There are two sayings that I have heard hundreds of times in my life. One is, “You can’t tell a book by its cover” and the second is an advertising statement, “It’s what’s up front that counts.” I would like to take a little liberty with those two statements, applying them to the world of sports. I think that anyone who has played baseball can attest to the fact that “you can’t tell a baseball by its cover” and “It’s what’s inside that counts.”

Go to you local sporting goods store and you can buy a baseball for about three dollars, or you can spend as much as ten dollars. Both will look very much alike. Both will have “official” marked on the cover and may even have exactly the same number of stitches. On the outside they look alike, but baseball coaches and players know they are much different. The core of the baseball and the material used in winding the inside of baseballs differs. You could not tell by looking on the outside or at the cover, but get inside and the truth will be made clear.

What is true for a baseball is true for a coach. The true test of a coach isn’t what he or she looks like, but what is inside. It is often those intangibles that separate the great from the average.

As coaches, we can make some differences on “how we look.” But over a season, and particularly when the going gets tough, the truth of what we are made of comes out.