I told you a few weeks ago that I had recently had a dream about my former baseball team, the Choppers. Since I wrote that blog, I’ve had two more dreams.
Lisa and I had dinner with my former assistant coach and his wife the other night – good friends of ours – and I related that story to everyone at the table. The concensus was that the dreams were driven by the fact that the youth baseball season really cranks up in February. It’s almost February.
My subconscious is telling my biological clock that “It’s almost time.” Except it isn’t!
Sometimes I wonder if I think too much about the Choppers and all of our exploits and I wonder whether or not our efforts as teachers, coaches and mentors made much of a difference.
Today, I got an affirmation that, indeed, they did.
The mom of one of our former players wrote me today to update me about what is going on in her family’s life. And as she closed her email, she told me she wanted to thank me for the time we put in as coaches and, in particular, for our guidance to her son.
That made my day.
Coaching in a competitive youth baseball league was a tricky balance. Of course, everyone wants to win. You certainly don’t want to become the league’s punching bag. On the other hand, it couldn’t be all about winning. That wouldn'tve been us being true to ourselves.
It was our goal to teach some important life lessons as we went along while we were winning; to teach our players even as the coaches were passing out gold medals…and getting doused by Gatorade…or very cold water!
We tried to manage the team with positive reinforcement. If I had to take a player out of the game, I would explain to him why. If I wanted him to do something differently, I tried to teach him the skill we were seeking for him to use.
And it was our goal never EVER to embarrass a player and to use that sort of public display to teach or correct one of our kids. That was how FB, Inc. wanted its teams to do things, too. In fact, our league employed a Code of Conduct that each coach – head coach or assistant – signed as a condition of being granted the privilege of coaching.
I wish I could say our opponents followed the words on the sheet they signed. Most did. A few didn’t. And of course, once we left the friendly confines of our ballpark, all bets were off. Anything goes. And frequently it did.
Anyway, to summarize, our coaching philosophy was for us to try to do things in a positive manner. I have hoped that we were able to achieve that goal.
The wins we racked up on the field – and, honestly, we were blessed to have won our share – were fun. But, really, who remembers the score of some generic league game played six years ago? Not many of us.
The wins we coaches scored through being positive role models are far reaching and long lasting.
Today, score one more win for the Choppers.
JG
(Source: farragutbaseballinc.com)
Originally posted 1/30/2012
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