Deep thoughts with Joshua...

Spent the weekend being a scorekeeper at a 14u Pony Baseball Tournament. I saw good team, bad teams, and teams somewhere in between. I saw great coaches, bad coaches, and whiny coaches, and a complete jackass who got in my face and got himself thrown out of the tournament...funny thing about that was his team played better without him. The lesson there is coaches matter, and it was nice to spend a weekend not as a baseball coach but as an observer to see what works and what doesn't for kids who are tow age groups above the kids I coach.

In the end my experience over the weekend reinforced my belief that being a baseball coach is more than teaching kids love for the game of baseball and how to polish their skills. That is certainly a big part of what a great coach should do, but a coach also has a responsibility to make his player into better gentleman and ladies. I take that part of my job as coach very seriously and yes baseball and sports in general to help teach my kids life lessons.

I saw a lot of that this weekend. It is nice to be a part of a fraternity of coaches that understands this important part of mentoring young people. At the end of the day that is what we are doing. Hopefully with more people understanding that fundamental lesson we will one day have less prima donna athletes and I don't really have to name and names insert your favorite prima donna athlete here and realize that not only did they likely did not have a strong father figure but were unfortunate enough not to have a coach get involved with their lives early on.

Coaches take heed, do the right thing, and teach our young people the right way!