This is the final week of the summer softball season for Ila’s NCIL league that plays at Whetstone Park.  I’ve been co-coaching along with several other parents since early May.  We’ve lost more games than we’ve won, and the 9-11 age range makes for quite a developmental spread.  But this is a learning league, and there’s lots to be learned beyond just softball skills.

Many life lessons have been drawn from team sports, and here’s one thing I’ve pondered this season, a key reason I have always loved baseball, and now softball.  Unlike more active sports – soccer, basketball, volleyball, many more! – softball is mostly waiting.  If your team is on offense, you’re mostly waiting to hit.  And if you’re hitting, you’re waiting for just the right split second to swing the bat before a strike zips past you.  If you’re on defense, the overwhelming odds are that the ball will not be hit to you on any given pitch, especially in this league.  Keeping a ten year old in the outfield focused on the possibility they might be needed is a decent chunk of bench coaching.

It’s those few times the ball is hit to you, and the few swings you get each game, that make all the difference. 

That’s the reason you practice and practice fielding and catching and throwing and hitting and running over and over.  That way, during those rare game time moments, your body knows what to do.  That’s what makes waiting more than waiting. 

There’s a reason baseball has been replaced by football as our national sport of choice.  When you’re watching from outside the fences, softball too can appear boring, mostly standing around.  But when you’re in the game, even coaching, every moment is pregnant with possibility, and what looks like passive waiting is more like an active readiness, tuned through practice, poised for when the moment arrives, and your body knows just what to do. 

Or, in this league, your body has tried it many times before, and you’re ready and willing to try it again. 

Joel