In 1982, when I was six years old, my blossoming love for sports was locked in forever. My family lived outside of Milwaukee, and that year the Brewers won the American League pennant, coming back from a 2-0 deficit in the ALCS. They had four future Hall of Fame players on that team, including two-time MVP Robin Yount, who became my favorite pro athlete of all time.
As a little kid, I enjoyed throwing, hitting, kicking stuff, running around, playing with friends, playing with Dad, and by ’82 was just old enough to understand what was going on. I saw an entire city fall in love with a group of young men playing baseball, and I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I was probably about 12 or 13 when I figured out that I wasn’t likely to make a career out of playing sports, but my passion for the pursuit of athletic excellence led me into coaching right after I graduated from college. (The fact that sports were so important to me has been both a blessing and a curse, but that’s another story.)
The highlight of the 1982 Brewer experience happened on October 12, when they won Game 1 of the World Series by a 10-0 score. I didn’t know if my life could ever get better than that. I just recently stumbled across this article about great World Series moments for teams that wound up losing the Series, and the Brewers’ (Yount and Paul Molitor in particular) performance in Game 1 made the list. Pretty cool stuff and very cool memories for me.
What’s the point? For nearly all of us who are called “Coach”, whether you get paid to do this or not, there is probably some experience you had early in your life when you figured out that you love the game you coach. It could be a memory of playing, or maybe watching pro athletes like it was for me. Whatever it was, I encourage you to spend a little time remembering what inspired you to want to teach young people to play this sport that you love.
80’s Lyric
(from the number one song in America on October 12, 1982)