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

[d m gina]

Blessings

Original message:
> 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.”













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