Youth sports and sportsmanship

I had the good fortune to see a recent copy of the Hanson Express. Having lived in Carver for the past 14 years it is fun to read about my old home town and see who is still around doing what. Sadly what caught my eye was the letter from a teenage softball umpire who was announcing that he was quitting and why. I started coaching in 1973 when I was 18 – WH Youth Hockey in the winter and Hanson Girls 13-17 softball in the summer. Since then I have also been at various times President of the Hanson Girls Softball League, President of the North River Girls Fast Pitch Softball League, coached in East Bridgewater and Carver, Baseball, Softball, Basketball, been a USAHockey certified referee for 25 years and have umpired many youth softball games in my time. My 17 year old son has been umpiring Carver Girls Softball for three years. I certainly do not know the state of Hanson’s softball program or the people who run it but I am well aware of some universal truths about youth sports. This young man hit the nail right on the head with a couple of observations he made in his letter.
1) Officials are not paid enough to take the verbal abuse they too often get. Every league – no matter what the sport – needs to adopt zero tolerance policies against spectator misbehavior, assure that every parent gets a copy, and the game officials need to have full confidence that abusive spectators will be removed.
2) winning/losing isn’t as important to the kids as it is to the parents. Children are taught by adults what is important or not. Learning how to handle losing well is possibly more important than learning to win well. If your child is overly sensitive about losing, you probably are responsible for that. Every decent youth sport coach starts the season with a talk about how winning and losing is not important. Participation, fair playing time, learning skills and having fun are the team goals. We coaches and parents need to remember these words while the game is in progress.

Hours before reading the Express, I discovered that the mother of one of the players on my youngest son’s Little League team happened to be a girl I coached in Hanson many years ago. As she and I and Coach Costa (also a former Hansonite) discussed the team and how good the kids did and how much fun everybody had, she commented that she only wished they had won the championship. I asked if she had enjoyed playing way back when. Without hesitation she said “Absolutely”. I asked her if we had won any championships while she played. She was pretty certain we had a good team, and thought maybe we had – but couldn’t say for certain (PS: we didn’t, we were OK – some years better than others). But to prove what the teenaged umpire had stated – we seldom remember the wins or losses. I remember being 9 years old on the Robinson Street lower field and hitting a double over Charlie Hatches head in left field – then getting spoken to by Mr. Ruxton because the pitch had bounced two feet in front of the plate and I shouldn’t have swung (but I’m so glad I did). I remember catching Nick Gardner in a rundown between 2nd & 3rd and bluffing him into turning around then tagging him out. Most importantly I remember looking up to discover my father had arrived in time to see my smart play. Dana Colley remembers being 12 and leading a’cappela versions of the Doobie Brothers “Black Water” in the Hobomock locker room. Ruth McDonnell remembers nearly decapitating me in batting practice. Johnny Casoli remembers playing “steal the puck from the coach” in practices - first as a 12 year old player (a game where the entire team would gang up and try to take the puck away from the two man coaching staff), later as my assistant coach as we tried to out-stickhandle and out-pass fifteen 12 year olds. “Bobby-Gay” Gora remembers the Scituate runner at 3rd base who was being called “Blueberry” by her team-mates. In a display of sympathy, Jill Bernado shouted back from our bench (while pointing out her best friend Roberta) “at least her middle name isn’t “Gay”! I remember the Scituate coach being irate that the girls were having too much fun. Most former players I run into (and there are literally thousands of them now) all have similar memories – and hardly any can tell you what our won-loss record was. They remember snapshot moments of a play or a hit or a joke that someone told or the rides to away games or the team song they made up. These are the moments we need to encourage. These are the stories we want to hear recalled decades from now.