I was fortunate growing up playing baseball on the teams I played on. We had good players, good coaches, and good parents. We won. We won a lot. There was nothing more fun at that time than winning. I went to college and played baseball. I was blessed to be part of some successful teams there as well. I didn’t know anything else by that point. I knew baseball. I had put all I had into that. People would ask what I was going to be when I got done with college. I hadn’t really thought about it. I hadn’t planned on having to get a job. I hoped I would play baseball until about, well now to be exact, and then I would retire and follow my kids and grandkids around. But, I guess if I had to have another option it would be coaching, because baseball is the only thing I really wanted to do at this point in my life. It’s not all I did as a kid. We didn’t play near as many games as some kids do now. This was back in the bag phone days. The internet wasn’t a big factor in life. A lot of things were different. But, I played every inning all the way from little league through high school for Sentinel. We played about 20-25 games a summer. We played enough to love the game and then enjoy being a kid. That’s probably why I loved to do it. But, I came to that fork in the road in college when they told me I had pick something to pursue. I had to pick a major, and baseball wasn’t an option. So I chose the next best thing, coaching.
That’s what I was identified with. That’s what people knew me for. Why wouldn’t I coach? What else would I do if, for some crazy reason, I wasn’t playing baseball for the next 20 years? It looked like at one point that opportunity might present itself. But, God had other plans for my next 20 years, which I have told a lot about that over the last several post. My dream was cut short because of things that were out of my control. In one day, one pitch really, it was gone. One pitch. Essentially one second and the thing I loved the most and aspired to do for a living was gone. So now it was on to plan B. That plan that everyone told me I needed. It wasn’t quite that easy of a transition just to hop on to plan B. It took awhile to come to grips with it. In the back of my mind I always just thought they told everyone to have plan B, but no one ever used it. Or at least I wouldn’t. Sometimes when I write I wish I could insert emoji’s and gif’s. This would be a great place for one here.
So now that my career was over, it was time to figure out how to accomplish plan B. As I neared the time to get my first coaching job, I had one goal in mind really. Win as many games as I could. Whatever it took, I was going to work as hard as possible to win. I was lucky enough to have great people around me when I played and we were successful, so I wanted that for the people I was around. I had great Christian coaching examples when I played, I just didn’t always follow what they did in the right way. My first several years of coaching were the times in my life that I discussed in another post where I was that Sunday morning Christian. I wasn’t a bad guy, just not as dedicated as I needed to be to the Lord. If I was as dedicated to the Lord as I was to winning baseball games, no telling what would have happened. But, the reality was, I wasn’t.
I don’t want this to be taken the wrong way. There is absolutely nothing wrong with winning. Nothing at all. Sports teach so many valuable lessons. I could write a whole post about that, but I’ll save it for another day. I still love to win as much as I ever have. I just try to do it a little different now. The reason for that is that my identity was completely wrapped around winning baseball games. I sacrificed time with my family. I sacrificed time I could have been doing things for others. I sacrificed a lot. Anyone that has ever coached or been around coaches closely, knows that there are sacrifices in order to be successful. But, I took that to a whole different level. I went beyond the necessary sacrifices to win. I did that to the point that I burned myself out. I was so tired of doing what I was doing because of how I was doing it. Because of what my identity was in. I had coached for 8 years and I was exhausted from it. The way I did things had stole the joy I thought I would always have coaching and teaching young people.
So I got out for a year. I learned a lot about myself in that year. It was very humbling. I had to be real with myself and my family and admit that I had done this wrong for 8 years. I liked my new job that I went to outside of coaching, but I realized after just sitting back and observing former colleagues, that there was a better way to coach than what I had done in the past. I watched and looked for good and bad in every game I watched. I observed and talked to different coaches about how they did things. This is what I found after all those years of doing it. My identity was in the wrong area. I had focused so much on the outcome, that I had forgot about the journey to get there. I had lost focus of that, or maybe never had it.
I had the awesome opportunity to get back into coaching again. This time I was determined not to mess it up. I had a whole new outlook on life. I had enjoyed my job the previous year outside of coaching. But the reality also was when you have a lifestyle that is on the go constantly for so many years, when that stops abruptly it changes the dynamic of your family as well. Kristin had never had to put up with me as much as she did that year. She handled it pretty well, but I think after the new wore off and I was messing up the routine her and the kids had for years, she was ready for me to coach again. I was so thankful for the opportunity and went about it with with a new focus.
When I say the focus was different, what I mean is I still wanted to win. But, I was going to focus more on the process. If the process was done right, we as a team could accomplish so much more than just winning. And, if the focus was right, God would also take care of everything else. A few years before this I had a parent come up to me after a ball game. He was also a school board member. He stopped me after the game and asked if he could talk to me. I said sure, but had no idea where this was going. We had won the ballgame and were having a good season. He said something to me that night that at the time, due to my focus, didn’t resonate with me as much as it does now. He asked me, “did I see you pray with those boys before the game?” I wasn’t sure where this was going. He was a great Christian man and is still a good friend to this day. But, I still wasn’t sure where this was leading to. But, I was going to be honest with him. I said, “yes sir I was. I do every game.” So I waited for his response, totally anxious to see what he said. This is what still sticks with me to this day. He said, “please don’t ever stop doing that, because hopefully he will get more out of that than he ever will anything you teach him about baseball. Baseball will end for him eventually, but hopefully following God never will.” Wow, that was impactful!!!
So as I came back 6 years ago with a new focus, that moment has also been with me ever since. He may not even remember that conversation, but he helped change what I identified myself with. I still coach and am still identified with baseball, which is great. I still love the game. But, hopefully I’m not identified as baseball coach that goes to church and is a Christian. I want to be known as a Christian that coaches baseball. I want my players to know that. I want them to see me as more than a guy that wants to win baseball games. I want to be identified as a Christian no matter where I am. I am going to mess up just like anyone else. I have times when people probably don’t think of me as Christian by the things that I say and do. But, hopefully more times than not they do. Luckily when things like that happen I get to receive the grace of God and am forgiven of those and get another chance to make it right.
I don’t know what your identity lies in. It doesn’t matter what our job is or what we do on a daily basis, we have an identity. We have a way that people see us. More importantly, we have a God that knows our hearts. Our identity is what we put emphasis on in our life. I challenge all of us to take a look at it. It’s not always easy to do. Especially when it’s not focused on the right things. As I said, mine wasn’t. I had to swallow my pride and admit I was wrong and make it a point to change things. I’ve also enjoyed my job as a coach, teacher, and principal more the last 6 years than ever before. I don’t think that’s just a coincidence. God’s timing is awesome too. The guy that made that statement to me said it a few years before I got out of coaching. I didn’t think much about it at the time. It was cool that he said it, but at the time the “Sunday Morning Christian” didn’t feel the power of what he said like I did later. So I’m fortunate that it stuck with me and what he said was able to make an impact on me several years later. God puts people in our life at certain times for certain reasons, even if it takes years to realize the significance of it! Sometimes our focus can get off track and we have to re-evaluate what our identity lies in. My prayer is that our identity will be in our Savior Jesus Christ!!!