A Coach is Just a Coach, Unless He’s Your Dad

Back in 2007, I made the determination that my life didn’t include nearly enough stress between April and August, so I volunteered to manage my son’s baseball team. This was a decision I based on nothing resembling logic, as I have absolutely no baseball background whatsoever. Everything I knew about baseball, at the time, I learned from watching the Chicago Cubs, and you know how they’ve fared over the past 102 years. But with the the love of my son placed under my cap, I began serving time as a baseball coach.

2007 to 2009 involved three incredibly bad teams – one team of 9 and 10 year olds and two teams of 11 and 12 year olds. By the end of last season, my record stood at a laughable 4 wins, 41 losses. My best finish, as it played out, was last summer. I took the boys to the playoffs in last place out of six teams, won a playoff game, and ended the season in fourth place. It was a small victory for a guy with a very small amount of knowledge of what it takes to coach a little league team.

This summer I decided that I had to redirect my priority to my two daughters. That decision, combined with the proclamation from their mother that I would be put to death if I coached baseball again, was intended to be a move towards something I thought I had a better handle on: fast-pitch girls softball.

Here’s an important tidbit of information for all you coaching dads and dads who want to be coaches out there – softball is still baseball, only it’s played by girls, who throw a big green ball underhanded. Who knew?

Managing the 14 to 17 year-old girls this summer to a 1 win, 11 loss season has guided me down an entirely new avenue to defeat, one that embraces pony tails, press on nails and priorities other than softball, such as boys. Which is who this “journey of enlightenment” started with. Only now, instead of trying to motivate them to play hard and win baseball games, I’m trying to motivate them to leave the girls alone so they’ll play hard and win softball games.

When it’s all said and done, my daughters seem to be happy that I’m going through it by their sides, which is what it’s all about in the first place. Somebody’s got to do it, right?