Lessens Learned on the Field

Tomorrow, Mike & I will be helping with the game day festivities of one of our friend's Summer Baseball Teams. They're having a double header, so we'll be helping them coordinate concessions & Mike will be calling the game.

Although the team we're helping is for high-school-age players, I can't help but think about what our life may be like when we fast forward 4-5 years. I keep thinking about Tee Ball and coach-pitch baseball/softball, and maybe even Little League. I look forward to those days fondly. I'm not saying that I'm going to force our child into playing competitive sports, but we'll definitely encourage her/him to give team sports a try.

I still remember picking dandylions in center field during my first year playing baseball. I also remember the first coach I ever had in baseball. It was a boys and girls team and I wasn't the best player on my team, but the coach never gave up on me and I did improve. Even more fondly, I remember all the years my dad coached my baseball and softball teams. I learned a lot...not just about how to throw, catch, pitch and hit...but also about what it means to be on a team.

Looking back, I have even a greater appreciation for what my dad did by coaching us. Here's a man with a big-time job who found time to be a coach year after year. Not just for me, but for my older brother too. I can now begin to understand just how hard he worked to make that happen. Not because someone asked him to be a coach, but because it was something that he felt was important to do with us. It wasn't just organizing the team, teaching us how to play and being at every game and running each practice...it was also the example he set. Not just for me then, but for me now as I start to embark on the balancing act of all times....working full time and being the best parent I can be.

My mom made it a point to bring oranges and get us to practices and cheer us on (or lovingly-yet firmly-make us snap out of it if we were having a bad day on the field). Both of them also gave us quite a life lesson on responsibility to our team and not being a quitter. They've always been our biggest fans, while also encouraging to always seek to be better. They showed us how to be competitive with our own performance first before analyzing how we ranked among others. We also learned good sportsmanship and how to follow through on a commitment. Many of these lessens were reinforced on a baseball diamond. Keep in mind that I know that I was not the most athletically-gifted child, but I still learned and applied a lot of traits that I use on a daily basis now. I hope to pass these along to our kids.

Mike's sports career reached much more success than mine, as he played baseball at the college level. Still, his experience early on in baseball, like mine, has really shaped him as an adult. We learned a lot as a result of being on teams and having parents so commited to helping us reach our full potential, not neccessarily as athletes, but as people...good people. We're very lucky to have the involved parents that we both have.

I wonder what lessens our children will learn on the baseball field....and look forward to teaching how to play and develop, both on and off the field. When in Cincinnati, Mike and two of his friends coached a 5 & 6 yr old boys team. It was a riot. Although none of them had kids on the field, it was incredible to see them in action ,working to develop these kids. I remember how special I thought they were for doing that. Just imagine how I'll be 5 years from now, when Mike's coaching again, but this time, our child will be on the team!!!