The Dad-Coach With No Kid on the Team

We are constantly amazed at my peculiar ability to somehow end up in situations that seemingly never happen to anyone else.

I mean, who else could wait seven long years for the opportunity to coach his first youth sports team and then find himself without a son or daughter on the squad.

Only me.

Now, when the inevitable bumps and bruises occur on the field of play, I’m a typical male. With my 13 year-old son, Mike, I play the Mr. Macho Tough Guy role, operating on the basic philosophy that if you’re not bleeding, you’re fine. (Actually, that’s just what I say to get a rise out of my wife, Kathi, and a laugh out of fellow Tough Guy Macho Male dads). “Be tough, shake it off and get back into the game,” is my mantra with Mike.

I was not nearly so harsh years earlier with my daughter, Meaghan, and the girls on our Under 8 soccer team.

After waiting almost a decade, Meaghan turned seven and I finally had my shot at coaching my first youth sports team. (You might not think seven years is almost a decade, but don’t forget the nine months that I had to wait for her to be born). We had just moved to Pennsylvania from Connecticut and Meggie was a spry, little second-grader who was as active as the next kid though not necessarily athletically inclined.

The luck of the draw had me with a roster that included Meggie and a bunch of her friends from school, three of whom ended up as high school soccer stars.

So, we had a clear edge in speed and athleticism in every game (won the league title at 7-1 -- our loss was my fault; poor substitution pattern that had girls not well-suited for defense in those positions at the end of the game).

After the first couple of practices – forgive the predictable cliché, but girls that age are unspeakably cute -- Kathi and I were informed by our doctor that Meaghan’s consistent string of strep throats required a blood workup. The result was a definitive diagnosis of Mononucleosis.

Of course, Mr. Macho Tough Guy has always believed that -- at least to some extent -- these invisible, so-called ailments, like Mononucleosis have more to do with lack of discipline and will rather than any real physical malady.

“Epstein-Barr Syndrome?,” I would say to myself skeptically. “I’ve got an idea. Get a good night’s sleep and then man-up.”

“Attention Deficit Disorder? Please,” I would mutter to myself. “I know a treatment. Discipline and consequences. Try that.”

In my admittedly neanderthal world, Mononucleosis fell into the same general category, except that this one was close to home.

So, the practical, pragmatic guy that I am, I accepted the diagnosis and then was told that Meaghan would miss most – if not all – of the season. Limited general activity and no sports were the doctor's orders. She had an enlarged spleen and physical contact could result in the kind of injury that I would be able to see – like my daughter doubled over in pain with internal bleeding. As with most of these things, Kathi was in charge of Meaghan’s availability and since I had plenty of bodies and plenty of talent, I never even brought it up.

So, fully committed to the team and excited about our athleticism, I marshaled on without a child on the active roster. It was easy because I was inspired by these girls (who I called guys – I asked permission; they said OK) who tried to do everything I said. And by Meggie, who came to most of the games and rooted for her friends from the sideline.

Toward the end of the season (as with most youth sports teams), the girls actually started to get it, combining spacing on the field with their speed and strength. Also, some became good dribblers, enabling me to take partial (ok, miniscule) twinkle-in-the-eye credit for their success in high school. Thus, when Kathi gave the green light for Meggie to come back for the last game of the year, I was pumped to get her out there even though she was way behind all the other kids on the team.

So, she didn’t start that final game (and could not have cared less). A few minutes of playing time would be just fine with Meaghan.

The magic, Kathi told me, was that she was finally wearing the same uniform as her friends and that we were all going out for ice cream after the game.

Still, I was excited to finally, actually realize the objective that had motivated me to take on the coaching commitment in the first place. I wanted to be directly involved in my daughter experiencing the fun of organized youth sports activity.

A short while later, I subbed her for one of our midfielders and about two minutes into my utopian moment, a kicked ball nailed her right in the stomach. She stopped in her tracks but was uninjured. Still, Kathi told me to take her out of the game.

But, wait. As the coach, I was in charge, not Kathi, right? Once I saw she was okay, shouldn’t she have shaken it off and stayed in the game? Especially since she had missed the entire season?

Nah. I pulled her out and she never got any more playing time.

And that was just fine with me, too.

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Guilt-Ridden Dad Happy to Clean Up the Kitchen

When Mike was 10 years old and having fun playing all the sports, I took a job in New York City. It was a dynamic opportunity with a highly-respected company, but it would require me to live up there during the work week and travel home to suburban Philly on the weekends.

On the list that we all make of pros and cons surrounding the decision, the downsides mostly involved my not being there day-to-day for Mike as he approached maturity, manhood and – come on now, let’s get to the important stuff -- increasing levels of competitiveness on the fields of youth sports play.

As it is with most headstrong males who think there’s nothing they can’t handle, I convinced myself that my terrific relationship with Mike would overcome the most serious misgivings I had. We would communicate effectively over the phone during the week and I would be there for all of Mike’s games on the weekends, including Friday nights, when I would catch the Amtrak train as early as needed to make kick-off, first pitch or opening tip.

What I didn’t realize was that I was terribly guilt-ridden as an away-all-the-time Dad (there was plenty of weekend travel with this job, too). I couldn’t be a coach because there was no way to make that time commitment. Thus, there was nothing that I wouldn’t do to be involved with the coaches, contribute as a volunteer, socialize with the other parents and otherwise ease my uneasy feelings about whether or not I was doing the right thing.

I learned two things:

1. Parental involvement in youth sports can include a lot more than just showing up
2. Guilt is a powerful thing.

• Basketball scoreboard operator – All season long, moms told me that their husbands would wait in the car until just before gametime so that they wouldn’t be recruited to be the volunteer scoreboard operator. Not me. The fact that nobody else wanted to do it was a badge of honor for guilt-ridden me.

Only problem was that for most of the season, I was a work in progress. You see, when Mike would get the ball after a timeout, I was so intent on watching him in action that I would forget to start the clock. A complicating factor – Mike was the point guard.

Invariably, parents from the opposing team would start yelling at me and at the refs about me. If we were winning I would just sheepishly start the clock. If we were losing, I would have to run off some time on the clock, completely embarrassed, in front of the entire gathering of players, coaches and parents.

Worse still, my wife, Kathi would tell everyone in the stands why I hadn’t started the clock and all had a good ‘ol time at my innocent expense.

• Pop Warner Football play-counter – Possibly the most difficult job in all of youth sports. Because football coaches , especially, get carried away with their desire to win these games, they are unfortunately prone to keeping the best players on the field in pursuit of the desired outcome. So, there must be checks and balances to ensure that all players have a fair opportunity and the rule in Mike’s league was that each kid had to be in the game for a minimum of 12 scrimmage plays.

My job – and I salute the hundreds of thousands of others who have fulfilled this role – was to stand on the opposing team sideline and monitor the substitutions to ensure that the coaches were doing the right thing. The role is adversarial, you are surrounded by strangers who want to send your kid home a loser and reliable information is not easy to come by.

It’s sad to say – and scary too – that there are youth football coaches who actually make this difficult by strategically inserting lesser players into the games at the end of the first half or on hopeless third and fourth downs in working their way toward the minimums. I’m not talking about having the best players in at the end of a game, which is acceptable coaching behavior. I’m talking about a genuine effort to manage the substitution of lesser players so that they would not “hurt” the team in the minds of those coaches. This, at the expense of a meaningful experience – like the continuity of several consecutive series – for those usually younger, smaller players.

Forgive the serious interlude. There is nothing cute or funny about it. And those coaches are the ones who should be guilt-ridden.



• Baseball scorebook keeper – Baseball is a complicated game and keeping score in the book is a pain in the neck. The coaches don’t want to do it because it takes constant focus and concentration and they have enough just reminding the kids what to do and getting everyone his or her fair amount of playing time.

So, I loved to keep the book, because it made me an indispensable part of the operation and had me right there on the bench with Mike and his friends during the entire contest. Problem was, I didn’t know the local rules and when I pointed out to one of Mike’s coaches that the other team had substituted for their best players in the second inning but was putting them back in in the fourth, he started asking for more detail, saying that he might protest the game.

Talk about “Sorry I brought it up.” There was no way I was going to be able to track back exactly when players were substituted for. So, I used my power of persuasion to talk him out of such confrontational thinking. After all, I had to catch a train back to New York in less than 14 hours.

What was funny? When Mike and I arrived, I was so excited to be there with him and to be involved in the game that I put the car in park, hopped out, closed the door and wandered over to the field without ever turning off the engine. Three and one-half hours and 1/8th of a tank of gas later, we returned to the car and everyone in the immediate area had another laugh at my expense.

• Snack bar cleanup – There is a chance that I am the only Dad ever to have engaged in the culminating job associated with those wonderful snack bars that populate youth sports fields across our great country – clean up.

The snack bar is typically the domain of the moms. They take control because of their food preparation knowledge and experience and these dedicated women invariably step forward when teams are assigned shifts to keep the forces hydrated and fed and to keep those fundraising dollars flowing.

Guilt-ridden and trying to do more than my part, I volunteered for a closing shift at the Little League field, where greasy cheese fries, grilled hot dogs and hot pretzels are the order of the day. After a long Saturday of non-stop games on three different fields in the complex, I found myself alone with the boss – a paid high school kid nicknamed "Hitler" by the moms because of his authoritarian approach to maximizing the use of the volunteers until the last counter was clean.

While "Hitler" was counting the money, I was on cleanup duty – alone. Now, when I clean up the kitchen at home, I always have Mike or my daughter, Meaghan, to help. But they weren’t there. They were gone. Everyone was gone. The other mom on the closing shift had to go home with her husband and kid because they only had one car. It was getting dark.

Did you ever feel sorry for yourself?

Since a job worth doing is worth doing well. I scrubbed, scraped, scoured and wiped, getting it all done-with a smile on my face.

Guilt – to be sure – is a powerful thing.

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The Importance of Having the Right Equipment

One Saturday morning during those too few seasons after tee ball and before the double digit-age years when kids and parents start taking Little League Baseball far too seriously, my wife, Kathi, asked me a question out of the blue about Mike’s batting glove.

Mike was probably about eight and I’m pretty sure it was early in the season, so his lifetime number of at bats against a pitcher other than somebody’s dad probably numbered less than 20, including the entire previous season. He didn’t have any blisters that I was aware of – never had -- and I couldn’t figure out why she would care even a little bit about whether or not he had a batting glove.

Now I’m the kind of guy who always wants to be at the game early to demonstrate our commitment to the coach (when I coached my daughter’s under eight year-old soccer team, I always started the first six kids who showed up). So, Mike and I would always leave for the field early without Kathi. She would then come later with her mother, Mimi, or our daughter, Meaghan.

The game was already underway and I was coaching first base, so her question interrupted my concentration. I can’t remember whether that first inning interruption affected the outcome of the game (kidding), but I couldn’t imagine what could be so important.

“Steve, does Michael have his batting glove?”

“What ?” I answered hurriedly, turning my head only partly in her direction so I wouldn’t lose track of the count. “Why do you care about his batting glove? Does he even have a batting glove? What does he need a batting glove for?”

Kathi apparently felt it was a legit question because I was in charge of Mike’s equipment and we left, with Mike in uniform, before she did. Rest assured that the only glove I was worried about was his fielding glove, which he actually did need, because he was playing third base.

Curiously, she didn’t really answer and left me to my critical first base (kidding again)coaching duties. “Kids this age don’t need batting gloves,” I muttered to myself while turning fully back toward the field.

The next day, Sunday, we had another game and this time she came early with us. I had forgotten the previous day’s conversation until I saw Mike wander over to grab a bat and a helmet in preparation for his first at bat of the game. Then, I watched him reach into his back pocket and pull out a little blue batting glove. It had to be the smallest size that they make and I noticed that it matched our hat and uniform color blue.

Then, I looked over at Kathi and saw her smiling and pointing at Mike while commiserating with another mother. At that moment I realized that it wasn’t about comfort or gripping the bat, about which Kathi knows little. It wasn’t even about preventing blisters, about which she knows a lot.

It was about cuteness. The little boy putting the little batting glove on the little hand was just too cute for words and Kathi had to get her fix.

Then I began to notice that most of these kids, some not even 100 months old, had batting gloves. And they handled them much the same way that Major League Baseball players do, sticking them in the back pocket, putting them on as part of the on-deck ritual and peeling them off after the at bat.

It was a mom-concocted conspiracy of cuteness.

Sporting goods companies were selling hundreds of thousands of these triple small size batting gloves. Millions of dollars were being spent on these thin shapes of fabric that serve no purpose whatsoever. And they were manufactured in different colors so that moms can match them up to their kids’ uniform hue.

Whether these style-conscious moms know anything about the meaningful tools their sons actually do need on the field – a broken-in fielding glove, the right size bat, cups for the catchers – doesn’t matter. Their kids will have a batting glove and it will be the right color! ###

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