From Diary of a Mad Baseball Coach: Take It All Off At Magnolia Academy, we would always seem to lose to our arch-rival Mississippi Baptist at least once a year. Either we played differently when we played against them or they would play differently when they played against us. Or it could have just been facing crafty pitchers like Bo Kirby and others, who were masters of disrupting the timing of our hitters either physically or psychologically, or both. The Saints loved their annual upsets of the mighty Raiders. You could almost set your clock by it each year. Baseball is and always has been and will always be the great humbler. You don’t win by just showing up. My only goal was to always have my team strive for excellence and when we didn’t achieve that excellence, I would rant and rave and lecture our players, talking loudly and sprinkling the conversation with some inappropriate language, just trying to make that particular point. In just about all cases, our players responded well to whatever was dished out and that was not good news for the next team we played. After our most recent loss to the neighborhood rivals, and after I finished my post-game rant, I turned and walked out of the gate and began walking to my mobile home on the front side of the campus. A mobile home is the best I could do with that $9000 salary I was earning. I just left the players standing there and had done it many times before. They would always stay put until I was at least out of sight. And on these annual upsets, I’m sure they were all glad they were home games so there was no long bus ride home involved. I drove the bus and no matter how long or short the trip was, the speech usually lasted longer than the commute back to campus, sometimes even after an blowout win if we didn’t do much to deserve it; like if a team was terrible and we beat them something like 15-0 and didn’t do much to deserve it. If we got back to campus and I wasnt finished with my speech, I would just stop the bus at the gate and continue. I just could not stand it when we acted like we had done something special when we had not. On this night, just for a little added emphasis of my displeasure (and a little show business), I ripped off my red game jersey and slam dunked it the garbage dumpster in the parking lot on my way home, for all to see, as if saying we were all unworthy to wear that sacred uniform. I heard Rob Harrell’s mom Jane holler out, “Take it all off!” I smiled. Of course I smiled where nobody could see me smile. The players would then go home and get another dose of it from their parents, who would say some of the same things I had said and many times in much the same way. They expected more, too. And to be honest, the players expected more of themselves the majority of the time. As for the jersey, my assistant coach and good buddy Richard Kelly, followed along behind me and retrieved it from the dumpster. Richard always seemed to be around when the disasters of the coaching profession would happen to me. Lessons learned: We play for the name on the front of the jersey and not the name on the back. There is a certain standard to uphold. Excellence requires that things be done in a certain way. It doesn’t just happen. And I think we also learned that it’s hard to keep your clothes on when you stink.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 14:28:47 +0000
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