Teach…(Bot9 #291)
A week or so ago I watched a clinic video and one of the statements from the coach on stage has stuck with me for a couple of weeks. The coach works at the college level and he was exhorting the high school coaches in the crowd. He said the coaches listening to him were among the best in the country and was thankful for their work teaching the game. Then he said, “If I have to teach the game at my level, we’re not going to be very good.”
I understand the sentiment. It’s part of the subtext of Moneyball told through the character of Ron Washington. In the war room scene, Billy Beane says they’ll have to teach one of the free agents to play first and Washington says, “Teach…” and trails off (4:20-4:34). While they’re in Scott Hatteberg’s living room pitching the idea of signing with the A’s to play first base, Washington makes a joke about teaching one of the fans to play first base (2:14-2:24). The movie gives off the impression the coach speaking from the clinic stage was articulating an accepted truth in the baseball world.
This expectation exists at my level of coaching as well. I wonder sometimes if coaches are chasing a job at a better school or higher level so their lives might be easier. Their goal is to find a place where the talent level is high enough where they just get to roll the ball out and let the players play. In fact, I wonder sometimes if some coaches are just assessing talent, finding a scenario where they get to pick the best kids, and then sit in the dugout as if they are the chess master.
This thing is not unique to baseball or coaching. It’s a part of the crumbling foundation of our society. People aren’t willingly taking the time to teach and grow the next generation. This used to happen in the church, by one’s neighbors, and people volunteering to coach youth sports. Now people defer to the pastors to teach from the pulpit once a week (if they are able go to church at all), board themselves up in their suburban mansions, and pay people to coach their kids. JFK’s inaugural words over 60 years ago would be good to apply today - “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” We need to invest in the next generation, get them away from their screens, and teach them the eternal truths that exist around them. It makes me grateful for Mr. Zwirner, the neighbor who taught me math at a young age, and Coach Randy, my first little league coach.
But who wants to do that, right? In many ways, our hearts are like Jonah’s heart from the Old Testament. In Jonah 1, God gives Jonah an order to tell the people of Nineveh of their impending judgement. Jonah runs from the opportunity to share God’s word to them and ends up in a storm. Once he repents of his disobedience, he ends up in the belly of a great fish only to be spit out once he commits to obeying God and sharing His word with the Ninevites. He travels to Nineveh and God heaps His mercy upon the people of Nineveh.
I wonder if we get stuck in the “belly of a great fish” until we share the Lord with the next generation. I wonder if we miss out on great blessings by being comfortable where we are and not sharing what we know about God and baseball with young people. I wonder if the yellers in the coaching ranks yell because they’re frustrated at other people for not teaching the kids, for the kids’ inability to learn, and for having no time and no idea how to teach themselves. It’s a lot easier to condemn them, their short attention spans and necks forever bowed to look at a phone screen, than it is to engage them. Even after God spared the Ninevites, Jonah hoped for their destruction so his prediction would be correct. We have to move away from the same tendencies in our own hearts.
Partnering with God means that we need to teach everyone who comes into our path. When we cease climbing an invisible ladder to coach better people, we seek to serve move and more people. We get to help the lost become found, and the Lord will give us the opportunity to speak into more and more people. Let us teach, invest and experience the blessings that await!