Under pressure, Berry mentors teammates

BRIDGET O’BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Despite all of the
pressure surrounding him this season, UCLA outfielder Adam
Berry doesn’t have a chip on his shoulder.

By Scott Bair
DAILY BRUIN STAFF
[email protected]

It had been a tough year. For a season that started off so well,
UCLA outfielder Adam Berry’s 2001 season ended in a
dramatically depressing fashion. Not only had UCLA lost 15 of its
last 20 games, but Berry, who started 2001 with a hot bat, finished
it on the bench. He was a starter for 34 of the first 37 games, but
his mounting strikeout total caused UCLA’s head coach Gary
Adams to lose confidence in him.

Friday the 13th of April proved to be more unlucky than usual.
Berry went 0-for-2 with two strikeouts that day and was averaging
one strikeout every 3.3 at-bats.

Adams had seen enough. After that fateful day, Berry would crack
the starting lineup once more during the latter half of the 2001
season.

Berry’s season, which started with lofty expectations,
ended with disbelief of how things could go so wrong so quickly.
This wasn’t a part of the Texas native’s master plan.
This wasn’t how his junior season was supposed to go. 2001
was supposed to be the breakout year when his true talent would
show. Shortly after the end of the season and just when he thought
things couldn’t get any worse, Berry was called into the
coach’s office for a meeting.

The UCLA coaches sat Berry down and broke him the news. They
told him that they didn’t see him as anything more than a
backup. They admired his off-the-field leadership and wanted to
make him a team captain for the 2002 season but weren’t
counting on him to contribute on the field with the way he had
played in 2001.

Berry didn’t want to be a cheerleader. He took the role of
captain seriously, and he didn’t see how he could lead the
team off the field if he wasn’t an example on it.

So he took the burden upon himself to change what went
wrong.

Entering fall practice, the 2002 version of Adam Berry, both
physically and mentally, was better than ever before. This
improvement translated into a offensive revolution, hitting .308
with 17 home runs at week’s end.

“We told Adam that if he was happy as a bench player, that
was fine,” hitting coach Vince Beringhele said. “He
didn’t accept what we told him. He came back and forced
us to eat our words and put him back in the starting
line-up.”

Berry put a lot of weight on his own shoulders entering the 2002
season.

“I wanted to be one of the guys who generates a lot of
offense,” he said. “But with so many incoming freshmen,
I take my role in the clubhouse just as seriously.”

Berry has had to help the team through some tough times this
season.

One of those rough patches occurred early this season. The
Bruins carried a five-game losing streak into the Feb. 23 contest
against rival USC. The Bruins lost 26-4 on that Saturday.

It was humiliating. It was the type of loss that could shatter
the already fragile team confidence.

After that game, as somber faces walked back to the clubhouse,
the team captain didn’t make an inspirational speech. He
didn’t give them a typical “everything’s going to
be OK” pep talk. He didn’t say anything at all. When he
got back into the clubhouse, he grabbed the tape of his at-bats and
immediately sat in the video room dissecting every aspect of his
swing with Beringhele. They watched the at-bats in slow-motion.

After that video session, Adam understood.

Berry put the team on his back, hitting 10 home runs in the next
nine games. In the week of March 5-12, Berry hit .500, with four
home runs and 11 RBI in 18 at-bats. If there is such a thing as a
zone, he was in it.

Like a hurricane, the zone came and ripped through opposing
pitchers, leaving just as fast as it came.

“Even when I was hitting that well, I knew it wasn’t
going to last all season, and at some point the vacation was going
to end,” Berry said.

When he wasn’t hitting well, he couldn’t allow
himself to get frustrated. In order to set an example for the
others, he couldn’t show his emotions.

“There have been times when I wanted to throw a helmet and
get pissed off,” Berry said. “But if I can do it,
anyone can. There are times when I have to hide my emotions, but
it’s probably good for both me and the team.”

When he’s not hitting well, he uses his role as captain to
make sure that someone else is.

“Adam has taken me under his wing this season and has been
there for me both on and off the field,” freshman first
baseman Wes Whisler said.

The pressure from last year’s meeting has been bearing
down on Berry all season, through his offensive improvement and the
tribulations of a 26-32 record.

But even now, Berry doesn’t like the word
“pressure,” defining it as the fear of failure.
He’s been through pressure before.

Last season, Berry stepped up to the plate against top-ranked
USC. With runners on second and third, two strikes and two outs, a
single would have won the game and an out would have sealed
defeat.

With enormous pressure mounting and the game in the balance,
Berry stepped into the box, and smiled.

“I thought to myself, “˜Now this is
fun,'” Berry said.

He deposited the next pitch over the left field wall to win the
game.

And this weekend, if Berry comes to bat against USC in another
pressure filled moment, take the time to look at his face.

Don’t be surprised if you see a smile.