I recently found myself reflecting on something I wrote on LinkedIn about seven years ago. With high school ball starting up, I figured this could be the end of the road for one of my boys. Parents and coaches get a lot more involved in youth sports nowadays. I played cricket in India in middle and high school and no parent ever attended a game. Being involved with baseball at the rec league level has been one of my greatest experiences as a first-generation immigrant who knew nothing about the sport coming here. I’ve come to love the sport, not just because my kids play, but because I found the game to be a goldmine of life lessons. In the little time I’ve spent as a volunteer coach, I’ve seen the frustrations and celebrations shared by parents, kids, and coaches. My thoughts from seven years ago still resonate as the sport shows potential for positive change in our lives.

Parents

Patience: Skills accumulate over a long period of time. Parents get frustrated when they feel like their child hasn’t caught up to be the superstar they imagined them to be in a single season (or two). In this age of information overload, have the game teach you patience. Play the long game in life, not the short one.

Self-awareness: Unfortunately, I see this more than I’d like to. Many parents seem to project their own shortcomings and frustrations onto the sport. They then aim to have those be resolved vicariously through the sport. It’s like the emergency oxygen on airplanes — you want to take care of yourself first before you take care of others. Teach yourself before you teach them. If you’re dealing with issues, don’t use baseball as the outlet for resolution. Coaches suffer, kids suffer, and you’ll eventually make whatever you’re dealing with worse.

Humility: God (or nature if you’re an atheist) gifts everyone with a very different baseline set of skills. Some kids are naturals, some need to be coached and that’s really the point — to learn. Don’t assume that your child is naturally gifted because you played professional ball. Failure and disappointment are great teachers — embrace and use them to make your child stronger. That 30 pitch inning your child had to muscle through on the mound? That entire season when your child just couldn’t make contact? Goldmines for life lessons.

Coaches

Mindfulness: I’ve always told my kids — baseball is physical chess. If you don’t learn the mentality of the sport, you’re not really learning it. If you don’t enable your team to think about the game, you’re not really coaching. Simply telling a child to “just throw strikes” or “just make contact” won’t help if you don’t get into understanding what’s holding the child back. Are you doing something to enable the child to correct? Maybe it’s mental — have you thought of that?

Conscientiousness: Coaching is tough. Especially because volunteer coaches don’t really get paid. You must be interested in doing this for the entire team. Your role is not to assume that you have all the ace kids, but to put in the work to coach them. Teach them the skills. Invest in learning for yourself. After all, knowledge is a great asset. Don’t just be there as a passive voice.

Presence: Kids are very impressionable at this age. Being in the dugout has allowed me to observe how kids react when they make simple mistakes and coaches react with body language reflective of having just lost the World Series. It hurts the kids — even if they don’t react immediately. They’ll probably keep underperforming. Lead with positive presence and feed that into the entire team. Don’t kill the fun for them.

Kids

Moving on: That potential RBI with 2 outs on a full count that you couldn’t make? That wild pitch that led to a run off a stolen base? Every child feels the frustration of these moments. They’re not always make or break situations, however. The game’s still alive. You can’t let temporary setbacks affect your performance in the rest of the game. I told the kids one season as they hung their heads in frustration back to the dugout — “There’s no TiVo in baseball. Flush it and move on.”1

Awareness: “Where’s the ball going boys?” Every child, especially in the outfield, answers begrudgingly — “It’s coming to me, Coach.” A lot of life involves doing boring, hard work. You still need to keep your chin up and be aware of everything around you. Opportunities come at unexpected times. That ball is always coming to you, be ready!

Longevity: Competitive sports places undue stress on kids. Coaches will tell you to throw harder, hit harder, but might not emphasize skills that will last you longer. Raw power feels good, but don’t ignore technique, control, and emotional stability.

Footnotes

  1. I’m dating myself with this reference. TiVo didn’t last long enough to become a verb — almost every TV and streaming service offers a rewind option today. ↩