Teach Like A Champion? Crank Up Your Walk Up Music

The music blares as the batsman makes his way to the box. The crowd noise reverberates while the scoreboard projects runs, hits, errors and beer ads. Baseball is life. Music delights. It is a match made in heaven, or maybe Iowa.

 

Heaven. Possibly Iowa.

   The “walk-up” music in Major League Baseball is usually personally selected by each hitter. It is an emotional trigger to rev up the players and fans alike. It opens a curtain for the crowd into the player's musical tastes. It is a positive jolt for the man with the bat to rise to the occasion. There is a very good chance that this at bat will not go his way. So many forces are working against his goal for this encounter. His rivals sneer. Fans jeer. His own thoughts may be on a previous, disappointing at bat with the man on the mound. The heat, the glare, a nagging injury, or a 98 mile-per-hour fastball could tip the scales against him.

   But the walk-up music is the batter’s 6 to 15 seconds of mental and physical surge to steel for battle.

Walk Up Song? Moby:"Flower"

    Teachers need walk-up tunes. A day with 160 teenagers rotating in and out of your classroom can bring the highs of a slide-in triple or the despair of watching a called strike three. Teaching is hard.  Yes, teaching is also rewarding. Did I mention it was hard?  The toughest days can be followed amazing days with teachable moments, breakthroughs and hope for the future.

 

Want to know what your favorite hitter is charging up to as he leaves the on-deck circle? Which walk up music genre garners the highest batting average or home run per at bat? Look it up, it's all there to see: http://www.fanatics.com/pages/MLB_Walk_up_Songs

If you are a teacher what is your walk up song? What makes you ready to lead, learn, teach, inspire and create? What makes you dynamic? What takes you to a higher plane, and lights the fires and kicks the tires?  Find it. Play it. Knock it out. (Mine is at 3:10 above)

Teach Like A Champion