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Clover Park in Santa Monica, where I did a lot of youth baseball and softball coaching throughout the 1990s…

One in a series

A TALE OF HOW I HAPPENED UPON A LIFE IN COACHING AND HELPING YOUNG PEOPLE

For a period of two and a half decades, two-thirds of my adult life and about half of my life in general,

I was involved in coaching sports, mostly baseball and softball and mostly on the youth level, though I did coach at a couple of schools, even spending some time on the staff of a high school softball team on the Westside.

This involvement morphed into a career teaching elementary school P.E. in Santa Monica, Venice, and Culver City, spending nearly a decade working with youngsters on fitness and sports skills.

Even though it has been twelve years since I left that field, the memories of working with youngsters are inevitably entrenched into my gray matter, popping up from time to time.

Recently I was recalling how I first became involved with being a coach, which set up my life’s goals in the work force from my teens until age forty.

It’s an interesting story…

John Adams Junior High (now Middle) School, Santa Monica, CA – Spring, 1982

I’m not sure about the exact date; I think it was sometime in late April or early May.

I was in the ninth grade at the time, fourteen years old, busy with not only playing the baritone saxophone in the school band,

But also with being a captain of one of the intramural softball teams that played at lunchtime, my team making the championship game and playing that contest in the rain, ending in a tie, with all of us on both teams upset that the teacher in charge wouldn’t let us play extra innings the next day to settle things.

One of my classes was Algebra I, which though I got a “B” the previous semester, that success was a fluke due to my general weakness in math; that “B” would be the last time I would earn a grade that high until the Winter Quarter at UCLA eight years later, when I got a “B-” in statistics.

One day in that class, while I was working on my assignment, a girl headed in my direction to sharpen her pencil; she was an eighth grader, a nice and friendly young lady, and we were decent acquaintances being that she was in the school orchestra and we pretty much moved in similar circles.

As she sharpened her pencil, she got my attention; as it turned out, she was in what was then known as the Bobby Sox Girls Softball League, which a lot of the girls from John Adams were playing in, on a team called the Orioles with her father being the head coach, and she wanted to know if I, having been a captain for that intramural softball team that did so well, could come to one of her practices and help out her Orioles, who were in last place at that point in their season.

I said sure, and I think it was a day or two later that I arrived at that Oriole practice on the John Adams sports field, greeting the other coach, who apparently was given a heads up that I would be there and made me feel welcome.

The field at John Adams Middle (then Junior High) School where I had my very first practice as a coach. Photo courtesy of sports.bluesombrero.com

As I hit grounders and did various other drills with those mostly seventh and eighth graders and one ninth grader (that I remember) who was a couple of months older than me, it never really occurred to me that a not quite fifteen year old coach was, to say the least, unusual.

Particularly when the next thing I knew, I had quit my Colt League baseball team, the Tigers, because I was once again having a terrible time throwing and couldn’t stand the thought of being a bench warmer again,

And was coaching third base in that softball team’s games, essentially becoming an Oriole.

One thing that I recall at that first practice was that the impression I got from my algebra classmate and her teammates was that as far as their skills, they didn’t look like a Bad News Bear-ish last place team as their fielding and hitting was fine.

Looking back, those Orioles weren’t a bad team; it was a case of the other teams simply being a bit better as there were a lot of young girls who were good athletes and ballplayers in those days.

As I worked with those orange-jerseyed young ladies, I found myself having a good time sharing what knowledge I had of softball at that time, plus I got along with them and it seemed that they appreciated my help.

So much so that I went back to that league to help out the next year, then a couple of years after that being a coach for the Reds in Santa Monica Sunset Little League’s Senior Division.

Which turned into four years as a coach for the Sunset Little League Minor Division Cubs.

Which turned into three years coaching my brother in T-Ball and in the intermediate (five pitch) division.

Which turned into not only other coaching and P.E. teaching jobs, but stints as an after school counselor and a tutor, ultimately leaving the “Kid” business in February of 2008 for reasons that I really don’t feel like getting into here; my book, “WALKING ON EGGSHELLS: Living With Asperger’s Syndrome in a Non-Asperger’s World” gives details on that.

And it all started with that algebra classmate of mine at age fourteen nearly forty years ago (!); her writing in my yearbook that June,

“You’ll be a coach for the Dodgers someday!”

While that obviously didn’t happen,

In front of every reader of this blog and in front of the whole world,

I want to thank that young lady for igniting my career in coaching and working with kids, because despite the ups and downs that every profession has it was an enjoyable experience.

I only hope she’s reading this right now.

And as it’s been roughly thirty years since I last saw her in person, I hope I get to thank her face to face sometime soon – at least when this pandemic is over.

The softball field at Memorial Park in Santa Monica where I coached my very first game for my algebra classmate’s Bobby Sox Girls Softball League Orioles in the Spring of 1982. Photo courtesy of santamonicaadultsports.com