My husband is never going to stop coaching.
Never. Once our kids are through with sports and he no longer has teams he can coach, someday Rick will be spotted out on the street corner with a whistle around his neck. He will blow it at pedestrians, telling them they aren’t running fast enough. Or that they need to take a lap.
I’m not sure I can even name all the teams Rick has coached. He started coaching Joe’s baseball team since he was in preschool, back when some of the outfielders would abandon their positions to go play on the dirt piles. He still coaches some of those same boys, but now they play the competitive Jr. Saltdogs league for 11/12 year olds. He helped coach a few years of Joe’s YMCA soccer. He also coaches for Lincoln
And he is actually a pretty good coach. He played a lot of sports growing up, in high school, and then played recreational sports after he was done with school. The last couple of years he has had to slow it down so that he only plays basketball with a group at lunch once a week. Of course, that may be coming to an end someday soon. He says he is definitely the old man out on the court (some are college age) and whoever he guards has the most points for that game. White men can’t jump, especially 45-year-old white men.
Rick has the attitude that everyone should stay active. He runs three to five miles a day. Even on those 100 degree days. And he loves it. Yuck. Some days we have nothing in common. He thinks sports are really important, especially for kids and for their health and self confidence. It’s something I have come to agree with.
He’s a good coach because, first and foremost, he makes sure everybody gets to play. When the kids were in recreational YMCA teams, he made sure everyone got to play the same amount of innings, and they all got a chance to try every position. Now that the kids play on competitive leagues, he still thinks everyone should get to play. Nobody rides the bench all game every game. But that doesn’t mean everyone gets equal playing time. They have to earn it. They have to come to practice. They have to work hard at practice. They have to work hard at the game. This motto helped his baseball team get third in the league last year out of 30-some teams.
However, his soft-heartedness sometimes keeps him from winning all the games. For example, he kept a kid on his football team who maybe should have moved down in the league. When Rick made the suggestion and the kid teared up, turned and hung his head to walk over to the other team, Rick called him back. He kept the kid so he could play on the same team as all his friends. Rick’s got a heart of gold.
But unfortunately he has got the voice of a grumpy old man. He inherited that barking, loud voice from his Grandpa Bernard when he coaches. It makes me cringe, but it’s how he is. I think the entire reason he helped assistant coach Mandy’s soccer was because his voice would carry all the way across the field when the head coach needed to call out plays.
And I get to hear a lot of that voice. I go to almost all the games. For baseball games, I keep the stats book. I know the only reason he wants me to do it is because if someone makes a mistake in the book, at least he can yell at me. He won’t yell at the assistant coaches. But I get to hear a lot of things in the dugout that aren’t party to the rest of the spectators. One game he said when the boys came back to the dugout, “If you guys aren’t going to play outfield, just let me know. I’ve got plenty of kids sitting on the bench who will play outfield, so just give me the word.” A few weeks ago he said as they came back in after a bad inning, “That was the worst inning of baseball I have ever seen in my life.” Nice job Buttermaker. Yeah, I had to stick around and chat up the parents after THAT game to smooth things over.
It’s also been an interesting life lesson on the difference between boys and girls and how they approach challenges. Take, for example, girls’ softball and boys’ baseball. On the bench during girls’ softball, the girls talk about “where did you get that cool visor to match your pink glove?” One of the first softball games of the season many years ago, the other team got a hit in the infield and no one went after the ball. All the girls stood around and looked at one another until one girl eventually went and picked it up. The next game, the first hit of the game, our entire team of girls ran after the ball, abandoning all their posts. It would have been an error on first base, if there had been a first baseman to catch it. You know every girl got a good talking to after that first game by their dads, telling them to go after the ball no matter where it is hit. Boys, on the other hand, don’t talk about matching pink gloves and hats. At the game last night, the boys congratulated the boy who got a hit that went straight at the other team’s pitcher, beaning him in the leg and taking the pitcher out of the game. The boys squirt one another with their water bottles, fill each other’s hats with water when they aren’t looking, spit sunflower seeds everywhere, and see how many pieces of gum they can fit in their mouths at a time. And at the boys first grade season? The first time one of the boys threw the ball to first base and got the runner out, it was on. The team was out for blood. They wanted to get those three outs every inning, and they would push each other over on the diamond to get to the ball first.
The teams aren’t always the greatest. Sometimes his teams lose more games than they win. Sometimes his nose tackle for Midget D league is 70 pounds soaking wet, and he adapts by showing the kid how to army crawl under the opposing linemen. It’s hard to come up with positive things to say when you have no points on the board and all the parents are complaining that their kid should be playing more at key positions. And none of those parents have any idea all the time he spends on his spreadsheets, how many videos or clinics he goes to for new ideas, and that he so wishes he could come up with the key to getting their kid to play at the best of their ability. It’s all for no money, and maybe a free shirt and hat.
The best part of coaching, the thing that makes it all worth while, is not winning the championship -- although that would be awesome. It’s seeing those weak players on your team finally get a hit or finally make a basket. The times that give you tingles up your back is when you’re tied with two outs, and you’ve got a guy on third, but one of your weakest hitters is up to bat. Then he magically, somehow, whacks it out there and makes it to first base, batting in the winning run. It’s when you see those kids light up that makes those unpaid, underappreciated hours of planning, practices, and complaints worthwhile.
So he keeps on coaching. He keeps on spending his evening with his spreadsheet, plotting who is going to play where, fine tuning his batting order, figuring out new plays that allow a defensive line full of less than 100 pounders the ability to hold back an offensive line of 130 pounders.
So in about 10 years, if you are driving through town and you see a tall salt-and-pepper man on the corner with a whistle around his neck and a clipboard in his hand, please text me. Let me know where I can pick him up and I will come with his a blue Gatorade to take him home to watch the Bad News Bears and the Sandlot just one more time.
Centerfield
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