Sometimes things happen for a reason.
I remember this average looking pitcher walking into my camp about 6 weeks ago and watching him throw a short pen as we recorded his velocity. I will never forget seeing that first pitch. It wasn't that impressive but what I saw was something special. What this pitcher had was the capability to scale his ability to an elite level.
Most pitchers who come into the 3X Velocity Camp have a ton of work to do to develop some of the key components of the high velocity pitcher before they can scale this up to an elite level. David had already the foundation but not the understanding of how to scale it up.
At that moment after seeing his first few pitches I was so confident he was knocking on the door of 90mph. This is when I told him if he could commit to only a full 8 week cycle of the 3X Pitching Velocity Program he would be 90mph. I know you might be thinking I tell everyone this but you would be completely wrong. I rarely tell anyone this. I am very much a perfectionist. I will not predict perfection until I am positive that I see its potential in front of me.
Before I tell you how David reaches his life long dream, let's first learn of his journey to this point.
FYI: I had no idea this was David's life story, until he told me after the interview we did, that you can listen to at the bottom of the page. I was just as touched as you will be after learning his story!
USC pitching coach Tom House grants a wish
August, 4, 2010
By Pedro Moura
http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/usc/post/_/id/2547/usc-pitching-coach-tom-house-grants-a-wish
Make A Wish Interview with Tom House About David
David Thompson BIO
Growing up in south Florida I was always one of the better pitchers around until that all came to a screeching halt and my whole world was beginning to change when I had 3 spinal fractures, and a severe bone bruise all of which sidelined me for about 3 years. I was heart broken and not only that after all of this I never could get to where I yearned to be as a pitcher. With all of this going on we came to find out the underlying cause was a metabolic kidney disease, common variable immune deficiency and a small case of spina bifada.
That was the year I became a make a wish kid, I was granted the wish to have a pitching lesson with the legendary coach and founder of the NPA Tom House. Working with this pitching genius really helped me understand all the physics and where pitching velocity came from and things such as hip to shoulder separation. Equipped with all of this new knowledge I became increasingly frustrated over the next year as I had no clue how to implement all of this into my delivery. Then came Brent Pourciau and Topvelocity.net.
I read through all his material and every one of his articles at least 10 times each and I decided I needed help and went down to a 3X Pitching Camp. I was amazed at how much information was being tossed my way and I began to realize within the first 10 minutes that not only were my mechanics not where they needed to be but I was nowhere close to the athlete I needed to be, but after throwing my bullpen and being clocked at 85 mph Brent approached me and told me that if I stayed at his facility and trained for a month I would hit 90 mph.
That was all I needed to hear, my 3 day camp trip turned into me working my butt off at his facility for a month. The experience I had down there working out with these guys and under Brent's tutelage was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Being around all of these people and soaking up everything they had to say and training at that level changed my life. I kept up all the hard work over a 2 week period after coming home and on the last day of my 6th week on the program I threw 92 mph.
This was easily the greatest accomplishment of my life and none if it would ever have been possible if it wasn’t for Brent and his camp. I went from a low velocity D2 pitcher and a make a wish kid to a guy throwing 92 mph after just 6 weeks of this program. In my eyes starting this program is the single most important thing I ever did in my life and I advise any person reading this to make the same decision.
David Thompson 92mph Interview
[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/105806992" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]