Oodle

Whenever I see a one of the new softball helmets, it reminds me when my own daughter wore  her own. New to a team in our tiny town in California, she wasn’t a remarkable player, but she sure had, then and now, a lot of heart .

The rationality for the memories of her hot pink  softball helmet was her tribute to her mother who was diagnosed with breast cancer a year earlier. Debbie insisted that her helmet would be pink and when the coach balked, I could barely blame him. After all, he was trying to build team unity and he couldn’t have an entire rainbow of team colours atop his players heads.

I tried to stay out of it, although I am a baseball coach and besides, twice I came unglued with the man and his coaching skills. Once was in the latter innings of a close game when he signaled for Debbie to bunt with a runner on third and two strikes. I almost lost it when I saw her square around.

Had I known then that it was a signal from the third base box, I may have come onto the field. Surely no coach in his right mind would make that call specially with a proven  experienced  hitter at the plate. She’d already doubled  singled  and in the fourth ran out a close single to short.

It had to be Debbie and my thinking at the time was that she lost the count, perhaps thought she only had one strike instead of two. Players make those mistakes, but coaches should not.

After the game, I approached her and she reluctantly revealed whispered  that the call came from the coach. I wish I could say that I was generous. That I was a compassionate man who understood that even coaches make mistakes, but I was none of these things when I approached the coach that evening. I am ashamed of myself to this day.

My other parenting error was entirely an attempt to get the coach to call some creative plays. Like letting his players to practice stealing  when the score was several runs  apart. My thinking is that players at an early stage of play need all the experience they can get, so why not teach them.

Turn an otherwise negative situation into something positive. He disagreed with me and I held my tongue in front of the other players and moms and dads . When the game was over though, I had to submit my disbelief at what I considered a poor coaching performance.

Now, we fast forward from her tawdry parent spectators and to my daughter as she picks up the mantle in life.

This, with the pink softball helmets, Debbie actually talked the entire team into joining her and in unison, there would be no rainbow of colors. It still wasn’t what the coach cherished, but he ended up with a team of brightly painted pink, breast cancer batting helmets.

It should have made the paper in our small town, but it didn’t. My daughter is now getting married and will soon start her own team and I am so very proud of her.

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