Reflecting on Past Performance

By Jack Furlong

Founder/President/CEO

While reading Linda Flanagan’s book Take Back The Game, I had the idea of revisiting my coaching style from approximately 15 years prior to see if what I preach now aligns with what I did then (as well as to see if I may have adapted or improved).
 
From 2009 through 2012, I coached the local Senior Babe Ruth team in town.  Senior Babe Ruth is the highest division of Babe Ruth Baseball, which is one of the dominant recreational baseball programs in the world (along with Little League).  Normally, this division would act like all the other divisions within a town’s charter:  the kids would be split into equally numbered teams within the town and play each other for the spring season.  However, we only had enough kids for one team, so the local Babe Ruth Commissioner who oversaw all the charters within his district (about the size of our county) implemented an interleague program, allowing us to form the one team and play the teams from other town’s charters (most of whom had the same issue of only having enough players for one team).
 
Senior Babe Ruth was designed for kids ages 16-18 and had stipulations that would allow some kids aged 15 and 19 to also join.  Because most of these kids were teenagers and young adults with other responsibilities (such as school, jobs, and varsity sports), and with the implementation of the interleague program, the Commissioner gave us his blessing to hold our season in the summer.  This worked out quite well because the only other baseball opportunity in town at that time was American Legion Baseball, which was much more competitive, serving more like an extension of a varsity sport that required players to commit to baseball six days per week.  In short, Legion was viewed as the town’s summer varsity team, and Senior Babe Ruth was the JV.
 
One of the biggest advantages of Senior Babe Ruth was that it only required kids to dedicate two or three evenings to the team per week, none of which were Fridays and Saturdays (unless rain or another scenario forced a change to the schedule).  During my four years at the helm, I had a plethora of varsity kids defect from the Legion team because they saw Senior Babe Ruth as equally challenging and fun while lacking the intense commitment of the Legion team.  The advent of media made it possible for kids to be scouted by coaches based on skill, not based on team or reputation; thus, the need to play Legion ball for the resume padding dwindled so long as you were good.
 
I’ll spoil the ending of the story before I get to the real purpose of this post.  We won two championships in four years, both in years where our regular season record was garbage (but everybody makes the playoffs).  The final year was a disaster (that led to my voluntary departure) because our charter’s coordinator felt we had too many kids on our team and should split into two teams.  I vehemently argued against this because I learned something in my first three years coaching that team:  I might start with 20 kids, but I’d be lucky to have 9 for the final game.  Schedules, jobs, vacations, and all sorts of other things created a war of attrition.  Even if I started with 30 kids (like I almost did in that final year), I was confident not just in the pattern to continue, but I was also confident in my ability to be fair and just and make every kid feel appreciated on our team.
 
By the second season of my tenure, I was forcing all my kids and their parents to sign a contract prior to participating.  This was the crux of my reflection because it gave me the foundation of what I enforced while managing that team.  I went back to examine the highlights from the final contract from 2012.
 
I began the contract with an explanation of why I called it “competitive recreational baseball.”  It was recreational because anyone who paid the dues was on the team (while also not requiring the level of commitment as Legion).  But it was competitive because the league rules (which I did not create) stated that we use many high school rules, which meant a traditional starting lineup and specific substitution rules (as opposed to batting everybody and using free substitution).
 
I then gave a list of reasons why people should reconsider signing up for our team:
 
-If they played another sport at the same time (or were on a travel team) where their level of commitment to our team was going to be impacted…
-If they had a job and worked so many hours that they would either miss games or not be ready to play when present…
-If they scheduled a vacation during the season that would require them to miss more than one consecutive game…
-If they didn’t take their responsibility to the team seriously…
-If they had a bad or lethargic attitude…
 
I made this point because I wanted kids and parents to understand that they were making a commitment to a team where the coaches were all volunteering their time.  (During my entire tenure, only once did I have a coach who had a kid on the team.)  If we were going to be there, we expected the kids to be there as well.  It wasn’t about possessing the kids; it was about being respectful to the adults who were not being compensated for coaching a team when they basically had no kids of their own on said team.
 
In hindsight, I probably would have made that point a bit clearer and more vulnerable.  I also would have workshopped wording to note that I am not asking kids to specialize in baseball; I want kids playing multiple sports, but I don’t want them to do that to the detriment of our team.
 
I then discussed the lineup.  We were allowed to start a maximum of ten players per game:  the usual 9 plus either a Designated Hitter (DH) or an Extra Hitter (EH).  I told the players that I would do everything to get every kid in the game, and that the only real thing that would prevent me from doing that would be if the game ended early due to the mercy rule or due to weather.  I also told the kids to be ready to participate in many other ways, such as being a courtesy runner for the pitcher or catcher.
 
Next was a discussion on how attitude and attendance could trump ability.  I wanted to make it clear that the kids who were putting in the effort were going to be rewarded.  This is a principle I use to this day in many different walks of life, such as directing music.
 
The big point came next:  availability.  I wanted kids and parents to know that I understood that not every kid could make every game, but I wanted at least 24 hours’ notice if a kid would miss a game or practice, especially so that I could prepare my lineup!
 
I actually had one kid’s mom (who was an attorney) write in addendums to the contract saying she would only sign it if it was clearly understood that her son would be missing games due to vacations.  That kid did not last more than a season on the team.
 
It's not that I didn’t want the kids to take vacations and spend time with family and friends.  I understood that high school seniors would be going to prom and would be away for the weekend.  In fact, the league schedule was built around the prom schedule!  Once again, it was about the maturity to understand what a commitment truly was, especially when the coaches are not being reimbursed.  And once again, if there was a more vulnerable way to express it or word it, I would have used that.
 
The standard section on ethics and sportsmanship was next.  This was non-negotiable, and I feel like I would continue to enforce it to this day:  no ejections, no hazing, no fighting, no retaliating, etc.  I found myself drawing on this as I wrote the first draft of On Sportsmanship.
 
I discussed the playoffs next.  Because the playoffs were single elimination (until the final round), I made it a point to emphasize that I would manage those games differently.  Playing time would not be equal, as winning would mean advancing and continuing our season.  And yet, I still found ways to get everybody into each game:  in the final game of our championship series in 2011, one of my players forgot his contacts and couldn’t see.  I told him I didn’t feel comfortable letting him play if he couldn’t see the ball.  His response?  “I can run.”  Sure enough, he was used as a pinch runner and scored the winning run to secure the championship.
 
I told parents they had to stay out of the dugout during games and let the coaches do their job.  I told pitchers they needed to adhere to a strict conditioning schedule to protect their arms.  I mentioned that players could not wear spikes in the batting cages.  And I demanded no substance abuse:  none of my players would be allowed to drink, smoke, chew tobacco, etc.  (After all, most were minors.)
 
I took a step back after reviewing this contract to see what I could have done better.  I keep coming back to the same thing:  communication with vulnerability.  It was probably pretty difficult for a kid in his mid-to-late 20’s to manage adolescents and young adults with their parents hovering over them.  I wish I could go back and express my thoughts differently.  But the content of my thoughts and intentions were good, and if my age and inexperience in life were the only things that prevented me from being better (in aggregate), I can sleep at night knowing my moral compass was pointing in the right direction.