Osaka Gakuin University High School Baseball Team defeats Osaka Toin and Rushousha…Manager Tsujimori: “An unexpected promise made at the first meeting”.
Eiichi Tsujimori is a former strong salesman who achieved the highest sales in Japan for 13 consecutive years at a major life insurance company!
From 9:00 am to 3:00 pm on weekdays, he is the president of the life insurance agency he runs. After work, he goes to a field in Suita City, Osaka Prefecture, changes into a uniform, and trains the ballplayers for the Koshien Tournament.
Eiichi Tsujimori, 48, the coach of Osaka Gakuin University High School, is a unique leader of two completely different groups.
He says, “The way of thinking and approaching the development of employees and players is basically the same in both business and baseball. In the first meeting with the players, I told them, ‘I want you to decide not to set a goal, but to become the best in Japan. I don’t like the word “goal” because it has the nuance of “it doesn’t matter if we don’t achieve it. The players were confused, though.
After graduating from university, Tsujimori worked for Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation before joining Alico Japan (now MetLife Insurance). After achieving the highest sales in Japan for 13 consecutive years as a salesman, he started his own life insurance agency, Lifemetrix, in 2006.
In addition to his title as an astute businessman, he also served as the manager of his alma mater, Osaka City University (now Osaka Public University), for 12 years from 2010, leading the team to its first league championship in 24 years in 2005. He led the team to its first league championship in 24 years in 2005.
I want him to aim for the pros as long as he plays,” he said. For the two and a half years I was in high school, I wanted people to work hard at what they loved to do. If you can’t do that, I don’t think you can break through the barriers when you become a member of society and have to do something you don’t want to do for your family. It is precisely because you work on it with the determination to ‘get to the top’ that you can become clear and aware of what is lacking in your current practice.”
Osaka Gakuin University High School is the alma mater of Yutaka Enatsu, 76, a veteran baseball player who won 206 games and saved 193 saves for Hanshin and other teams, but the team has made only one appearance in the Koshien Tournament, in the spring of 1996. In the first round of the fall tournament, six months before Tsujimori took over as manager, the team lost 1-11 to the powerful Rimusho-sha.
