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. If 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. what do we do when your best player shows up
late to
practice? or 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
just 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! We see our country
falling
into a dark abyss while we just 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. "We have dark days ahead!."
Note: 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, your golf league, 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 now go out there and fix it!
"Don't widen the plate.
