Hey, guys, my name is Ben, and currently, I'm 15 and in the 2026 class. When I first enrolled at VeloU, my dad and I were really excited that we had finally found a place that combined the aspects of lifting, pitching, mobility, and recovery all into one program. We were also excited to have a mentor that can talk about in-game situations on a high level and prepare for the mental aspect of the game.
We knew VeloU could quickly accelerate my performance as a pitcher, as this was super important to us to accelerate my game to the next level and with the upcoming recruitment process. When I started, I was at the beginning of my growth phase, and it became clear that transitioning to a program that was projecting where I can be with the proper mentors was really exciting for me. Coach Nick had a convo with my dad, and I believe that it would benefit my growth exponentially by taking a small step away from throwing and a huge step towards conditioning. Nick advised to give it a try and shut down from competitive throwing for three months and see how my body felt afterward. During the shutdown period, we completely revamped my arm to allowing for me to have a more fluid delivery.
Fortunately, we listened, and that decision initiated the transition for me from youth choir to young adult player with some added strength and increased mobility. I went from consistently throwing in the mid-seventies to now sitting 87 to 89. Did that take two years? Yeah. Was that all fun the entire time? Definitely not. And looking back now, it doesn't seem that long, but during the process, it felt slow and repetitive.
Boy, am I glad that I stuck with the plan and believed in the process. The best lesson I learned is that if I want to get better, if I truly want to improve at the proper rate, I need to take ownership of my training. I learned that I need to understand not just what we're doing, but why we were doing it. This helped me so much in getting concepts faster and puts a ceiling greatly on my overall progression and ultimately got me committed to my dream school and the ACC at the University of Virginia.
