Thanks for the Memories

 

I was reminded recently by a former athlete how special youth sports teams can be.  He told me about some of those positive experiences and how they impacted the rest of his life.

It opened up the floodgates of memories for me.  Through the years, I coached a little bit of everything. Baseball, softball, soccer, football, basketball. If my kids were involved, I was helping in some way.

The first real soccer game I ever saw, I coached. I didn’t know much about it, but I learned. I only coached one year of t-ball baseball, with the late great Tommy Wilson, but I stayed on in the administrative side for little league baseball for several more years.

I coached softball until my daughter moved on. To this day, I stay in touch with many of those players, and always send birthday greetings to my favorite second-base player, Abbie Mitchell Rector.

I was stopped in a funeral receiving line by one of those not too long ago.  She remembers those days fondly. I hope they all do (although I think Summer Maciel Webb’s mom still holds it against me for the time I put some kind of goop in Summer’s hair).

Football was fun for me. I hope it was for the players on the team. I helped Ricky Maples with the Cubs and Bears until my son got too big for the Parks & Rec league. His first year, he played quarterback, but soon figured out that his future in football had his hand in the dirt (ask a football player).

Coach Maples and Nick even had a system of hand signals to call the plays from the sidelines. Formation, play, and snapcount…all transmitted through hand signals. Pretty cool for a 9 year old.

But basketball was where I spent most of my coaching years. In about 1990, I restarted the dormant Blount Stars program, originally created by coaching legends Charlie Finley and Tom Ware.

I coached both a boys team and a girls team.  I supplied the uniforms, recruited the coaches, and handled most of the logistics.  What I got in return was a lifetime of memories and relationships. 

But do I remember the games and all that?  Not so much.

What I remember are the road trips.  Going to downtown Memphis with the Bright family, looking at the sights that had changed so much since the 70’s when I lived there.

Loading up to head for an AAU basketball tournament somewhere.  Bill Hammon had this big red Suburban and I had my family van so we would load up the boys team and head somewhere for a tournament. Everyone had to ride in one of the two team vehicles.  Everyone roomed together, ate together, and hung out together.

We got stuck in Middlesboro, Kentucky one time by a snow storm. They cancelled the games but wouldn’t let us in the gym so we just hung out in the hotel until we could get home.

My assistant coaches for much of this time were Big Larry (Jones) and Little Larry (Sankey), the latter of which wasn’t really little at all.  We had a thing called “Prime Time Pine,” for those that didn’t follow the rules.

Yeah, we won some games along the way but that’s not what I remember. I remember the kids making friends, being kids, and playing together. I’d like to think that they became better adults because of those experiences.  I don’t think anybody became better adults because of the games we won or lost.

But maybe that’s just me.