Live and Learn or Die Stupid!

I volunteered to coach tee-ball because I wanted to get more involved in my community.  Since I generally get upset when exposed to people who are suffering physical pain, emotional duress, or economic crisis; and since I am not particularly good at fundraising, administration, or project management, my options for community service are significantly limited.  My two options at that time were picking up roadside trash or coaching baseball.  Picking up trash did have a certain attraction, but I know baseball, I told myself, and I am an educator of sorts, so youth baseball seemed to be my niche.

My first official act as “Coach Mitchell” was to construct my objectives for the season.  As I walked onto that baseball field at 5:00 P.M. that Friday in March 1999, the Central Florida sun slowly making its way toward the horizon, I mentally reviewed my vision for the season.  Ah, yes, the Orlando Astros, these exuberant, earnest and dedicated future leaders would learn, from me, the beauty of our national past-time.  We would explore the strategies and tactics that make baseball the most cerebral and intricate of all sports.  We would examine the subtleties and nuances hidden beneath the surface of the game.  Most importantly, we would discover the life lessons that play out between those two chalk lines: the metaphors and analogies for success that translate into the intangible that will serve these youngsters for a lifetime, all shared by a sage educator of savvy adults.

I would be molding minds.

That was my vision at 5:00 P.M.…

…by 5:20 P.M. I had changed my goals.  My new purpose was more singular and pure.  My new vision was to return 14 children to their parents promptly at 6:00 P.M.  I didn’t even care if the parent received the same child they had dropped off.  To me, my responsibility was the accuracy of the numbers.

“Here you go, Mrs. Khoury.  Bobby had a great practice.”

“Hey, this isn’t Bobby!” responds a disconcerted Mrs. Khoury.

“Just take him.  This kid is better looking than Bobby anyway. You traded up.”

By 5:40 P.M. a horrifying realization had descended upon me like a famished vulture plucking the carcass of a dead opossum.  (I tend to become a drama queen in times of personal duress.)  I had run out of things to do.  I had run out of things to do a full 20 minutes before practice was over!  I had to fill 20 more minutes of time with these “baseball players” before I could hand them back to their parents.  TWENTY MINUTES!  Could we run the bases for 20 minutes?  Unlikely.  Could I bear to watch them attempt to catch, throw, or hit for another 20 minutes?  Certainly not.  Could I end practice 20 minutes early?  Are you kidding me?  Those parents won’t be back for their kids one second before 6:00 P.M.!  I racked my brain for something, anything to entertain these kids.  Then it hit me. 

In the back of my car was the rope.

Lots of applications for that rope went through my mind. 

Many involved Bobby Khoury. 

But I made the right choice.  I spread the rope out behind the pitcher’s mound and in front of second base and I waved all my little sluggers into the infield.  As 28 eyes watched me intently, I explained the rules of this game we were about to play.  Just like I had done at AT&T, General Electric, the CIA, and countless other corporate institutions, I pitted two teams of two kids against each other on opposing sides of that rope.  I explained to each team that they would need to get the other team on their side of the rope to win.  Just as I had done hundreds of times before, I yelled, “GO!” and waited for the stalemate.