Why Do I Do This?

The game was over, the post mortem with assistant coaches and parents complete.  We gave the opponents seven outs in one inning and they scored ten runs.  Coach Little League teams long enough and you'll have these results occasionally.  If we were paid to coach, we couldn't keep our jobs.

Fortunately, I'm not paid to coach.  The question is: Why do I do this?  Why would anyone do this?

It starts in the heart.  I have a heart and, maybe, a gift for teaching and encouraging.  My motive is to teach and encourage.  Some days it will work, some days it won't.  All the teaching gets washed away some days, some days every little thing is remembered.

If your heart is totally set on winning, no matter what, the frustration will boil over quickly.  Children will be yelled at in anger and spirits crushed.  Kids like to win, too.  It's more fun than losing.  But humiliation sucks.  I hope I have never done that to a kid.  I probably have.

I like to win, too.  If players do what they are coached to do, learn the lessons we learn in playing the game, and do it with enthusiasm, winning will take care of itself.  I rarely use the W word when talking to the kids.  It tends to bring pressure, and pressure is no fun.

If I teach and encourage, maybe the player hangs with it and starts making plays.  Maybe the player, striking out dozens of times, fouls one off, then gets one in play.  Maybe the player forgets the situation and runs off when the pop fly is caught with one out, but learns to tag up.

So what, it's only a game.

When they're thinking about getting married, and he's being a jerk, they hang with him and he learns how to be the man he should be.  When they have a child who can't or won't obey, they stay consistent and the child learns.  The job they studied for is hard, and they keep adjusting until they make a great living.

Don't tell me sports are only a game.  It is life.  The lessons are learned forever.  They are handed to the next generation.

Sports are the High School first baseman who can't hit, but plays college ball when he starts hitting.  He eventually becomes an E.R. Doctor and saves lives on a daily basis.  That player learned grace under pressure.  Sports are the basketball player, tall, gangly and unwanted, who becomes a productive player and then the first in his family to go to college.  That player learned accomplishment.  Sports are the High School quarterback who uses his leadership to become a police officer, and pays the ultimate price protecting the innocent.  That player learned courage.

Sports is an uncoordinated geek picking up golf, building a game through persistence to the point of participating at a Big Ten school and as a club professional.  That geek learned persistence.

Sports are more than the game.  They are life.

So...am I off base?