Catching up with one of "my guys"

I posted this about 2 years ago...it details a story of one of my former players....Along with being an umpire, I also coached my own childrens youth baseball teams until such time that their abilities went beyond my ability to offer constructive coaching......

I was grateful for the clarity to realize that my local baseball area needed a qualified umpire far more than it needed a mediocre coach.....

I look back on my coaching time with fondness mainly because of the players........and this week has brought me news of 2 of my former players and I want to share........

I had a young man named Robbie come into our fall ball program at about 10 yrs old....He had not had any opportunity to play baseball prior to that and was as raw as any ten year old can be.......He played on my teams from age 10-15. He became a good youth ball player and loved the game like very few....He never missed a practice, never missed a game.........he always gave 100%. He went on to a christian high school that did not have a baseball team and then on to college, so I did not get to see him much but I see his mother now and then and I always ask about him.....

This sunday in our sports section there was a photo of a local softball team who had just gotten back from a tourney where they had won first place.......this team had won the tournament even though it forfeited a game on sunday... You see these boys would not play on sunday morning so they would not miss Church....they roared back to sweep the tourney from the losers bracket and bring home the championship trophy..........

Smiling in the front row was Robbie.....

I am not suprized that he is a winner........he always was........


So now to the update.........I was waiting at the plate on Tuesday night for the managers to go over ground rules for a local COLT level game...

Who walks out of the dugout but the young man in question...Now freshly graduated from college, with a degree in Physical Education and a coaching minor....now coaching his brothers colt league team...

I broke every rule of umpire decorum...by hugging him at the plate meeting....

If I miss anything from my time as a coach it is the time spent with the players and watching them grow and realizing that when determining how good my team was going to be truly depended on what kind of MEN they will become....