentals and one will not be successful without it. Above everything Edwards teaches his players how to throw accurately and correctly; how to catch accurately whether it is a flying ball, ground ball and how to hit and run the bases, finally teaching them the game situation and putting them in it. He says there are so many fundamentals in their game that one don't stop learning.
Edwards loves softball and he says all players must love what they do to enable them perform to the best degree of potential and standard, for them to be the best they can be. So you have to push your players sometimes and let them understand how much you care for them for you to make them the best person, the best softball player they can be. Teaching all these takes so much of Edwards time, but he still has some leisure time playing golf, reading, fishing and boating. "I can go and hang out at the beach all day reading a book. Or boating all day long. " love hanging out with my grand children and family. I like to do chores around the house." Edwards is not into so much socials. He says he is not a party guy, but he has friends with whom he socialize, but low keyed.
LEISURE
He like reading sports and history books. "I like history or read anything that catches my interest including mystery. It depends on the mood that I find myself. I have read a book by Bobby… great hockey player. I am reading a book on Abraham Lincoln, because I love Abraham Lincoln a lot, and I have been reading Nelson Demille's books, a Hofstra graduate. I read most of his books."
TEACHABLE MOMENT
Another teachable moment with Coach Edwards is watching him talking about his feeling when his team is winning. "It means the preparation prior to the game was possibly very good. It means the players are executing what they need to execute at the level it takes to win. It is all about the execution of plans that make playing games unique." He describes softball as partly individual game, where there is one ball to be hit by one person, who has to make a play. But then, there is a need to make sure individuals are functioning within the team concept. Thus, when the team is winning, he seeks to ensure the team is playing at the highest level to sustain the momentum and avoid a situation, when winning can also turn into loosing or tied game.
"If you created a new sports, I would want him to be my coach. He would most quickly identify talents," said Jack Hayes, a former Hofstra Athletic director in a the New York Times' interview. "I think he wants to succeed more for us than we do for ourselves," third baseman Tara Urlich, a 2006 senior Psychology major said. And Bill Edwards has succeeded as a teacher, softball coach, husband, father and grandfather father as can be mirrored from his captivating and over-powering smile.
Resultantly, Edwards has consistently develop winning teams. He has lost count of the number of games he has won, but he remembers the record breaking laurel for his 900th win.
TESTIMONY
"Coach Edwards teaches and emphasizes the fundamentals of the game as thoroughly as anyone in the game. There is no question he has earned his Hall of Fame status by turning good players into great ones over their four years in a Hofstra uniform," assistant coach Kate Stake said about Edwards. "A lot of players go into programs and get better only to the degree that they get stronger and get more repetitions, but players under Coach Edwards' tutelage reach their full potential because they become such smarter players learning from him, as well."
Kate said that Coach Edwards had quickly demonstrated that she didn't know nearly as much as she thought she knew about this sport, and Which was exactly why she said she came to work Hofstra. "There's no doubt I will leave this program some day a far better coach than I would have been had I not chosen this place."
ADVERSITY
"It was good in the second game to finally see we have overcome some adversity and to compete to the very end on every single pitch," he said at a post game conferences, when asked how he felt watching his team loosing the first game, before the team later found its rhythm and won the second game.
Edwards is explicit about ensuring avoidance of adversity during his games. He says it is why he always find a way to get his team to win. It is why he says he always try to figure out what is happening to the team on the pitch and why it is happening. If the turn of events is negative and the team is loosing, he says it is his responsibly to figure out a way to turn it around to have the opportunity of winning. He is constantly thinking about how to maintain the good play or modify not the so good play. Always looking for an edge, trying to figure out how the team can win the game it is playing, either from the hitting standpoint or to pitch better. He says there is always the management of the game and putting the players in the right spot.
BACKGROUND & FAMILY
These are why Edwards has been doing for 25 years as Hofstra University's softball coach. "Trippi, common hit hard," he was heard clamoring in one the games with the LSU Tigers that his team was down before rising to clinch victory. It is what he does at virtually every game whether winning or loosing, characteristic of all coaches worth the calling as they are often seen demonstrating by the pitch side. It is what Edwards has been doing for 48 years, when the number of years he has worked before coming to Hofstra is added to his years at Hofstra.
He was born a winner, a New Yorker and in Nesconset, Weschester in the Bronx County. He attended the Northern University of Michigan and graduated in in Physical Education in 1967, and bagged a Masters degree from the University at Stony Brook in 1975. He read for his masters degree while working as a football coach in Kennedy Junior High School, Wood Park Elementary School and at Commack High School as offensive coordinator. Edwards came to Hofstra in 1980 after 33 solid years of working experience and a developed sound work ethics. "It is about learning, hard work, having the right mindset and the right philosophies," he said. He said that growing up, he played everything: Baseball, Basketball and Softball. He said he he did not play Lacrosse, because it was not big at the time; he did not play soccer, because it was just beginning to come to the country. But the main game he mostly played was hockey. He believes that Hofstra has given him a wonderful opportunity to coach college softball, and he has taken advantage of the opportunity. He says he has been working hard to be successful with the opportunity given to him. Edwards, 69, is married to Janie and they have two grown daughters : Shari - who played NCAA Division 1 softball at Northern Illinois University from 1986-89 and coached at Hofstra; and Karen - a licensed practical nurse now a director at an assisted-living facility. Shari, like her father, was outstanding as a softball player. Her team - The Huskies - belonged to the Top 20 national hierarchy. According to her, during her playing days with the Huskies, the team went from national no-name to playing powers at the UCLA and Texas A&M at the National Collegiate Athletic Association College World Series in three months.
TEACHINGS
Edwards wants his students and players to not just be students and players, but good teachers as well. He wants them to understand how to teach the game. He wants them to learn the game; understand the game and be able to teach the game, keeping it simple with short and precise instructions . He wants to make sure his athletes are doing exactly what it is he wants them to do all the time, teaching fundamentals of the game. Edwards says every game has its fundamentals and one will not be successful without it. Above everything Edwards teaches his players how to throw accurately and correctly; how to catch accurately whether it is a flying ball, ground ball and how to hit and run the bases, finally teaching them the game situation and putting them in it. He says there are so many fundamentals in their game that one don't stop learning.
Edwards loves softball and he says all players must love what they do to enable them perform to the best degree of potential and standard, for them to be the best they can be. So you have to push your players sometimes and let them understand how much you care for them for you to make them the best person, the best softball player they can be. Teaching all these takes so much of Edwards time, but he still has some leisure time playing golf, reading, fishing and boating. "I can go and hang out at the beach all day reading a book. Or boating all day long. " love hanging out with my grand children and family. I like to do chores around the house." Edwards is not into so much socials. He says he is not a party guy, but he has friends with whom he socialize, but low keyed.
LEISURE
He like reading sports and history books. "I like history or read anything that catches my interest including mystery. It depends on the mood that I find myself. I have read a book by Bobby… great hockey player. I am reading a book on Abraham Lincoln, because I love Abraham Lincoln a lot, and I have been reading Nelson Demille's books, a Hofstra graduate. I read most of his books."
TEACHABLE MOMENT
Another teachable moment with Coach Edwards is watching him talking about his feeling when his team is winning. "It means the preparation prior to the game was possibly very good. It means the players are executing what they need to execute at the level it takes to win. It is all about the execution of plans that make playing games unique." He describes softball as partly individual game, where there is one ball to be hit by one person, who has to make a play. But then, there is a need to make sure individuals are functioning within the team concept. Thus, when the team is winning, he seeks to ensure the team is playing at the highest level to sustain the momentum and avoid a situation, when winning can also turn into loosing or tied game.
"If you created a new sports, I would want him to be my coach. He would most quickly identify talents," said Jack Hayes, a former Hofstra Athletic director in a the New York Times' interview. "I think he wants to succeed more for us than we do for ourselves," third baseman Tara Urlich, a 2006 senior Psychology major said. And Bill Edwards has succeeded as a teacher, softball coach, husband, father and grandfather father as can be mirrored from his captivating and over-powering smile.
