It has been said that playing youth sports can lead to
benefits such as higher grades, greater self-esteem, and stronger peer and
family relationships[1].
What I learned, however, was that volunteering to coach those youth sports can
lead to just as many unexpected benefits for the adults involved.
When my future stepson, Noah, decided to play tee-ball, I
had no idea I would end up volunteering to coach. After all, I had no
biological children on the team, and I would be the only female assisting. But
when the director of the league said that if parents didn’t volunteer there
would be no 6-and-under tee ball team, we took action. My fiancé volunteered to
be the head coach for fourteen children between ages 3 and 6; and I volunteered
to assist him. He had never coached – or really played – baseball in his life,
and it had been well over a decade since I picked up a glove. Together, we
prepped practice schedules and batting lineups, and I set out to find team
uniforms.
When we had our first practice, I quickly likened coaching
tee-ball to herding cats. I was suddenly in charge of fourteen kids with little
to no attention span who all came from different walks of life. There were four
girls, ten boys, one Hispanic child, one African American child, one Native
American child, one child with ADHD, one child who (by no fault of his own)
wasn’t old enough to comprehend running bases, and several children who cared
more about hugging my leg and chatting than they did playing ball. While
working with the parents, I learned we had one single dad, three sets of
divorced parents and corresponding step parents, one set of adoptive parents,
one periodically disabled parent who had recently undergone back surgery, and
one parent who had recently lost her husband; and then there was me – someone
who had no legal claim to any child on the “Glenpool Wolfpack” team, and was
suddenly in charge of helping make sense of the madness that is coaching
preschoolers. It was easily one of the most challenging and rewarding
experiences of my adult life.
In an office setting, employees are consistently taught that
sensitivity to cultures and appreciating diversity is imperative to a positive
work environment. Imagine my surprise when I realized that coaching a group of
fourteen kids under age six would require the same range of sensitivity and
understanding! How I spoke to one child sometimes had to be different than how
I spoke to another child: talking about “mommy and daddy” in front of the child
who recently lost his father may be more hurtful to him, while the adopted
child hearing a teammate ask her, “how come you don’t look like your mom and
dad?” may create a potentially uncomfortable conversation. The spectrum of
sensitivity and understanding of different backgrounds and lifestyles that came
with this voluntary job was something I never expected to encounter. By the end
of the three month season, I learned that it was important to get eye-level
with this age group; and it was just as important to do the same with their
parents. I learned that some parents desperately want to help in any way they
can, while it was a challenge to ask some parents to even bring their child to
a game on time. I learned that even though I may need to cater to fourteen
different developing personalities, it was vital that I treat every child with
the same amount of respect and adoration.
Every child was coached to their ability rather than a set
standard, but every child, no matter what, got a high five and a “Great job!”
from Coach Courtney. There were nights after games that I felt I was more
exhausted from trying to coach these fourteen personalities and wrangle them
into the dugout than I was after an eight-hour work day. There were days when I
had more angry phone calls and text messages from parents than I did visits
from students in my office. There were moments that I wasn’t entirely sure that
I could remember which child required which type of coaching. But there was not
a day that went by that I did not appreciate every single one of those booming
personalities and differences. Children were creating dialogues with me about
differences that I simply cannot experience in a work setting – “How come his
mom is never here?” “How come that dad is in a wheelchair?” “Why didn’t that
person’s grandma ever bring us snacks?” It was an invaluable opportunity to
talk to very young, malleable minds about the fact that not everyone is the
same. Some people have one parent, while some people have four; some dads stay
in wheelchairs, while some walk, some run, and some aren’t with us anymore.
Some people have the opportunity to buy us snacks (“Isn’t that nice of them? Let’s go say thank you!”), and sometimes
people aren’t in a situation to afford it (“But let’s go tell her thank you for coming to watch us!”). Seeing
their sweet faces process this information and realize that it’s okay that
their friends are different was something I will never forget.
By the time the last game rolled around, I desperately tried
not to shed tears during our last team huddle. I never would have imagined that
while coaching a six-and-under tee-ball team, I would learn more about life
than they probably did about the sport. Differences aren’t just important in
the workplace. Lifestyles unlike mine shouldn’t only be respected as an adult.
Diversity lives in every age group, not just at the office. I feel honored and
blessed that I was able to both coach and learn from a group of children who
left a mark in my heart, and helped me celebrate their individualities in a way
I didn’t know existed.
[one player not pictured]
[1] “True Sport: What We Stand To Lose in Our
Obsession to Win.” U.S. Anti-Doping Agency; TrueSport.org; http://www.truesport.org/library/documents/about/true_sport_report/True-Sport-Report.pdf