This story is part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering the mental side of sports. Sign up for Peak’s newsletter here.Cory Edwards knew.He saw the fighting off of tears. The sulking postures. The finger pointing. The coming to grips with the end of something special.But he didn’t want his players to go out all sullen. So while his team from Paseo Verde (Henderson, Nev.) was a few more balls and strikes away from losing the 2026 Little League World Series final to the team from Curacao, Edwards gathered his group and delivered a message that there is only one way to finish it out.“Hey, listen, no matter what happens, you have to hold your head up. You have to not get on each other. You have to have good body language,” he said. “Those things are important. You have to stay mentally tough. When it gets tough, you get tougher. You understand?”
Little League coach talking to his team down 11-2 😤
A teaching moment ❤️ pic.twitter.com/XvZ57LeWdy
— ESPN (@espn) August 30, 2026That message — captured and posted during the LLWS final on ESPN — went viral. The advice from that 17-second clip wasn’t rehearsed. It just hit him in the moment when he saw his players’ reactions.“If you don’t lose the right way, if you don’t hold your head up and go about it the right way, sometimes that sour taste in your mouth is going to wash away all the great things you did,” Edwards said in an interview.
