Softball memories for them and me

You can't see it very well in this picture but every player on my Woodview softball team
signed this game ball and presented it to me after our final game of the season.  

Last Sunday the Woodview Mite softball team placed fourth in the NASC playoff championships. Despite losing the bronze medal game to Kedron there were a lot of smiling faces on the Woodview bench. The biggest smile though was mine.

This was a stressful year for me. As mentioned in a previous blog (http://imiancmillan.blogspot.com/2011/05/player-to-coach-transition-not-easy.html), for the first time I stepped up to the plate and put on the coach's hat. I'd helped out the coaches in previous years so when Woodview needed a coach this season I volunteered for the job.

I didn't go into the season with a master plan to conquer the softball world, I just wanted to show the kids some fun and teach them a bit about the game. Mites are ages 8 and 9 so you get some kids who've played before and some who have limited or no experience. The 2011 Woodview Mites had quite a few first-year players.

You could say a team comprised of that many players with limited or no experience would be a challenge. But think of it from the players' point of view, they were dealing with a man with no experience as a coach so we were even!

So how did our season turn out? Five wins and we missed the finals in the June tournament. Despite the limited checks in the win department my players came to the ball park each Tuesday and Thursday ready to have fun. I'll never forget one game after we'd beaten Brookside at Connaught Park both teams ran the bases together after shaking hands. Woodview was thrilled with the win but more importantly they were being kids and just having fun.

One would expect my team wouldn't have had a chance of making it very far in the playoffs given our limited success during the regular season. The Monday practises paid off and we made it to a medal game. Yah, we lost but given our record everyone was thrilled to be playing on the final day of the season.

After the game the players presented me with a ball they'd all signed. It was unexpected but touching. The praise from the kids and some of the parents also came as a surprise. One girl told me I was the best coach she'd ever had. It's her first year so I've been the only coach she's ever had! To hear it though was sweet and made the hard work worth it.

I know the kids learned a lot this year because I saw first-hand how much they improved. As much as they learned this summer though I think they taught me more about the game than I ever could have taught them.

It was a summer I'll never forget.