I spent this past weekend in Seattle, watching our younger son's final college baseball weekend. Between 2 sons, its been 8 years of Pac12/college baseball over the past 11 years and we truly know just how blessed we are to have gotten this experience not once, but twice.
It was a wonderful weekend, filled with ceremony, emotion, pride and tons of happiness.
On the long flight back home to Carolina, so many things were running through my head about the whole experiences of the 2 boys. Somehow, one thing kept coming to the top and I just thought it might be interesting to share them because they seem related to a lot of posts we see on this site about youth, HS, travel...even college coaches.
Story #1: Our older son was about 9 years old and was a rather raw, yet talented youth player. Chosen for his first all star team, he had a coach, "Larry," who was a parent of the best player in the league. Larry had played (USC) and coached D1 college football and was semi-retired....and as I watched him coach this team, I thought Larry was a nutcase. Always talking with slightly raised voice, chatter, chatter, chatter. 
Yes, he got on the little 9-year old all stars in a somewhat vocal way and yes, he got under my skin. Then the games came and all of this continued. Even worse, our son, only played about half the time (the minimum) and Larry was a little bit on his tail. I complained - I talked to Larry. (BTW, this was the 1st and last time I ever did that). In response, Larry let me have it.
Fast forward a year, now I was the all star coach and Larry's son was on my team. I wasn't going to ask Larry to help, after all, he was the nutcase from a year before and I didn't enjoy coaching against his regular season team all year - we had words a time or two across the field. But Larry stayed away from our all star practices for the most part and when he came to pick his son up, he stood out far away from the practices, thanked me after each one and took his son home. I figured the feeling was mutual!
But at some point during that all star season, our older son, age 10, said to me, "Dad, I don't know why you don't like Coach Larry but I sure do and I think he's a great coach and I've really enjoyed playing for him."
That one comment from our son changed everything. First, I learned that it wasn't doing any good for my son to hear negativity from me about a coach. But more importantly, I took a deep breath, a step back and I found a way to let myself see Larry in a different light. In fact, by a year or two later Larry and I became GREAT friends, later coaching together on a 12-year old all star team (Larry asked for MY help!) and later Larry even came back to help me coach our younger son for 2-3 years. The story ends well as Larry's son and our older son later became best of friends and played at Stanford together and to this day, our two families are close and really good friends.
I thank God that our older son had the fortitude as a 10-year old to set me straight. We would have missed SO MUCH had our son not got the ball rolling.
Story #2: Through our 2 sons playing in the Pac12, I developed a strong dislike for the Oregon State Beavers...and Pat Casey. Its probably mostly based on a little bit of jealousy due to their winning so much and to the fans at their ballpark - lets just say they can be a little rough on opposing players and families. So why Pat Casey? I don't know - guilt by association? Must be a bad guy if he coaches a team that beats my team a lot and with fans that are in my face whenever I have gone to games there. Or maybe there was a thing or two that I heard through the grapevine...true or untrue...that added to my dislike of the Beavers and thus...him.
But that changed this year. Our younger son, pitching against Oregon State a few weeks ago gave up 5 runs in the first inning. Uncharacteristic for him, I gave up and settled down in the stands to talk to friends in attendance. Lucky for us, our son didn't give up, holding the Beavers at bay for 6+ more innings and allowing his team to climb back in and take the lead...and win!!
This was GREAT! Our son had beaten the evil empire - Oregon State and their favorite coach, Pat Casey!!
Ah, but it doesn't end there. I come to find out that Pat Casey (and his pitching coach) found our son the next day before the game in the outfield. He pulled our son aside, one-on-one and told him how happy he was that our son was graduating. He said that they hated facing him and for 4 years had admired how gutty and tenacious he was and that they never wanted to face him again. There was more that was personal in a very good way and was about as nice a thing as an opposing coach could say, but I'll leave it at that.
I will tell you through 2 sons, both of whom had a lot of success in the Pac12, that this type of thing only happened once in each boy's 4-year career. Its not normal!!
And so...Pat Casey earned my respect (not that he should have had too). But he did. That was a tremendously classy thing to do and while I doubt I'll ever coach a grandson with Pat Casey (like I teamed up with Coach Larry), I will look at Pat Casey with a kind thought each time I watch the Beavers play. And I think now, I might(?) even root for them most of the time. 
Anyways, these stories were not meant to highlight my own sons. They were just meant to say that I felt a whole lot happier inside after each of my sons taught me that these coaches that I so despised at some point...were actually pretty good guys. And I just want to encourage everyone to give your sons the freedom to evaluate honestly outside of your own biases and to teach you too that their HS, college or other coach may be better than you think...and the same goes for the coach across the field. 
