[NFBMT] FW: Fwd: Coach John Scolinos' Lesson

[Edward Robbins]

>From Ted Robbins,

Enjoy

Subject: FW: Fwd: Coach John Scolinos' Lesson

 

 

 

In  Nashville, Tennessee , during the first week of January, 1996, more than 4,000 baseball coaches  
descended upon the Opryland Hotel for the 52nd annual ABCA's 
convention.   While I waited in line to register with the hotel 
staff, I heard other more  veteran coaches rumbling about the lineup of 
speakers scheduled to present  during the weekend. One name, in 
particular, kept resurfacing, always with the  same sentiment — “John 
Scolinos is here? Oh, man, worth every penny of my  airfare.  

 

Who is John Scolinos, I  
wondered. No matter; I was just happy to be there.  In 1996, Coach 
Scolinos  was 78 years old and five years retired from a college coaching 
career that  began in 1948. He shuffled to the stage to an impressive 
standing ovation,  wearing dark polyester pants, a light blue shirt, and 
a string around his neck  from which home plate hung — a full-sized, 
stark-white home  plate. 

 

Seriously, I wondered, who is  
this guy?  

 

After speaking for twenty-five  
minutes, not once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach 
Scolinos  appeared to notice the snickering among some of the coaches. 
Even those who knew  Coach Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was 
going with this, or if he had  simply forgotten about home plate since 
he’d gotten on  stage. 

 

Then, finally …“You’re probably  
all wondering why I’m wearing home plate around my neck,” he said, his 
voice  growing irascible. I laughed along with the others, acknowledging 
the  possibility.  “I may be old, but I’m not crazy. The reason I 
stand before  you today is to share with you baseball people what I’ve 
learned in my life,  what I’ve learned about home plate in my 78 years.” 
Several hands went up when  Scolinos asked how many Little League coaches 
were in the  room. 

 

“Do you know how wide home plate  
is in Little League?  After a pause, someone offered, “Seventeen 
inches?”,  more of a question than answer.“That’s right,” he said. “How 
about in Babe  Ruth’s day? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?”Another 
long pause. 

 

“Seventeen inches?” a guess from  
another reluctant coach.   

 

“That’s right,” said Scolinos.  
“Now, how many high school coaches do we have in the room?” Hundreds of 
hands  shot up, as the pattern began to appear. “How wide is home plate 
in high school  baseball? 

 

“Seventeen inches,” they said,  
sounding more confident.  “You’re right!” Scolinos barked. “And you 
college  coaches, how wide is home plate in college?” 

 

“Seventeen inches!” we said, in  
unison.   “Any Minor League coaches here? How wide is home 
plate in  pro ball?”............“Seventeen inches! 

 

“RIGHT! And in the Major  
Leagues, how wide home plate is in the Major  Leagues? 

 

“Seventeen  inches!” 

 

“SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!” he  
confirmed, his voice bellowing off the walls. “And what do they do with a 
Big  League pitcher who can’t throw the ball over seventeen inches?” 
Pause. “They  send him to  Pocatello !” he hollered, drawing raucous 
laughter. “What they  don’t do is this: they don’t say, ‘Ah, that’s okay, 
Jimmy. You can’t hit a  seventeen-inch target? We’ll make it eighteen 
inches or nineteen inches.   We’ll make it twenty inches so you have 
a better chance of hitting it. If you  can’t hit that, let us know so we 
can make it wider still, say twenty-five  inches.’” 

 

Pause. “Coaches…” pause, "… what  
do we do when our best player shows up late to practice? When our team 
rules  forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets 
caught drinking?  Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules 
to fit him? Do we widen  home plate ? The chuckles 
gradually faded as four thousand coaches grew  quiet, the fog lifting as 
the old coach’s message began to unfold. He turned the  plate toward 
himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw something. When he  turned it 
toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed, complete with a  
freshly drawn door and two windows. “This is the problem in our homes 
today.  With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our 
discipline. We  don’t teach accountability to our kids, and there is no 
consequence for failing  to meet standards. We widen the plate!” 

 

Pause. Then, to the point at the  
top of the house he added a small American flag. “This is the problem in 
our  schools today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast 
and teachers  have been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, 
and to educate and  discipline our young people. We are allowing others 
to widen home plate! Where  is that getting us?” 

 

Silence. He replaced the flag  
with a Cross. “And this is the problem in the Church, where powerful people 
in  positions of authority have taken advantage of young children, only 
to have such  an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our church 
leaders are widening home  plate for themselves!  And we allow it.” 

 

“And the same is true with our  
government. Our so called representatives make rules for us that don’t apply 
to  themselves.  They take bribes from lobbyists and foreign 
countries. They no  longer serve us. And we allow them to widen home 
plate and we see our country  falling into a dark abyss while we watch.” 

 

I was amazed. At a baseball  
convention where I expected to learn something about curve balls and bunting 
and  how to run better practices, I had learned something far more 
valuable. From an  old man with home plate strung around his neck, I had 
learned something about  life, about myself, about my own weaknesses and 
about my responsibilities as a  leader. I had to hold myself and others 
accountable to that which I knew to be  right, lest our families, our 
faith, and our society continue down an  undesirable path. 

 

“If I am lucky,” Coach Scolinos  
concluded, “you will remember one thing from this old coach today. It is 
this:  if we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of 
what we know to  be right; if we fail to hold our spouses and our 
children to the same standards,  if we are unwilling or unable to provide 
a consequence when they do not meet the  standard; and if our schools 
& churches & our government fail to hold  themselves accountable 
to those they serve, there is but one thing to look  forward to …” 

 

With that, he held home plate in  
front of his chest, turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside, 
“…  dark days ahead.” 

 

Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at  
the age of 91, but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players 
and  coaches, including mine. Meeting him at my first ABCA convention 
kept me  returning year after year, looking for similar wisdom and 
inspiration from other  coaches. He is the best clinic speaker the ABCA 
has ever known because he was so  much more than a baseball coach. His 
message was clear: “Coaches, keep your  players—no matter how good they 
are—your own children, your churches, your  government, and most of all, 
keep yourself at seventeen  inches.” 

 

And this my friends is what our  
country has become and what is wrong with it today, and how to fix it. 
"Don't  widen the plate.” 

  

 

 





 

-- 

"Free men do not ask permission to bear arms."

 

 



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